International Relations theory made easy (7): Marxism

Introductory lecture to the discipline of International Relations by Dr Patrick Theiner, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Recorded in late 2022.

== Timestamps ==
00:00 - Intro
00:44 - Where does Marxism start?
01:33 - Inequality: you vs. Elon Musk
05:19 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
08:55 - What is Marxism about?
12:01 - Why capitalism is exploitative
18:13 - Marxism and institutions
20:25 - Materialism
23:45 - Marx' critique of capitalism
26:02 - Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns during the lecture
27:17 - Marxism and IR theory
31:43 - The transnational capitalist class
33:57 - Marxist IR theory: Lenin
35:09 - Marxist IR theory: Luxemburg and Trotzky
37:14 - Marxist IR theory: Wallerstein and world-systems
41:41 - Marxism and the war in Ukraine
45:13 - The Ukraine war and imperialism
49:42 - Outro

[ginogarcia]

Well - tiny homes are the life for Filipinos who just need a simple home. Just don't got great jobs and healthcare yet haha

[jasimkhan]

Thank you sir❤❤❤
Waiting for next video

[Kirbytime]

The claim that Marxists aren't concerned about nationalism or that Marxists would expect the working classes of Ukraine & Russia to be in solidarity is directly contradicted by what Lenin said about the nature of imperialism, as well as Marxist analysis of the rest of the 20th century. Many Marxist revolutions incorporated nationalism to an extent (Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, China). The idea is that under a global capitalist system, the proletariat of an imperialist country will benefit from the exploitation of an imperialized country, and that benefit it used to alienate the workers of that country from the workers of the target country. For example, French prolerariat were given a small part of the surplus from the exploitation of Vietnam, so it disincentivizes them to call for their surplus tube from Vietnam to be ripped out, even though they are still being exploited by the French bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, many Marxists reached the conclusion that similar to how the proletariat are divided between colonizer & colonized, the bourgeoisie are also divided between the national bourgeoisie & international bourgeoisie. This division can be used by the proletariat for their own gain. National bourgeoisie can be collaborated with in order to win national liberation, hecause they too stand to benefit from an end to colonial rule (where surplus goes to the national bourgeoisie of another country, or international bourgeoisie in general). And thus, appeals to nationalism can be useful to attracting the national bourgeoisie to national liberation, similar to how Marx was supportive of some bourgeois revolutions in order to alter the mode of production from feudalism to capitalism.

In the case of Russia & Ukraine, it is Ukraine that is standing with the international capitalist order, while Russia is challenging the current international capitalist order with US/EU dominance. Specifically, it is a war between the international bourgeoisie and Russia's national bourgeoisie. Ukraine is not an important player in this conflict, except as serving as the battleground where this conflict is taking place. Ukraine does not have the sovereignty to make decisions indeoendent of the international capitalist order, which is why the US/UK veto peace talks, give them strategic directives, and are investing in the privatization of Ukraine. It is also especially convenient that the Ukrainian government has banned opposition parties and is no longer holding elections, which means that there is no risk of westerners investing in Zelenskyy's regime only to lose their investment if an oppostion leader somehow won an election and cancelled the previous contracts (see JCPOA once Trump got elected). Ukrainian nationalism primarily revolves around Stepan Bandera as a national hero, who is specifically someone who collaborated with fascists against Russia. It is intolerant towards ethnic minorities in Ukraine (especially Russians & Jews). Ukrainian nationalism at its core, is a negation of Russian nationalism, and the consequence of this is a conflict between Ukrainian bourgeoisie and Russian bourgeoisie, hence why the region has had conflict ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which supressed both nationalisms in favor of proletarian internationalism.

So ultimately, from a Marxist perspective, the war in Ukraine is similar to ww1: it is a war between imperialist powers, or more specifically, it is a war between the national bourgeoisie of different nations, whose nationalisms negate each other.

So nationalism, as part of the superstructure, actually plays a large role in suppressing worker solidarity across nations by maintaining a false consciousness in each individual country that reinforces itself on a global scale.

It should be important to note that not all nationalisms are the same, and thus an ethnic nationalism based on 1 ethnic group can impact a country in a very different way compared to a civic, inclusive nationalism. The latter can more easily be transitioned to internationalism, while the former can lead to fascism. Russia's civic nationalism, where ethnic minorities are included for consideration (see Putin's remarks on Quran burning), contrasts with Ukraine's ethnic nationalism, where non-Ukrainians are to have their language, culture, and identity supressed, especially if they are Russian.

This post is getting very long, so I'll just end it on this:

Ideas of the superstructure are incredibly important to understand weak spots in the capitalist order in order to overthrow them. Marxists should carefully analyze religion, nationalism, culture, etc. and use them as tools to advance the interests of the working class, but at the same time be careful not to engage in tailism.

[germanwarcraft]

At 41:41 your wording and terminoligy is strange and the way you expressed the view of a marxist on ukraine is a bit missleading.
It is a war about the sales market and cheap laborforce of ukraine. Sure via annexation russia would basically integrate urkaine into its own sales market, but why needed russia to attack ukraine at that precise moment? In August 2013, Ukraine applied for observer status in the Eurasian Economic Union, but under Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian government also set itself the goal of signing an association agreement with the European Union in November 2013. That agreement was not in line with the free trade agreement between russia and uk, as suddenly european goods could be exported via ukraine into russia and ukrainians could work in the eu. The overthrow of the pro russian government and the rise of a pro european government sparked the so called "ukraine crisis". So a marxist would see the aggression of russia against urkaine as a "defensive" act to protect its sales marekts and flow of cheap laborforce.

Why attack ukraine when there are so many negative sequels coming along??
First the war started in 2013/14 and then became a fullscale war in 2022. One of the biggest industrys of russia is the gas-industry, germany agreed to build the north stream 2 pipeline after the annexation of crimea in 2015 and started building it in 2020 and and influencial european leaders attended the Petersburger Economic Forum (like Macro in 2018) years in the war in Donbass. Russia didnt expect huge consequences after a quick win in ukraine as it hasnt faced any beforehand.Ukraine didnt implode and become a faill state (cause of financial help by the west) thats why russia needed to invdade.

But the war didnt end quickly and circumstances changed.
The european countrys started very slowly to realize that the war will be drawn out and only then they started sending weapons and such and at least in germany a lot of politicans openly talked about receiving gas from russia after the war is ended (thats why it was important to destroy the pipelins so that germany has no further economic interest against that stand in the way of supporting ukraine).

Importance of nationalsm
For a marxist the substructure constitutes the superstructure. As a oligarchic capitalist economy (substructure) doesnt go along with a liberal ideology, therefore it produces ethno-russian nationalis as ideology (superstructure) which works very well in accordance with the russian sales market of the former sowjetunion with countrys that have quite high numers of russian speakers and the type of regime.
That was already realized in the first world war by marxists and isnt new (you yourself named lenin). It can be very well be explained within the theory. As you said with your own words the system wont fix itself, it has to be overcome by the working class, who as to be leaded by a avangard movement, to have the counsciusness as such.


Some very shortend points. Maybe i receive an answer? 😅

[leststoner]

Exactly, whoever wins Ukraine or Russia, its citizens will still have to wake up and go to work the next day.

[ParallelNewsNetwork]

Capitalism seems like a micro version of communism with less risk of totalitarianism

[Treesforuganda]

Sir make a presentation on all theories of IR

[PaulvonOberstein]

This lecture is a good example of how Marxists (the lecturer is almost certainly a Marxist despite his denial) are utterly incapable of engaging with their own ideology from an objective, detached perspective and instead are compelled to proselytize their ideology. Their thinking is so mired in their own worldview and they are so committed to it being "the truth" that they seem incapable of imagining that it might be wrong or looking at the world from a different framework or perspective. This makes perfect sense when one considers that Marxism is as much a quasi-religion (be sure to make pilgrimage to St. Rosa's memorial in Berlin) as it is a political theory.