At the most fundamental of levels, imperialism, as it has existed since the beginning of the 20^th century, is a structure. This structure's primary feature is the concentration, in just a handful of countries, of the capacity to continually revolutionise the means of production: to continually upgrade the productivity of labour across the whole of society through the use of increasingly powerful and complex technologies.

Few questions of international politics over the past century have seen the Western left as sharply divided as the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the quality of left-wing debate on Ukrainian topics has rarely been high; often, characterisations that demand detailed analysis and proof are presented as self-evident.

This report seeks to identify main features of the current situation in world politics and set out the internationalist tasks for socialists in Australia. In the time available, it is only possible to identify and elaborate briefly on these features. The tasks identified are what a socialist group in Australia should be doing. The extent to which our group, RED ANT, can carry out these tasks will depend on how our membership strengthens and our supporting network grows.

At the Marxism 2023 conference held in Melbourne, April 6-9, long-term Socialist Alternative leader Tom Bramble outlined Socialist Alternative's thinking on the Ukraine war: victory to NATO against Russia!

This is a report back from the conference session entitled The War in Ukraine and Imperialism, that Bramble presented.

The following in-depth, 8000 word article was originally published in 2016. However, it has become as relevant as ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 27, 2022.

Red Ant republishes it here to contribute to the debate around the nature of the Russian invasion, of Russia itself and its relationship with the bloc of rich, imperialist countries like the USA, UK, Germany and Australia.

The war in Ukraine has presented left-wing theorists and commentators with a difficult analytical challenge.

Arrayed against Russia in this war is a bloc of the world's richest and most developed countries, providing armaments, funding and satellite intelligence to Ukraine and directing a propaganda onslaught unmatched since the days of the Cold War. At the same time, global North sanctions aim to strangle Russia's economy.

In today's imperialist world, which is starkly polarised between rich and poor societies, revolutionary Internationalism is the most basic principle of Marxist politics.

It is not enough simply to support the struggle of workers in our own country for better lives. Redistribution of wealth within a rich, imperialist country like Australia – if the workers movement is limited to that – is historically a social democratic project.

The working class in China carries on its backs a great part of the labour of the whole world. For that reason, it is generally assumed that the Chinese capitalist class (or the Chinese state) will soon hold in its hands the fate of the whole world.

The following article outlines some theoretical considerations to help place Cuba’s contemporary situation into a Marxist framework. A relevant reference point seems to be another revolutionary country that also found itself in the situation of isolation – Russia.

The overall situation in Cuba, at least economically, and therefore in terms of class relations, is one of defence and even retreat. That is, defending as much as possible of the existing gains of the revolution while retreating as little as possible, in the most orderly ways possible and with the smallest chance of things getting out of control.