The political crisis of the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia, that emerged dramatically on Friday with the march on Moscow by the mercenary Wagner group, cannot be understood outside of an understanding of the world crisis of capitalism.
Behind the crisis in the Stalinist bureaucracy – that led to the boss of the Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin leading his army of criminals and thugs to attempt to march on Moscow with the intention of bringing down Putin – is the world crisis of capitalism that is driving the imperialist nations into a war to reorganise the world.
This war is being waged against Russia in the Ukraine with the object of weakening Russia to the extent that it opens the door to capitalist restoration in the very country it was thrown out of through the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
This war has created a massive crisis amongst the Stalinist bureaucracy, with Prigozhin turning on his former mentor and master Putin in an attempted coup that could easily have led to fighting in Moscow that would have opened the way for a direct United States intervention in Russia.
In the event, this march on Moscow had to be abandoned on Saturday as the great mass of Russian workers refused to come out in support of this bunch of mercenaries, something Prigozhin relied on for success.
Instead of turning to the Russian workers to deal with Prigozhin and his band of thugs, Putin agreed to let him flee to sanctuary in Belarus, with his supporters given the opportunity of joining the Russian army.
Clearly Putin fears the Russian working class rising up to deal with oligarchs like Prigozhin more than he fears the threat of armed coups.
A Russian working class revolutionised against the oligarchs would threaten a political revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy – this is Putin’s greatest fear.
What has emerged from this episode is that the world crisis which is driving imperialism to wars of conquest has also created a huge shock for Putin and the Stalinist bureaucracy, with sections turning on each other as they seek a way to restore peaceful relations with imperialism while keeping the working class from any revolutionary upsurge.
Putin makes no secret of his hatred of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky, which he blames for overthrowing Tsarism and ending Russia’s involvement in the first imperialist world war.
Lenin and Trotsky had no conception of this as a national socialist revolution but as the start of a world socialist revolution. Lenin and Trotsky insisted that socialist revolution in advanced capitalist Germany would be decisive in assuring the success of the revolution in Russia.
However, the German revolution of 1918 failed due to an inexperienced revolutionary leadership there.
This defeat led to the isolation and degeneration of the Soviet Union with the growth of a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy under Stalin which based itself on breaking with the international outlook of Lenin and Trotsky in favour of the reactionary theory of ‘socialism in one country’ and peaceful coexistence with imperialism.
Putin is the direct descendant of this counter-revolutionary outlook that hates and fears socialist revolution above all else.
What has caused the crisis engulfing the Stalinist bureaucracy is that peaceful coexistence with imperialism has long gone, as the imperialist nations are driven to war to overthrow the gains of the Russian and Chinese revolutions in a desperate attempt to survive the world crisis.
War to reconquer the world, even at the risk of a nuclear Armageddon, is at the same time a war against the working class at home to make the workers and masses of the world pay for a bankrupt capitalist system which is crashing into global recession.
The working class internationally has the strength and power to prevent this drive to capitalist barbarism by putting an end to capitalism by taking power and consigning it to the dustbin of history.
Now is the time to build the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the revolutionary leadership necessary for the socialist revolution in the capitalist nations, and the political revolution in Russia and China to smash the Stalinist bureaucracy and bring in socialism.
The world socialist revolution that began in October 1917 will be completed with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
