A Marxist Analysis of Russia's War in Ukraine

all right so we have been able to kind

of like paint a pretty specific in-depth

kind of deep dive into what's been going

on in azov stall recently and what's

been going on as far as the future of

ukraine and the region but it's always

opportunities like this where we need to

take a step back a little bit and we

need to ask tougher questions like how

did we get here and what is the

fundamental and underlying history of

what's happened here right

how did we get to a point where nova

russia is going back to russia and how

did we get to a point where

ukraine as a state is no longer going to

exist i am not really satisfied with

moralistic pictures of good or evil what

i want to set about to do today and what

i want to accomplish definitively is

actually engage in a type of materialist

analysis

of the history of russia and ukraine

following the fall of the soviet union

leading up to the events of the maidan

coup and the implications that this has

for russia i think you got a sneak peek

and a little bit of a hint of that in

that kind of debate i had with the

lithuanian guy but we're dealing with a

very interesting scenario which i think

deserves more thought more analysis and

more reflection than just good and bad

narratives about what's been going on

now we know for a fact that the western

press is full of shit and they're

inaccurately reporting on what's going

on and i think we get that and i'm not

so much interested anymore in just

reporting the details of that i want us

to think more deeply and broadly as

marxist leninist and with the tools of

analysis available to us using marxist

leninist theory to be able to have a

superior understanding of how it got to

this point okay and that's what i i

wanna i wanna set about to do

here right um so we can have a more kind

of neutral just objective understanding

underlying because i think that's what's

missing right we're caught up in this

info war where they're saying okay

they're lying a lot about russia we're

telling the truth about russia where's

the neutrality where's the objectivity

where is it a basic sense of reality

unprotruded by ideological prejudices

and and national passions and things

like that and that's what i want to set

about to accomplish with today's stream

and it actually is going to be the main

theme of today's stream it's going to be

about the future of russia itself where

russia's going right now what

implications the end of the soviet union

had for russia these kind of big topics

of analysis are basically the meat and

potatoes and the thrust of what

direction i want my future streams to

take in general i don't want to just be

a new streamer i want to be able to

stream big ideas and and

broader forms of analysis about these

types of things right so the first thing

we have to point out is there's a lot of

details people miss that are important

to bring into the picture and we're

going to go from an analysis that's

based on the hurried kind of excitement

of what's on the daily headlines of oh

russia's doing this was doing that too

let's just broaden the context and

create a hermeneutic circle so i'm going

to teach you today what a hermeneutic

circle is so a hermeneutic circle is

basically a way of deriving meaning and

knowledge from a given object or from a

different from a given body of work a

book a region a history whatever you

want where

knowing details allows you to paint a

big broad picture and with that big

broad picture you get more details and

with more details the big broad picture

starts to be more complete the issue

with the hermeneutic circle the kind of

paradox it represents is that

every detail of knowledge reflects some

broad picture but every broad picture is

only given expression through these

little details and they work together

dialectically to give us a more holistic

understanding of the situation so

when we actually have a deep analysis of

what's going on of the history and all

these kinds of things we're beginning

from the particular then to the

universal rather than the reverse we're

not being beginning from some universal

ideological claim and then filling in

the blanks we're actually beginning from

some kind of objective analysis right

and that analysis isn't as informed of

all of the biases and ideological

fanaticism that prevents people from

being able to have an accurate picture

of what's going on sure right but it's

also an analysis that's

going to need to arrive at a positive

objective kind of conclusion rather than

just the fact that okay the west is bad

ukraine's bad ass off is bad we get that

but what actually is going on here right

and this speaks to the mission statement

of infrared infrared's original mission

statement was marxist leninist analysis

beyond the visuals beyond the visual

spectrum right

um beyond the visible spectrum beyond

what's immediately apparent to us so the

first thing i want to present to you is

this article

by catahound the caton institute which

talks pretty briefly about the history

of navarasia and ukraine right

so here they talk about how there are

several lies and this was from 2016

circulating on the internet regarding

former ukraine novorossiya and russia

these light are spread by the key of

nazis trolls and your american masters

with the obvious goal of disinformation

but only fools will believe it so the

first lie you're gonna hear commonly

about the situation is that the

ukrainian people chose to go to the eu

well it's not true because these people

and i'm showing it to you on a map chose

not to do that they chose to go toward

russia the russian world the customs

union

belarus and kazakhstan when they elected

yanukovych's president and a pro-russian

rada in the last

legitimate elections before the nazi

coup then there was a coup directed from

the u.s against the legal president and

government all elections after the nazi

coup are void and illegal were neither

democratic nor fair as all the

opposition has been banned imprisoned or

killed let no one forget this we do not

want the traitors to distort the facts

the russians and novorossiya and

malarusia the russian-speaking

ukrainians and the central parts if they

are allowed to speak what they want were

of all the people of mixed origin the

next lie russia doesn't need novoracia

those who make this statement have no

idea about russian history or culture

and they have no knowledge of

geopolitics in general and security

politics in particular russia needs

novorossiya for many reasons first and

most important because it is a genuine

part of russia it has been for 300 years

it was stolen from russia during a

period of russian weakness and when

russia was ruled by american lackeys in

the 1990s the majority of the people in

novorossiya are russians or

russian-speaking ukrainians who are

opposed to the key of junta and who want

to join the russian world but nova

russia is also a shield of russia

against nato aggression and enemy

military bases now this is what i really

want to highlight here because when it

comes to coming to a materialist

analysis of why novador c is so

important we can't just proceed a kind

of national analysis we can't just

proceed even from a perspective a

military strategy because ultimately war

is an extension of politics and this

would be engaging in the kind of

cardinal sin of idealism it would be

assuming that political formations are

what's behind all this it would be

assuming even that national formations

are behind resolve this when a

materialist is going to proceed at the

most fundamental level of what the

essence of all those things are what

makes a nation what makes politics this

is what's at stake in being able to form

a coherent and sustainable analysis

of what's been going on in ukraine so

the same is true for eastern malorcia

all lands east of the dniper i can't

pronounce that correctly is russian land

paid for by russian blood many times

over through history it is treason to

even think of abandoning these lands to

nazis and to nato yet another lie to be

exposed there will be a world war if

russia liberates novorossiya this is

absurd and it's contradicted by

statements from the europe and usa none

are prepared to go to war to save some

nazis in kiev especially as any russian

liberation would be just that a

liberation and not an occupation this

liberation would not be extended to

galicia because that part was never

genuine russian land and is too infected

with nazis to be worth the cost of

denotification so if you don't know what

galatia is right um

alicia is right here sorry fuck it's

different there's one in spain and

there's one in france it's right here

right so this is what they're talking

about this part was never historically

russian land it was taken from the polls

i think by stalin it had

belarusian and ukrainian populations

living there which the polls are pressed

but historically speaking i mean this is

austria-hungary this is the polish

lithuanian commonwealth whatever it's

not really historically russian land

they they don't think they're ever going

to be able to take this right they have

no illusions as far as that's concerned

um you know another lie is that the

russian world is only russia now this is

a pretty interesting part of the article

i think is people think these are

fascists you know because these are the

fourth position as duganists so these

might be fascists well look what they're

saying and this is gonna actually piss

off a lot of like alt-right you know

type of people but this is what they say

actually there are no limits to the

russian world if a person would like to

join the russian world for whatever

reason they should be welcome it could

be that a person has a russian spouse

likes russian culture or russian

orthodoxy or lifestyle and so on and i'm

not talking about creating ghettos like

what happened in western europe any

person joining the russian world should

be willing to assimilate at least to a

certain degree to russian society

without having to deny his her own roots

russia ought to take in half a million

such people from all over the world

annually they should preferably be young

and educated or willing to get an

education in the new country there are

quite a lot of such people all over the

world that would give russia a chance

that would boost the russian economy and

society too and of course refugees from

former ukraine and nova garcia should

also be taken into russia but with a

clear understanding that they will be

returned to a liberated novorossiya and

melrose sooner or later geopolitically

geographically it's of course easier to

define the russian world russian

federation plus belarus plus northern

kazakhstan plus navarasia plus eastern

malarusia transnistria abhasia southern

ossetia and some regions of the baltics

such as narva any part of this territory

is just as holy and russian as as moscow

should be as equally defended so that's

a kind of picture of the geopolitical

vision underlying this but i think

that's the kind of weakness of our

analysis thus far is that we have

overwhelmingly relied on a geopolitical

based analysis a political based

analysis in general almost everything i

just described to you and read out to

you in that article ultimately boils

down to politics it doesn't boil down to

a materialist conception or

understanding of the situation in order

to break that down we need a deeper

understanding of the circumstances

surrounding the fall of the soviet union

and the implications it had for the

peoples living in that region in a

material sense okay

and we're going to begin here with the

donbass itself and its significance now

i want to paint a picture to you because

i think it's pretty easy to draw

materialist analysis of american

politics specifically when it comes to

regions like west virginia west virginia

was a coal mining state and you know

that's where joe manchin and the rest

are based that's where a lot of

republicans and support for trump is

based is that you basically had these

heavy industries that define the

backbone of the american national

economy and these people's jobs were

threatened or otherwise not invested in

it as much and that's kind of defined

the politics of the region it's about

preserving that older way of life and i

think that's a really easy materialist

analysis to draw from to explain a lot

about you know what goes on in american

politics why do you have joe manchin and

people like that elected into congress

uh well it's because of coal because the

progressives want to eliminate coal and

coal is the source of livelihood of the

people living in west virginia right and

then you have this whole understanding

of a materialist understanding of

political economy itself where it's

quite literally political economy that

america's regulatory kind of monopoly

state in conjunction with coal companies

and oil companies and car companies and

manufacturing

all form this kind of totality of an

american dream and an american way of

life which actually defined people's

living being and it defined their way of

life and it defined them as a class a

new type of class people it's not quite

the working class of the past which you

know had no country it was a working

class that somehow had a country that

had some investment or stake in the

state and you know most marxists are

going to define that as a labor

aristocracy but i i think that's

simplistic the the labor aristocracy

lenin talked about was like the upper

stratum of the labor movement this is a

mass phenomena that defined people from

the bottom up the very soil of the

people themselves right unless it

happened this kind of american dream can

also be translated in the soviet and

russian context because just like there

was an american dream there was also a

soviet green in the form of the soviet

economy itself the heavy industries of

the soviet working class that were

employed i mean this there was a soviet

dream the soviet worker right had a daca

in the con dacha in the countryside they

had a house or an apartment they had a

little farm if they were peasants

toiling on the soil they had a very

specific way of life that was tied to

heavy industry and to manufacturing

right they didn't have that service

economy bullshit they didn't have that

tech economy bullshit it was it's very

similar when you compare the american

economy the 20th century to the soviet

economy in the 20th century from a

sociological perspective there's a lot

of differences but there's also a lot of

similarities i mean both a lot of people

get pissed off by this but i mean you're

dealing with a situation where most of

the world is turning in a socialistic

direction the u.s included the state is

increasingly becoming a worker state

where its vast regulations and its vast

mechanisms of economic control have to

take into account people's ability to

like get by and it has to take social

considerations into account has to take

the life of the working class and the

american dream into account i'm not

saying the american state served the

working class it was a workers state a

sense of a proletarian dictatorship

clearly it was a state that served the

interests of financiers and financial

capitalists and capitalist monopolists

and city of london bankers and all those

kind of fucking spooky people whatever

right um

but this i'm just trying to say that

there were aspects of it that you could

you could vaguely collect if you're not

too autistic about it say it's a workers

state you know if you get autistic about

it really it's not a workers state but

to some extent the state and the economy

is being fashioned around the

reproduction of a very specific way of

life now the intention behind that as

far as the ruling class in the

bourgeoisie was concerned in the 20th

century was to make sure that the

working class would be satisfied and

complacent and wouldn't turn to

communism right so that was the reason

that was the motivation and that was the

intention behind that and i don't think

it was only that either i think to in a

certain extent the democratic party and

other parties did kind of you know

gained their mandate and their power

from this kind of working class um but

they were still captured and completely

beholden to these capitalists but there

was some measure of a state

infrastructure that had emerged that

wasn't directly controlled by the

capitalist class if that makes sense

like it was this arrangement you can

vaguely call it socialistic you can call

it whatever the fuck you want but it

existed for social reasons it didn't

just exist to make the capitalists rich

and ultimately figure it in the wider

imperialist state machinery sure

especially the system of global

imperialist control sure but the only

real evidence that you need that it

wasn't directly serving the interests of

capital lies in the fact that in the

so-called era of neoliberalism much like

the dismantlement of the ussr and the

soviet union itself this entire thing

was dismantled right it was it was

completely divested

the state ceased to invest in it the

people in west virginia were left behind

the people in ohio and detroit indiana

were left behind manufacturing was

outsourced to mexico and it was

outsourced overseas so very clearly that

degree of socialization that had

occurred after the post-war period

wasn't only to support profit there was

a degree of like american socialism that

emerged i mean say was ultimately

fascistic or social fascist and i'm open

to that interpretation as well but i i

don't buy the idea that it was just oh

this is just part of capital no it's

clearly this is a post not post

imperialist because it's still part of

imperialism right but it's it's it's

something beyond what lenin described in

imperialism is all i'm trying to say

right someone's in shoku um no yeah okay

this i'm gonna get through this lecture

and then we might be able to take in

collins if we have some time to spare

right because i want to get into this

deep dive of analysis so i'm going to

show you a map right now of what is

actually the part eastern ukraine and

the donbass region right so this was a

propaganda poster from the soviet period

and what you're witnessing here is that

this part is powering the entirety of

the soviet union's economy and its

industry so factories all over the

soviet union being powered by this now

what is this what actually is this well

where it is is in the eastern part of

ukraine it's in the dawn bass but what

is it well if you speak russian i think

it's here but it's cold so this is a

basin in eastern ukraine that was

responsible for the overwhelming

majority of the energy consumption of

the soviet union internally now the

soviet union was an oil exporting

country after the 1970s but in terms of

the internal consumption of energy that

fueled soviet industry itself um this

was coming from the uh donetsk basin

similar to west virginia right it's just

this part of soviet union just like how

west virginia virginia's a part of

america

which is a coal producing region okay

and that was actually the source of

livelihood for the people living here so

all of the infrastructure that was built

in the dunya in the donbass region right

all of the way of life the education the

facilities

the food that people consumed the way in

which they consume it all that was

through the wealth that was being um

created because of coal because of the

specific economic arrangement it had

with the rest of the soviet union so

and to give more context to give more

added context to this um to this day the

infrastructure the cities the towns that

exist in the donbass region are a

leftover of that soviet era so that's

the first thing i want you guys to keep

in mind and keep in in your head right

um it's a very important point i want

you guys to lodge it and keep it in your

heads that's the context of the donetsk

region now i'll show you a more

contemporary map show you the

significance coal still has thank you i

think slow expansion of socialism in u.s

is bad because it gives people enough

reason to not overthrow government as a

whole like marx intended no and the

reasons people have to overthrow the

government isn't to establish socialism

now that's a common myth a lot of people

will tell you oh we need a revolution to

create socialism anyone who tells you

that revolutions are about creating

socialism is a dumb fuck doesn't know

shit about history or marxism and is a

fucking lying dumb piece of shit okay

first of all marx talked about violent

revolutions within the context of

overthrowing the ancient regime so those

were revolutions that weren't being

created because of ideology but were

revolutions like the french revolution

that took form because of an antagonism

between a democratic petty bourgeoisie

from the countryside and the aristocrats

and feudal ancient regime so that was

actually the source of revolution

marx was talking about okay and marx was

basically saying that the proletarian

revolution is going to be like a cherry

on top of this and he said that in

places that have already had their

democratic revolution like the united

states or even england he said right

it's possible for a peaceful transition

to occur now the reason marx and engels

change their view about this is because

of the rise of the imperialist state

machinery which actually overturned a

bourgeois democracy right and it had to

be smashed into a thousand pieces marx

writes about this in his writings on the

civil war in france also in his writings

about the paris commune more generally

right and that isn't because again it's

not because of ideology it's because

contradiction is forming between the

vast state bureaucratic machinery and

this imperialist state machinery and

again uh the proverbial peasant in the

countryside in marx's case the french

peasant who's being indebted to banks um

and who's having all of their economic

life being sucked out of them again

through through rentier capitalist

feudal-like monopolists right so the

reasons violent revolutions happen

according to marxism is not because the

proletarian dictatorship should be

established it's not because of some

fucking ideological vision it's not

because of socialism it's not because of

any of those fucking things violent

revolution is an inev it's a

sociological phenomena it's what we call

today populism it's literally the same

thing it's a sociological phenomena

where the majority of people materially

enter into contradiction with the

establishment just as a general law of

social revolution right and the whole

point of ideology is to guide that not

to create it that's what happened in

russia the contradiction between the

peasants and russia and the the

the the czar and the nobility wasn't

because of ideology it was because there

was a genuine material contradiction

there which the bolsheviks only led

that's why they said peace land and

bread and not socialism they didn't say

any of that shit they said peace land

and bread because they were leading that

revolution okay so yeah i know that's a

lot of time taken up for one super chat

but it's something i just need to always

stress time and time again that it's

just such a common myth people arrive at

that that revolutions are because of you

know whatever so anyway this is a more

contemporary map

of ukraine and look at this okay so

so here this region of ukraine produces

18.4

billion tons of coal 15.6 billion tons

of coal 5.3 billion tons of coal so this

is the donetsk dunyettes region we're

talking about here in ukraine um

so

nationally speaking yes these people are

russian speakers many are ethnic

russians

but what is the more fundamental

connection that they have to russia that

is actually responsible for the conflict

at large well it has a lot to do again

with coal now after the fall of the

soviet union okay

um

investing in coal well a few things

happen right and this is true for both

russia

and it's true for ukraine and this is

actually going to be the formative

context of the maidan protests which is

why the story of how ukraine and russia

got to this point is actually kind of

more like a tragedy rather than a

one-sided story of good versus evil it's

more like a tragedy

ukraine had most of soviet heavy

industry it was built specifically to

cooperate with russian industry the

separation of russia and ukraine was

particularly painful the atlanticist

plan thank you so much chris morlock i

appreciate so much the that super chat

thank you so much man anyway um when the

soviet union collapsed i'm sure you guys

know what happened you had an oligarchic

class emerge both in russia and in

ukraine so all of the industry as

morlock himself pointed out that was

built up under the soviet union

throughout all of ukraine not just

eastern ukraine all of ukraine was

bought out by these oligarchs right and

what oligarchs basically did is that

they privatized socialism they kept

these very vast companies and entities

intact that were kind of like fractures

of they were kind of little pieces of

the soviet giant central planning what

the oligarchs did is they consolidated

all of these kinds of means of

production in the form of these like

privatized socialistic

equity companies and general companies

and whatever

bundled them all together into this kind

of like private form of a mini centrally

planned economy and private kingdom

where the a lot of people need to

understand this much of the necrosis of

the soviet industry is because of the

oligarchs the oligarchs are parasites

what they did is that they took all of

the infrastructure

that was built under the soviet union

and they turned those into financial

speculative assets they didn't invest in

them they didn't update any of the

infrastructure they just extract rent

from that infrastructure from the former

soviet peoples in order to turn them

into like financial assets which are

then integrated into the world of

international finance and offshore

companies through the city of london and

all that kind of stuff

so basically the soviet economy wasn't

actually dissolved a lot of people think

oh socialism was abolished well

ideologically yeah but in terms of that

like centrally planned economy in

general it was divided up into little

bits and pieces where these like new

lords these for all intents and purposes

feudal lords took over these segments of

this wider soviet planned economy and

they kept them running and kept them

intact but

they charge the right the former soviet

population like these rents in order to

be able to live so these are like

literally like vampire parasites who

took over segments of the former soviet

economy right

and unlike the soviet union they didn't

reinvest in this stuff they didn't

update it in any kind of way or

integrated into like this greater

polarity or greater whole that benefits

the whole people you know as a holistic

entity they turned them into financial

assets and instruments integrated into a

world of international finance centered

in the city of london i should add and

and wall street and whatever right

basically turning them into parts of the

kind of western polarity now russia's

game-changing nationalization of the oil

industry under putin was pretty much the

first act that offset that and

established some form of economic

sovereignty now when we're talking about

economic sovereignty i wanna

don't just like let that fly over your

head i actually want you to think about

what that entails economic sovereignty

means you basically are having a part of

your economy that is being organized

around serving your economy and serving

your sphere so in this case russia's oil

industry allows the russian government

to invest in its population it allows

them to build russian industries it

allows them to fuel and power a russian

economy right whereas in the oligarchic

type of arrangement of the

privatizations of the 1990s both in

ukraine and in the former

sorry and in russia you had these basic

parasites gobble up

big pieces of the former soviet planned

economy um keep the people who relied on

them in order to survive on a lifeline

and basically charge them rent to

continue existing and subsisting on them

so basically i want to like give you a

better representation of what that would

be like right so let's say

you were like on life support in a

hospital right and that was basically

kind of free right i just put it that

way and some guy comes and and takes

over the life support with a gun

and he says i'm gonna call your mother

every hour she's gonna give me five

dollars or i'm gonna unplug your life

support that's pretty much how the

oligarchic organization of the economy

is is in ukraine and russia right it's

like they're basically

holding these things that are the life

support of the people living in these

regions and they're they're they're it's

they're not even like good capitalists a

lot of people think oh russia became a

capitalist economy well technically in

an ideal world a capitalist you know

makes an investment and then gets a

return on their investment but in this

case you just have this kind of

privatization of a very stagnant and

decaying form of socialism where it's

like they're not in it's not like

they're making profits based on returns

on on risky investments they're holding

these gargantuan bits and pieces of the

former soviet infrastructure and

charging people who relied on them as a

source of livelihood and subsistence in

order to squeeze out not profits and

this is the most fascinating part of

this entire dilemma that's why you can't

understand this conflict from like an

anti-capitalist traditional critique of

capitalism perspective but from rents

right from rents of the financial

economy right so

haas can you debate michael moore yeah i

could debate this guy if he gets in my

fucking vc okay i could definitely

debate him okay stop spamming my chat

michael get in my fucking vc or get

banned forever it's simple as that you

stupid fuck and by the way russia

doesn't pretend to be a liberal

democratic country that's why you dumb

fuck if the west wants to come forward

and admit we live in a fascist fucking

state then it can fucking do that and

and and cure the repercussions that

comes from violating the fucking social

contract that is the bedrock of order

and stability the reason people don't

fucking take up torches and pitchforks

like thomas jefferson talked about is

because we have constitutional liberties

if they want to create a new arrangement

where they want to be an illiberal

democracy then they can go ahead and

step forward and tell the people that

that's what we're living under until

then you gotta still have that free

speech because that's the understanding

that our people and the government have

come to since 1776. that's my fucking

answer to you you stupid dumb fuck now

stop fucking spamming my fucking chat

especially when you say something so

fucking stupid okay as i was saying

before okay i want to give you a broad

picture of the oligarch economy so what

did you learn from this okay hey the

soviet union collapsed

the soviet economy was still the source

of survival and livelihood for the

majority of people living under it what

happened is that this soviet economy was

privatized by

these parasitical financial capitalists

who did not reinvest in the

infrastructure but merely kept that on a

lifeline leaving both it and the people

relying on it to decay left behind while

extracting rents not profits from them

and these rents in turn were turned into

financial

derivative as speculative assets

derivative assets basically that were

integrated into the world capitalist

financial market through the city of

london and its offshore companies yada

yada yada wall street and the rest of it

so that's the basic rundown of the

picture that's forming the context of

this entire thing okay i want you to

keep that in mind as we go forward keep

what i just told you in mind okay and

stop fucking being distracted in the

chat do i have to start banning people

because this shit is important you know

i don't i'm sick of this being a

community of dumb fucks yeah go ahead

and just spam z's in my chat but you

don't actually want to be fucking

educated you don't want to be educated

about what's fucking going on in the

first place you want to just spam z's in

the fucking chat bunch of dumb fucks

stop fucking focusing on one dumbass

who's too much of a pussy to get in my

fucking vc if you don't get in my v okay

mods ban everyone who doesn't get in my

vc who talks shit because clearly people

are getting too fucking distracted by

bullshit when what i'm talking about is

actually fucking important right damn

you want to just spam z's and shit but

you don't want to actually think about

this in any kind of fucking way it's

fucking pathetic okay anyway like i was

saying now the main thing that upset

this arrangement was

putin's rise to power now a lot of

people underestimate the extent to which

there was a level of continuity between

the yeltsin regime which was completely

captured by the oligarchs and putin

there was continuity putin was appointed

by yeltsin so the reason putin came to

represent russian sovereignty is the the

fact of the matter that we now have to

address okay

because putin again was appointed he

wasn't a populist he was appointed okay

he didn't rise to power as like a

caesarean populist like hugo chavez or

any he was appointed by yeltsin okay now

some deeper context here the context of

putin

is politics specifically geopolitics the

first form of a major rift between the

west and russia was yugoslavia it was

serbia and yeltsin actually this was the

first form of the expression of some

kind of like it wasn't just yugoslavia

there's a lot of unresolved shit

in abkhazia in south ossetia in

transnistria and elsewhere right russia

was thrown into this situation where

even yeltsin and the oligarchs

supporting him had to be russian

patriots in some kind of sense now why

was it in the interest of the

parasitical oligarchic class to kind of

adopt a russian geopolitical vision well

the reason is pretty simple because in

order to be able to maintain the steady

flow of financial rents that they were

extracting from the privatization of the

former soviet economy they had to

consider russia

as a bloc with its own interests that it

has to defend i mean it they're

basically tried to turn russia into a

cartel one big cartel enterprise whose

interest they were willing to defend on

that basis okay and this is basically

going to like define

the entire tragical contradiction that

defines russia's current geopolitical

predicament okay when putin was

appointed putin made the decision to

nationalize

russia's gas industry basically

cementing the first form of russian

economic sovereignty and at that point

the very same al and also by the way the

geopolitical issue was chechnya right

and that's what putin dealt with and so

on and so on and that's that whole issue

of geopolitics defending russia's

territorial sovereignty right as a kind

of cartel for these oligarchs but putin

would then turn against these oligarchs

for reasons that may relate to personal

ideology something like that but putin

did cross the rubicon and his julius

caesar moment was when he decided to

nationalize the russian oil industry

turn against the oligarchs right and

start to derive his mandate from the

russian people so in a way and this may

come to a shock to many of you russia

became more democratic now in talks with

us diplomats russian oligarchs ad

verbatim said russia is not a western

country russia is an asiatic country so

we cannot have an immediate transition

to democracy we have to have an

oligarchy because russians are too

savage and uncivilized to be able to be

democratic and rule based on a

majoritarian you know uh

rule by the people the people are too

stupid and uncivilized to rule so us

oligarchs have to be in charge almost ad

verbatim when they were sitting down

with us diplomats this is what the

oligarchs had told the americans well

putin um was increasing the

democratization of russia by having the

actual source of legitimation and

sovereignty of the russian state not

come from a select group of oligarchic

rulers but come from more or less a

popular mandate of the russian people

now putin is not a savior of the russian

people i want you guys to to understand

that he's not like some julius caesar

communist and he's all doing it out of

the goodness of his heart and it's

because he's a socialist or he's doing

it for ideological reason

reasons putin was confronted with like a

a rubicon and just to be a normal

centrist right it's like nationalizing

the oil industry will give the russian

state a definite source of revenue with

which it will be able to sustain

the russian people on a lifeline because

the oligarchs are not able to do this in

a disparate dissipated way so under

putin's reign and this is where we're

gonna really start talking about the

tragical aspect of this um you still had

the same level of decay

necrosis

and

stagnation that defined the rule of the

oligarchs the only difference is that

there was increasingly a semblance of a

new type of russia i mean moscow sure as

hell got a hell of a renovation

under putin's reign

and other parts of russia admittedly as

well other stuff was going on but for

the majority of the russian people um

you know they were living in the same

way that people in in ukraine was

basically living in a lifeline

but

lifeline being pensions pensions for the

elderly um the kind of menial jobs

the working class as they had before and

then moscow also represented this kind

of more urban economy with more urban

oriented jobs or and then also you had

this immense flight from russia the

brain drain and people migrants going to

the west young people looking for

opportunities there but also moscow did

turn start to be a bedrock for new

entrepreneurs and and new kind of

startups and new kinds of businesses

that was enabled by this newfound

russian economic sovereignty all of

these things undermined the oligarchs

right so russia is in this steady steady

state of basic survival survival people

pensioners are still getting their money

the russian people are surviving and

enduring that's not nothing because in

the 90s they were dying they were dying

of early mortality they were dying they

weren't being supported by the state

there was nothing

they were dying right so they're

surviving under putin but under putin

you still have stagnation you still have

some of that same oligarchic control of

the former soviet economy you still have

that necrosis you still have that

parasitism you still have this kind of

sale of the russian people to the

western financial capitalist world

market in the form of derivative and

speculative assets right this is true

not only for russia but for the entire

former soviet world russia's stagnating

now under medvedev uh they wanted to

even get closer to the west to

geopolitically to conciliatory with them

for geopolitical reasons they couldn't

now let me tell you uh uh let me give

you a picture right now of um

ukraine's exports russia and russia's

exports to ukraine now here you can

clearly see these are all heavy industry

i mean these are all heavy and so these

are kind of manufactured goods and these

are more um what do you call it primary

processed raw materials these are kind

of more chemicals this is um iron and

steel and things like that these are

kinds of like manufactured industrial

goods so this is basically what ukraine

is exporting to russia right but you

have to understand that these are all

controlled under the uh these are so i

want you to think of it like the

intestines of the soviet economy ripped

out right and privatized under the

control of oligarchs and oligarchic

families

and

there was a semblance of a centrally

planned soviet economy and the bits and

pieces of this economy we're now being

privatized by these like feudal lords

right who are extracting monopoly rents

feudal-like monopoly rents in order to

facilitate similar levels of economic um

activity that happened in the soviet

union so like the iron that ukraine is

exporting to russia

was probably also iron that

that factories or whatever based in

russia were getting from ukraine as well

so the semblance of this former soviet

economy is being kept on a lifeline

right um

now what were what

what really underlied the history that

led to the maidan and the

dissatisfaction with russia and the

dissatisfaction with putin well

stagnation continued to more or less

define the whole russian sphere russia

itself and ukraine under yanukovych yes

survival survival yes but innovation

opportunity no those are the things that

we're missing and kind of understandably

in the more developed parts of western

ukraine people were fed up with the old

arrangement they were fed up with the

corrupt oligarchic class so there came

to be this kind of like illusion by the

population and this is what makes it a

fucking tragedy guys this is literally

the crux

of what we're talking about which is

like there's many forms of utopias

people have when they become

dissatisfied with the status quo and

with the prevailing system right and a

ukraine western ukraine's case the

utopia was europe there was this

illusion this idea that increased

economic integration with europe is

going to lead to you know the the um the

enrichment of the ukrainian you know

democratic petty bourgeoisie and

startups and entrepreneurs and this

hungry youth that are looking for

opportunities oh we'll all get it from

increased economic cooperation with with

europe and with western europe right and

and europe became this utopia it became

this utopic vision right so when

yanukovych um so this is the tragedy

though so yanukovych pressured by the

western ukrainian population and also

because he was not actually loyal to

russia in the first place decided to

pursue european economic integration so

he went to brussels and he went to

belgium and he told the leaders he told

the head of the eu he said listen he

told the euro bank he told all these

people he said listen i am willing to

join you i'm willing to ditch russia and

join you my oligarchs who back me

also want this to happen right we're

done with russia russia's you know those

people they're dead beat they're they're

wasteful we don't we can't get any more

profits from them our oligarchs are

hungry for profit they need more profits

so yeah we'll we'll join you europe and

we'll ditch russia but this is how

economically dependent we're on with

russia now so if we ditch russia and

join you

you have to give us loans and you have

to give us aid and bail out our economy

and help us what did brussels tell

yanukovych brussels told yanukovych no

way jose we're not going to invest in

you ukrainians you lowly ukrainians we

don't believe in you you're not an

investment that's worth it to us if you

join the european union yeah we'll use

you as an economic colony for cheap

labor and migrant labor oh boy yeah and

we're going to extract your raw

materials and you know use you as a debt

colony more or less but seriously

restructure your economy and fill the

hole left behind by russia no way europe

refused to agree to what ukraine needed

in order to join europe

and leave russia behind that's the story

behind this and when

yanukovych decided to abandon pursuing

economic integration with europe not

because he didn't want to

but because europe refused to actually

um fulfill what ukraine would have

needed to do that there you had maidan

we have to ask this question beyond

america's intervention right beyond

america's intervention um beyond the cia

interference and all that shit let's

just put that behind why were so many

people in kiev and western ukraine angry

with the government that oh we're not

joining europe because you're in bed

with russia because this is the

impression they had in their mind they

thought

okay

europe represents for me economic

opportunity it represents a future for

us it represents us to be able to you

know update our infrastructure have just

have a semblance of a future ahead where

we don't have to be in stagnation and

decay and corruption for so long right

so

that was the thought that they had in

their head and when they when yanukovych

turned his back on on the european

integration thing they were like he only

did this because of putin and he only

did this because of russia because of

the corruption of the oligarchs the same

oligarchs that they associated with this

stagnant post-soviet world right so they

thought basically that it's almost as if

putin is preventing us the russian world

is prevent presenting us our blackened

soviet past is preventing us from having

any more economic opportunities and

we're stuck in this hellish decay and

stagnation of the former soviet world

and we're going to blame it all on

russia the truth is more tragic

it's not yanukovych it's not putin it's

not even the oligarchs that are the

reason europe rejected you europe

rejected you because europe doesn't care

about ukraine europe doesn't care about

ukrainians europe doesn't see them as

equal europe had no intention of

investing in ukraine and helping

ukrainians no longer become dependent on

russia because the europeans have

nothing historically to do with ukraine

when germany invaded ukraine in world

war ii they had a plan to starve anyone

there and loot all the fucking resources

and have german settlers settle the land

they are entirely different peoples

europeans don't give a fuck about

ukraine that's the tragic truth that's

why yanukovych couldn't pursue european

economic integration that's why but the

maidan protesters angry with the

corruption and angry with the stagnation

angry with the lack of opportunity

decided that europe was their utopia

okay and it was a kind of like deranged

form of utopian socialism that quickly

transformed into a very scary nazism and

genocidal fascism where their dream came

at the expense of reality and that

russians are getting in the way of our

dream so that's the scenario you have in

the western ukraine right now going from

heaven to earth from dreamland back to

reality you have the people of eastern

ukraine now the people of eastern

ukraine are getting by they're getting

by through economic aid getting by

through vestigial industries from the

soviet era and yeah there's not a lot of

improvement or whatever but they're

primarily focused with just not starving

and just having some lifeline right so

they see what's going on in the maidan

and they quite correctly see is like

these people want to destroy everything

they want to destroy everything we have

and they want to destroy us as a people

because we ourselves only exist because

of the soviet past our infrastructure

our way of life our culture

our ability to get an income everything

about us

comes from the soviet past and you want

to take all of that away and destroy us

so it's almost like this is the tragedy

in western ukraine it became a kind of

struggle for becoming and struggle for

future and transformation but in eastern

ukraine it was a struggle for being a

struggle for surviving and a struggle to

defend the past right so

you basically had a very tragic

situation where

both people in russia and in ukraine are

not necessarily aware of the fact that

the reason you're stagnating the reason

you don't have these new opportunities

the reason you don't have this kind of

like you know reinvestment in your own

people the reason nobody's willing to

invest in you

the people

whether it's europe or whether it's this

you know necrophiliac kind of

post-soviet oligarchic economy it's very

simple it's because russia turned away

from communism and communism was the

only fucking thing that invested in

these people it turned from an economy

that was based in what's in the best

interests of the common people to an

economy that was based on liberal

capitalist bullshit free market

principles which in reality translated

into abandoning in almost a genocidal

way the people and leaving them to rot

at best

or or allowing them to subsist at best

and leaving them to decay and die

at worst that's the entire context

that's informing this situation people

who were angry with the yanukovych

government were not necessarily at fault

it's just that they articulated it in

the wrong way in a delusionary and

illusory way the real enemy of the

ukrainian people

also never forget how almost immediately

after healthcare was privatized in the

russian federation nearly seven million

rural russians died from lack of health

care now necrosis and decay rises in

ukraine and oligarchs think they own the

russian people holy fuck voidbring thank

you so much for the 50 man and i agree

yeah appreciate it so much appreciate it

so much man i appreciate that so much

but um

the bottom line guys is that the enemy

of the ukrainian and russian people

alike it's not a national issue when you

think about it like this it's a class

issue with a civilizational context the

civilization created by the soviet union

it's these oligarchs who converted the

post-soviet economy into a feudalistic

rentier state where they extract from

the lifeblood

of the former soviet peoples while

giving nothing back and investing

nothing in them especially investing

nothing in the youth and investing

nothing in the new generation okay so

you may ask me a question haas then why

do you support russia when russia also

has these people in power because you

have to understand the context of the

revolution that's going on in the

russian world which is for all intents

and purposes also a social and class

revolution

against the oligarchs and that's

something i'm going to explain to you if

you don't understand what i'm talking

about now because that's what's really

going on since the revolutions

they're very much heideggerian

revolutions for being in eastern ukraine

who had a profound class and social

revolution initiate which will

undoubtedly spread to russia even if it

comes at the expense of putin himself

i'll show it to you now check this out

this is a story

published by the new york times on march

4th 2014 and why am i showing you an

article from 2014 because in the eastern

ukraine immediately after the maidan

which

duped the urbanites of western ukraine

into actually serving the interests of

oligarchic factions of the post-soviet

world that were against russia as

tensions rose on the streets of the

russian-speaking eastern portion of

ukraine the response of the new

government in the capital on sunday was

not to send troops but to send rich

people keep in mind this is march 2nd

2014. the interim government worried

about russian efforts to destabilize or

seize regions in eastern ukraine after

effectively taking control of the

crimean peninsula in the south is

recruiting the country's wealthy

businessmen known as oligarchs to serve

as governors of the eastern provinces so

as these eastern provinces were up in

arms and were in turmoil trying to kind

of rebel against the new junta to give

you an idea

of the maidan government

the response they had to that thank you

so much upstream in a minute sorry

twitch dogged you but glad that you're

still out here grinding and crushing it

cuddy thank you so much sankara's

renault i appreciate you so much man

well as a basic response to that right

what they did was

send literal oligarchs to be the

governors of these eastern provinces to

reign in on these people now when i said

feudal lords that was kind of like a

metaphor but in this case it seems like

it's direct now wait until you hear

about who these oligarchs are so the

strategy which ukrainian news media are

attributing to yulia v

timoshenko a former prime minister and

party leader is recognition that the

oligarchs represent the country's

industrial and business elite and

exercise a great influence over

thousands of workers in the east which

is still largely ethnically russian now

what kind of influence do they exercise

these oligarchs own the industries in

eastern ukraine they own the coal mines

they own the mines they own the

factories and the russian workers are

their employees

the office of president oleksir

v

turchinov announced on sunday the

appointments of two billionaires sergey

tartura let's look up this guy sergey

tartura what does he do

sergey tartura is the founder of the

industrial union of donbass what is the

industrial union of donbass it's an it

owns order over 40 industrial

enterprises in eastern ukraine hungary

and poland um there you go i'm not sure

what happened to its holdings in eastern

ukraine exactly but this guy

was up this oligarch who i literally

just described to you the the industries

he owns heard about you through jackson

i loved how you tore apart destiny

always good to hear independent voices

that don't bow to the establishment

thank you so much curtis i appreciate it

so much man that is appreciated man um

when i i mean this guy he says he owns

industrial enterprises these are all

enterprises created by communist

infrastructure communism created these

enterprises this fucking parasite just

gobbled them up and put them into a

fucking holding company so that's like

the definition of what we're talking

about

when it comes to an oligarch now who

else are they mentioning they're talking

about ihor colum kolomoski you've

probably heard of that name before um

but if you haven't this guy is the

he owns where is it he owns the uh

yeah pre-vet bank he owns yeah he owns

that's just a fucking private football

club it doesn't matter this is they

sometimes these oligarchs buy football

clubs like that guy uh abramovic owns

chelsea or whatever so this was a

private bank that owned and this is

where you're gonna get the money

right when 2016 it was nationalized

supposedly but he owns the vet group

yeah pre-vet group there it is it's not

just a bank it's a group so it controls

thousands of companies of virtually

every industry in ukraine

steel oil gas chemical

energy the prime influence and expertise

you can bet what that means for eastern

ukraine as well this is the pre-vet

group understand so these two guys were

appointed the governors of eastern

ukraine so

and and all over you this isn't just

eastern ukraine all over ukraine

oligarchs were appointed directly into

positions of power to lord over the

people of if it wasn't enough that they

fucking owned the commonwealth of the

former soviet peoples economically they

also owned it now politically right this

is from

march 19th 2014. oligarch governor seeks

aid to keep donbass ukrainian so in this

article you're basically going to see

him say some shit like oh my god the

kremlin funded militants are calling

moscow to step in and shake charge and

they're they're taking over everything

and western countries need to react very

quickly and give us aid we need urgent

economic and humanitarian aid in the

dawn bass or these militants are going

to take over so let me tell you what's

going on

a big broad picture is about to be

painted here um this is also from the

carnegie institute and it's called

ukraine's kingdom of oligarchs so a year

after the collapse of yanukovych's

government hope that the new ukrainian

can check the power of the oligarchs and

install a new generation of reform minor

leads is shaky at best right so

ukraine's government officials and their

backers in the west tend to focus on

russia's aggression this is from 2015 by

the way right so it brought down

yanukovych it didn't diminish the role

oligarchs playing ukrainian politics or

to legitimize fully the power of the

central government especially in the

eyes of oligarchs right maidan was a

tragedy again a tragedy it's a tragedy

the people were duped to be an

instrument of this oligarchic

inter-oligarchic squash squabbles right

between ukrainian oligarchs and russian

oligarchs um they were united against

yanukovych step by step funded key

resistance groups and that's a thing

like me and jackson focused a ton

on western funding for the maidan but

looking back we should have actually

focused a lot on the way these oligarchs

were funding the maidon as well right

because they'll yanukovych's um grip on

power directly threatened their in their

um interests maidan was a people power

movement directed because yanukovych was

getting closer to russia and russia the

oligarchs as a class are declining and

losing power right again we have to

understand this within the frame of

class warfare

that's exactly what i intend i wrote an

article for cpi news that cover

kolominsky's ties it's on the cpi

website thank you so much chris morlock

appreciate you a ton man thank you so

much it was none other than dimitro for

tosh who despite being under house

arrest in vienna reportedly forged the

deal that united the political parties

led by poroshenko and vitale klitschko

ahead of the may presidential election

ukraine continues to be run by oligarchs

today yet the power dynamics between

oligarchy groups has shifted

dramatically most importantly the

overall influence of the traditional

power brokers with control over

ukraine's metallurgical and coal assets

is waning having lost 5.8 billion

dollars of his net worth in 2014 renee

ahmet of ukraine's richest man before

the war appears to be the biggest loser

however he remains powerful and has the

ability to broker relationships between

kiev and donbass where he still controls

assets

he has ties with this guy the

self-proclaimed leader of the donetsk

people's republic and he's widely

believed to be working with forces on

both sides of the ceasefire line his

energy business however has come under

pressure from fellow oligarch ighor

kolomowski

until recently was believed to be the

biggest winner of the post-maidan era in

terms of political influence the war in

the dawn best has led to a rise of

patriotism across the country the

population in southeastern ukraine

continues to harbor pro-russian

sympathies of course that does not mean

many residents of the region actually

want to be ruled by moscow this is uh

whatever their attitudes are this is in

2015. archive in eastern city remains

vulnerable to separatist-led violence

blah blah blah okay so this is this kind

of broad picture of the maidan actually

increasing the power of the oligarchs to

heights that have never been seen before

right is the basic broad picture we're

we're rolling with here right the

question is what is the significance

actually of this revolution in novorcia

of the proclamation of the donetsk

people's republics bohansk people's

republics and now with ukraine's special

operation

the wider sentiment within russia and

the way the winds are turning within

russia um because of the war what you

have going on is a situation in which

these people who are a bad investment

left behind and kept purely on a

lifeline by these oligarchs and by this

oligarchic economy and by both to a

certain extent the ukrainian and russian

governments respectively are now taking

up arms and establishing forms of

political power which remember forms out

of the barrel of a gun and remember it's

political power in chechnya and

elsewhere that got put into power in the

first place that is coming at the

expense of the power of the oligarchs

whose rule mind you is not simply as as

it is with capitalists based on their

ownership of certain types of property

but is based on their ownership

and their capture of the state right so

with guns people in the dawn bass are

finally rising to the occasion of

defending themselves as a people not

only are people worth investing in as

far as economic measures are concerned

as far as the economic policy is

concerned but as the ends

of

regional statehood of both russian

statehood and well not ukrainian states

anymore but of the state new russian

state that's going to emerge which

emerges nova rocia so you have to

understand the immense social revolution

that is now at hand these people did not

have the revolutionary aspirations of

the western ukrainians the western

ukrainians were sick of the situation

they just started rioting and went to

the streets and destroying things people

in eastern ukraine no matter how fucked

over they were didn't have a revolution

like that uh where they're going on

rioting on the streets and and whatever

to cause change they're defending the

ability to maintain the status quo just

like in the iranian revolution that's

why i'm calling it a heidegarian

revolution it's just that the status quo

isn't what you think it is the status

quo

is the essence

let's just say the da sign of soviet

civilization just like in the chinese

revolution with the chinese peasants you

can have the chinese civilization but

don't assume you know what that looks

like it doesn't necessarily entail

agrarian backwardness and all the rest

of that this revolution that the people

in eastern ukraine are fighting is a

hydarian revolution it's not a

revolution to go out on the street and

implement change it's a revolution to

defend what they have and what is under

dispute is precisely what they have and

this is precisely what does undermine

the power of the oligarchs because now

what is being brought to the forefront

is the existence

of the russian peoples and the former

soviet peoples at large if you will but

specifically the russian peoples of

russia as a civilization right

whether or not the ends and aims of this

polarity and this mode of production

will be about them them

their way of life

their culture their inheritance of the

soviet union their wealth and their

living being the economic consequences

of this we haven't even seen as far as

the system that's now in place we can

expect nationalizations to be possible

the oligarchs to have their power

completely undermined a true revolution

for the reinvestment into the peoples of

russia i mean you want to talk about a

democratic revolution these were regions

that were ruled by oligarchs the donetsk

people's republic and the lugongs

people's republic chose leaders based on

elections based on what the people

wanted what we're witnessing is a kind

of bourgeois democratic revolution and

that's an outdated archaic term but it's

an authentic democratic revolution it's

like a revolution like

1776 was a revolution where they're

breaking up the grip on political power

that the oligarchs have in order so that

the state cannot be used as an arm of

financial monopoly oligarchic

capitalists this is unprecedented

fertile soil for an up-and-coming petty

bourgeoisie to be able to have its

chance in the sun a new era for the

russian people a new era for a russian

economy a genuine and authentic

democratic revolution it's a democratic

revolution it's a progressive democratic

revolution

that's really the crux of what we're

talking about here a progressive

democratic revolution that's the story

people have been missing here soviet

democracy was destroyed by an oligarchic

regime from a materialist perspective

this democratic revolution its

implications are open-ended i mean it's

not even clear whether putin is going to

survive them the russian people have

been awakened to such an extent you

can't put that back in the box they are

no longer accepting the necrosis

and the decay of their soviet past they

want to rise to the occasion of

acknowledging their sphere their

polarity as something worth not only

fighting for with arms but worth

establishing for as the ultimate ends of

a political economy the russian sphere

the russian world is vlast this

civilization is now something that's

going to be worth investing in it's

going to be something worth investing in

because people are investing now with

something more worth more than all the

money in the fucking world and that's

their own blood you don't think that's

the epoch defining thing that define

that even comes before capital it does

capitalism emerged from the context of

war from the english civil war to the 30

days war the ability for the sovereign

to exercise their power through blood is

the definitive context that laid the

groundwork for modernity except in this

case we don't have the abstract

sovereign leviathan of modernity we have

the vlast and the polarity of the

russian world asserting itself and

paying for that in blood through war

through arms through life itself are we

looking at the revival of the soviet

union no we're looking at

something that even goes beyond the

soviet union we're looking at an

awakening which i still believe the

communist party of the russian

federation is best equipped to provide

the necessary leadership for the maidan

was a false revolution it was a false

overthrow of the oligarchs this is the

real revolution that's now happening you

know about all the talk of nationalizing

assets and completely changing the

economy if you want to know how drastic

the changes are you just have to consult

the changes in symbolism that are being

discussed i mean look at this the

communist party of the russian

federation is seriously proposing

through a bill it's submitting to the

state duma to establish the flag of the

ussr

as the official flag of russia they are

the ones spearheading this

and leading the way and why is that

because they represent

from the very beginning the independence

movements of the donbass from the very

beginning supporting crimea's joining an

ascension to joining the russian

federation communist party of the

russian federation from the very

beginning spearheading and representing

the former soviet peoples and the

russian peoples left behind that's where

it draws its material bedrock of support

from them i don't know how else to cut

it to you guys if you're not already

convinced russia's returning to

greatness from a materialist perspective

russia is returning to greatness russia

is becoming a great power again and it's

not just because of its special

operation in ukraine it's because

there's a social revolution going on in

russia there's a class

struggle and social revolution going on

in russia that is dethroning the power

of the oligarchic class and what's next

for this this is an open question it's

an open book the

the

enslavement

and the sale of russia and its wealth to

international financial capitalism is

over russia is now going to draw its

wealth through a the strength and power

of its own people and b this is what i

didn't get a lot of time to talk about

yet further economic integration china