David; I hope it doesn't come to war in the Ukraine. Even more so I hope it doesn't come to nuclear war. The question is whether Europe/the US will intervene if the Russians try and take Crimea. Probably the Russians will want to maintain their Naval Base and hence access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Does anyone remember when the US went into Panama to keep control of the Panama Canal? Or consider the oppression in Bahrain where the US also has a base? This seems to be a similar situation. It's not good; but it doesn't have to spiral into a Great Power conflict. Though there is a significant Russian minority in the east of Ukraine. Perhaps there should be a plebiscite? But the troops have already moved in.

There's also the question that if there is a compromise - maybe it could end in Russia agreeing to use its leverage on Iran to end its nuclear weapons programme.

All this said the arguments we've had here are important. Isn't Marxism partly concerned with imperialism, nationalism, colonialism and the causes of war?

Brilliant non sequiturs, David.

Tristan,

So many wrongs make a right ? Ukraine is (at this moment) a sovereign nation, so it has the right to seek assistance wherever and from whomever it damn-well likes.

If those Russian troops based in the Crimea have left their bases tov intervene in the internal affairs of Ukraine, under Putin's orders, then they and Putin have violated the sovereignty of another nation.

A bit like in Tsarist and Soviet times, really. So, once part of someone's Empire, always part of someone's Empire, is that it ?

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Loudmouth; during World War One Britain and France justified their participation in the conflict on the basis of freeing oppressed minorities in the Balkans, North Italy, Czech and Slovak minorities etc. France also expressed its desire to reacquire Alsace-Lorraine - which had been part of its territory for a period up to 1871. I've made a mistake in the past over-estimating the numbers killed in WWI; but checking my facts again the war cost the lives of 10 million combatants. So what I'm saying is if the situation could be solved through a plebiscite or through an agreement locking in Russian maintenance of its naval base - not only could that influence Iran (with Russia agreeing to withdraw support unless Iran dropped its nuclear program)- it might also stop a world war.

And to set the record state I believe in the self-determination of oppressed minorities. But that is complicated by the significant Russian minority in East Ukraine. My main motivation is that we don't end up with an escalating war with appalling casualties - that would make 150,000 killed in Syria look like a 'minor engagement'.

Now you could say that that's appeasement; But do we really want a world war for the sake of Crimea? Somehow there needs to be compromise while still 'drawing a line in the sand'.

And even if we end up with a proxy war (like Syria) - an escalating conflict between Great Powers would make that look like a walk in the park.

The other alternative is containment. But that could lead to an arms race...

There are no 'perfect answers' - but we have to stop and think what a war would actually look like between Great Powers in this day and age.

Recall also the tension between Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea - and China.. David's right that a world war is not unimaginable.

Hi Tristan,

Of course, the complication here is Russia's licence to use the port facilities at Sevastopol, which they 'share' with the Ukraine. How to carve that territory up without leaving the Ukraine 'out in the cold', navally speaking. The Crimean Tartar population, in the southern part of that Peninsula, on the whole want to remain part of the Ukraine, i.e. they are Ukrainians now and want the status quo to remain.

And, as in most other countries on the planet, there is a region in the Crimea which is strongly pro-outsider, in this case Russian. This raises the question, should national borders be periodically re-drawn to take account of majority-other populations ?

This is getting a long way from a dispassionate discussion of Marxism and Andrew Bolt, but by the same criteria, it signifies how difficult, even impossible, it would have been to bring about a 'socialist Utopia' in the real world, and how historical legacies infect even the most well-intentioned plans.

And with Russia's recent history, it will probably find it irresistible to 'Utopianise' the Ukraine. Or, from another historical point of view, to 're-integrate' 'Little Russia' back into the Tsarist fold.

Joe

Digressing briefly to matters of socialism again; Loudmouth you are right that the ghosts of the past haunt all attempts to build a better world. Nationalism destroyed Yugoslavia because there was not a robust'truth and reconciliation' process after World War II for instance. It may be a bit pedantic also - but Marx's sense of 'utopia' was simply that of a concrete idea of the future. In fact Marx was with Hegel in that he thought we only understand history in retrospect. So in that sense he was not a 'Utopian'. he opposed 'blueprints'. But 'provisional utopias' (interpreted simply as a provisional view of a view society) should be part of the picture - and it has been the lack of will to consider the future that has actually weakened Marxism.

What you're specifically talking about is 'unrealistic' ideas of the future. But I put it to you that "the democratic mixed economy' is a perfectly workable provisional vision for the future.

Just reading Leszek Kolakowski's explanation of Marx's early writings these past few days has actually confirmed to me that Marx sought to promote *INDIVIDUAL* SELF-FULFILIMENT via the fulfilment of our social nature. He sought to free us from slavery - not submit us to it as with Stalin. See: the Paris Manuscripts, the German Ideology etc) Marx did not want conformity or suppression of individuality. And that explanation was from one of the Marxist tradition's most steadfast critics.

But again I think Marx's aversion of concrete visions for the future was mistaken; and that vacuum has been filled by 'really existing Stalinism'. And I think Stalin's interpretation of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' would have made Marx vomit...

Thanks, Tristan, I'm broadly in agreement with you ...... except that I can't differentiate 'Utopia' from 'provisional Utopia' - surely Marx's notion of a perfectly sweet society in the name of a dictatorship of the proletariat was a prescription for a 'Utopia' ? From which, most regrettably, certain groups, inevitably and in every case up to now, have to be 'extracted' ?

Marx's only real experience of anything approaching his Utopian - sorry, provisional Utopian - ideal was the Paris Commune of 1871. Perhaps to him, if that couldn't get off the ground and encourage workers across Europe to rise up, nothing would. And his comments in letters to Engels about the rising influence of imperialist aspirations on the British working class suggest that he didn't have much hope for them either.

But inevitably, back to Ukraine: how to defuse this situation and avoid a neo-Tsarist invasion ? Perhaps the Ukrainian Parliament could re-affirm the agreement with Russia to extend the agreement on the lease of bases in Sevastopol for 25 years after it expires in 2017, provided, of course, that the Russians strictly adhere to that current agreement ?

Of course, the Russians have actually breached the current agreement by moving more troops, etc., into the Crimea than the agreement allowed. So the Ukraine would be quite within its rights to declare such a current agreement void. But I don't think they will, or should, as a 'stabilisation' measure.

All of this gives Andrew Bolt a free kick, by the way. I don't watch his program but I'm sure he could, without much difficulty, equate Tsarism with Bolshevism with Putinism.

Another proposal, somewhat out of left field, could be for the EU to finance the massive development of Russia's port of Novorossisk, around the Black Sea from the Crimea and near Sochi, as its new warm-water naval base. It used to be Russia's major Black Sea port, after all.

Just trying to help :)

Joe