global geopolitics

How the Push for War With Russia Serves the Bourgeoisie’s Desperate Need to Revive a Dying System

Editorial Analysis | August 2026

The war in Ukraine, which has now entered its fourth year, is not fundamentally a conflict about territorial integrity, national self-determination, or the defence of de

mocratic values. These are the narratives presented to publics across Europe and North America, carefully constructed to manufacture consent for a war that serves interests far removed from the wellbeing of ordinary citizens. The real drivers of European elites’ enthusiasm for confrontation with Russia are rooted in the material conditions of a declining capitalist system that has exhausted its traditional mechanisms for sustaining wealth and power. To understand why European leaders are pushing toward a war that could result in nuclear annihilation, one must examine the underlying economic logic that compels them to embrace such a catastrophic course, and the class interests that this logic serves.

The history of European capitalism is inseparable from the history of colonialism. Since the fifteenth century, the accumulation of wealth in Western Europe depended upon the systematic extraction of resources, labour, and markets from colonised territories across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The Industrial Revolution, the rise of the welfare state, and the prosperity of the postwar period were all underwritten by the ability of European powers to command the resources of the Global South at prices that bore no relation to their actual cost of production. Even after the formal decolonisation of the postwar period, the mechanisms of extraction continued through neocolonial arrangements, debt dependency, and the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Since 1960, the United States, Europe, and other wealthy nations have extracted approximately $152 trillion from the Global South, a figure that represents the accumulated surplus that has sustained Western living standards while condemning the majority of humanity to poverty and underdevelopment.

The decline of the US empire and the rise of the BRICS bloc, particularly China, have fundamentally altered this dynamic. The BRICS countries’ collective GDP, wealth, income, share of world trade, and presence at the highest levels of new technology increasingly exceed those of the G7, and this relentless economic development has framed the decline of the West’s political and cultural influence. The sanctions regime against Russia has largely failed, as Moscow has turned to its BRICS allies to escape their intended effects, and the UN votes on the ceasefire issue in Gaza have reflected the mounting difficulties facing the US position globally. The Houthis’ intervention in Red Sea shipping and future Arab and Islamic initiatives supporting Palestine will further undermine the structures through which the West has maintained its grip on global resources. The old avenues of exploitation are closing, and the European ruling class faces a prospect it cannot tolerate: the loss of its privileged position in the global hierarchy.

It is in this context of impending loss that the push for war with Russia must be understood. As Professor Richard Wolff has argued, the rich ruling elite need to find a way to either enrich Europe anew or, at minimum, convince the masses to accept the coming harsh austerity. Russia is the answer to both challenges. The demonisation of Russia has been escalated “beyond even the levels achieved against Stalin and Stalinism during the Cold War,” creating a terrified public far easier to control in times of economic hardship. The great bogeyman of Russia is the easiest threat to dust off and reintroduce, and the paranoid atmosphere of war preparation provides the justification for the suspension of democratic norms, the reduction of social programmes, and the transfer of public wealth to the military-industrial complex. The crown jewel, however, would be the actual destruction, dismemberment, and commercial exploitation of the largest country by landmass in the world. The “subunits of old Russia,” in Wolff’s analysis, “would then offer Western Europe a new colonial opportunity, a vast expanse for profitable investment to obtain food, raw materials, and possibly workers to rejuvenate Western European capitalism.”

This analysis is consistent with a Marxist-Leninist understanding of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. Lenin argued that imperialism is characterised by the export of capital to backward countries where profits are higher, and that the struggle for the redivision of the world is an inherent feature of the imperialist system. The push for war with Russia represents the attempt by the European bourgeoisie to reverse the decline of their position through a new wave of primitive accumulation, seizing the resources of a defeated Russia in the same way that their predecessors seized the resources of Africa and Asia. The fact that this project risks nuclear war, and with it the destruction of most of humanity, is not a deterrent to a class that has demonstrated, through its response to the climate crisis, its willingness to sacrifice the future of the species for short-term profit. The calculus is cold but consistent: if the ruling class cannot preserve its wealth and power through the existing order, it will seek to create a new order through violence, even at the cost of civilisation itself.

The response of European publics to this project has been complicated by the success of the ideological apparatus in manufacturing consent. The demonisation of Russia has been relentless, and the mainstream media have consistently framed the conflict as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, between civilisation and barbarism. The fact that this framing elides the historical record of NATO expansion, the US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, and the systematic violation of the Minsk agreements by the Ukrainian government is a testament to the power of the propaganda apparatus to shape public perception. The anti-war movement has been deliberately fractured by the creation of multiple narratives and scapegoats, with people fighting about different wars and different causes, failing to see that they are all connected by the same corporate and class interests. The ruling class has successfully channelled legitimate grievances into support for a war that serves its own interests, and the populations of Europe are being marched toward a catastrophe that they do not understand.

The materialist analysis reveals that the European push for war is not a product of irrationality or malevolence but of the structural logic of capitalism in its late imperialist phase. The system has exhausted its capacity for peaceful accumulation, and the only remaining avenue for the preservation of elite wealth is the violent seizure of the resources of rivals. The fact that this project is objectively suicidal does not prevent its pursuit, because the class that pursues it calculates its interests differently from the class that would bear the consequences. The billions who would die in a nuclear war are not the decision-makers, and their lives are not a factor in the calculus of the ruling class. The proletariat, by contrast, has no interest in this war, and its interests lie in the defeat of the bourgeoisie both at home and abroad. As Lenin argued, the revolutionary class in a reactionary war cannot but wish defeat to its government, because the defeat of the imperialist state is the precondition for the victory of the proletariat. The war with Russia is not a war of national defence; it is a war of imperialist aggression, and the duty of the working class is to oppose it with every means at its disposal.

The implications of this analysis for the anti-war movement are profound. The movement must recognise that the enemy is not a particular politician or party but an entire class whose survival depends on global chaos. The wars in Ukraine, West Asia, and the Asia-Pacific are not separate conflicts but interconnected elements of a single campaign to disrupt the emergence of a multipolar world order that would challenge the hegemony of Western capital. The anti-war movement must unite across national boundaries, recognising that the working classes of Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States all share a common interest in ending a war that serves only the ruling class. This requires a strategy that goes beyond protest to the construction of counter-hegemonic institutions, alternative media, and the political organisation necessary to challenge the power of the bourgeoisie. The struggle is long, but the alternative is the destruction of civilisation itself.

The conclusion is inescapable: the European push for war with Russia is a desperate gambit by a ruling class that sees its wealth and power slipping away and is willing to risk the future of humanity to preserve them. The recolonisation of Russia, the theft of its assets, and the exploitation of its resources are the dreams of a class that cannot imagine a world in which it is not dominant. But these dreams are not grounded in reality. Russia cannot be defeated militarily, and the attempt to do so will only accelerate the decline of the West and the emergence of a multipolar world order. The question is whether that transition will occur peacefully or through the catastrophe that the ruling class is preparing. The answer depends on the capacity of the working class to recognise its interests and act on them.

Authored By: Global GeoPolitics

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