By Hari Kumar, Red Phoenix international correspondent.

The oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who founded the armed mercenary group called “Wagner,” is today’s Coriolanus. Similar to that Roman general in an arrogant hubris fueling a spectacular turn-coat-ism, he now only awaits his own murder. As the chagrined Ukrainian Mykhailo Podolyak (advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine) said, “You almost nullified Putin, took control of the central authorities, reached Moscow and suddenly … you retreat. Because one very specific intermediary with a dubious reputation (#Lukashenko) promised security guarantees from the person (#Putin) who ordered to destroy you in the morning.”

A recap of events

Recent volcanic events are straight forward to describe. A missile was aimed at Vladimir Putin and his regime. The bomb was launched after criminal charges were laid by Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu against Prigozhin. 

While Prigozhin did not call for the overthrow of Putin himself, only for Shoigu and his team, he seized military installations at Rostov-on-Don. Wagner armored columns and troops rolled on the M4 motorway against Moscow. In short: an attempted coup. Putin fled Moscow on his presidential jet. But within 200 km (125 miles) of Moscow, the armed threat was defused. The Republic of Belarus President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko offered asylum of sorts to Prigozhin. Simultaneously, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov assured Prigozhin that:

“the criminal case against… Prigozhin, would be dropped. Prigozhin will go to Belarus, Peskov said, and the fighters who rebelled with him would not be prosecuted by law given their ‘service at the front.’ Wagner fighters who did not participate in the mutiny can sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, he said.” 

At last reporting the armored column was turned back, and the Wagner occupation of Rostov-on-Don (the jump-off point for munitions and Russian troops) against Ukraine was ended:

“Wagner armored vehicles began leaving the military hub of Rostov-on-Don, in southwestern Russia, on Saturday night… The fighters’ departure from Rostov, whose occupation sent an image of strength, added credibility to the deal apparently reached in talks with the Belarusian leader.”

Perhaps the last word of the news roundup goes to President Zelenskyy of Ukraine and his message on Twitter: “Today, the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything.” 

How can Marxists understand these events? 

The class character of Russia today

Putin’s passage to power continued the destruction of the socialist USSR which was initiated by Khrushchev and extended under Bulganin and Brezhnev. The latter created a state capitalist enterprise favoring heavy industrialists, often army based. By extending privatization in the post Gorbachev era of Chubais, the state capitalists were enormously weakened. American capital was allowed entry into the stripping of State resources to their delight. But this spurred national Russian capital to take back control. That began with criminal gang activities at financial institutions, open extortion, seizure of State assets, and corrupt governing bodies – particularly from Leningrad. This was Putin’s domain. From here he de-legitimized Chechnya’s national aspirations as terrorism. This justified his murderous rampages engineering false-flag explosions in Moscow, and the brutal war in Chechnya, and enabled his militarized hold that finally established the oligarchic regime in Russia. Russia under Putin was characterized in 2022 as “a hyper-nationalist neo-imperialist state while Putin himself is an oligarch and a ruthless imperialist, not ‘an anti-fascist’.”

If Putin was initially just one hyena amongst others feeding off the carcass of the former USSR, he rapidly extinguished most others — including Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Navalny — which leads to the logical query…

Who is Yevgeny V. Prigozhin?

Prigozhin is a Russian businessman who until recently was a close associate of Mr. Putin.

Born in 1961 in then-Leningrad, Prigozhin was imprisoned in 1981 for robbery amongst other crimes. After serving nine years, he “opened a hot-dog stand, eventually leading to an entrepreneurial career starting restaurants and convenience stores.”

Prigozhin was labelled “Putin’s chef” because of his catering business, which has staged elaborate state banquets for Mr. Putin.

But he came more to prominence when he formed the mercenary group ‘Wagner.’ This first saw prominence during the 2014 annexation of the Crimea by Russia:

“The entity first emerged in 2014, during Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The U.S. government has said that the organization is financed by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin… 

The group reportedly took its name from the nom de guerre of its leader, Dmitry Utkin, a retired Russian military officer. Mr. Utkin is said to have chosen Wagner to honor the composer, who was a favorite of Hitler’s. Despite the Kremlin’s denial of any ties to Wagner, Mr. Utkin has been photographed next to Mr. Putin.”

Kim,V. (2022, March 31). “What is the Wagner Group?”. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/world/europe/wagner-group-russia-ukraine.html

After that the Wagner mercenaries were used as an extension of the Russian state arm overseas. It enabled a plausible deniability of Russian imperialist brutality and extra-judicial murders in Syria and elsewhere, especially in Africa:

“In addition to their involvement in Syria, Libya, Central African Republic and Ukraine, Wagner operatives have also fought in Sudan, Mali and Mozambique, exerting Russian influence by proxy, doing the bidding of authoritarian leaders and, at times, seizing oil and gas fields or securing other material interests. Increasingly, they’ve become more formalized and have started acting more like Western military contractors.” 

He appeared to have a mandate from Putin for electronic disruption and media control. That led to his indictment in 2018 by a US federal grand jury, and personal sanctions for “interfering in the American election through the Internet Research Agency, a troll factory that spread falsehoods and waged information warfare against the United States, in support of the presidential campaign of Trump.”

Wagner goes to Ukraine

After Putin and the Russian imperialists started their poorly led aggressive war of invasion in Ukraine, Wagner was sent to the Ukrainian Front. Prigozhin, being familiar with Russian jails himself, recruited into Wagner from prisoners. Wagner’s moderate successes – achieved only at high death rates – both swelled Prigozhin’s head, and infuriated him against the Russian army leadership. Especially after the recent, grinding senseless battle of Bakhmut, many Wagner troops died. Prigozhin accused Russian commanders of incompetence and inadequate supply of munitions. This rapidly began a “tough talk” set of diatribes, with Prigozhin “using social media to turn tough talk and brutality into his personal brand… launching accusations at Russia’s military leadership, blaming it for failing to provide his forces with enough ammunition and ignoring soldiers’ struggles… Mr. Putin had not checked Mr. Prigozhin’s online accusations, despite jailing or fining many other critics of the war. Spewing vulgarities, disregarding the law and displaying loyalty to no one but Mr. Putin, Mr. Prigozhin.. became a symbol of wartime Russia.”

All this likely gave Prigozhin delusions of grandeur as a “savior” of Russia. It appears he even met with Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov. Prigozhin made extraordinary offers of treason to reveal Russia’s most vulnerable troop locations to Ukraine:

“In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer. Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord… Two Ukrainian officials confirmed that Prigozhin has spoken several times to the Ukrainian intelligence directorate, known as HUR. One official said that Prigozhin extended the offer regarding Bakhmut more than once, but that Kyiv rejected it…”

Harris, S. & Khurshudyan, I. (2023, May 15). “Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/

Conclusions

There were early reports that dissident pro-Navalny forces in Russia had prematurely hailed the attack and were moving to join it. But obviously Prigozhin finally realized he was unlikely to prevail. Putin for his part invoked the Civil War in 1917, facilely painting that as a time of “intrigues, squabbles and politicking behind the backs of the army and the nation [turning] into the greatest turmoil… the tragedy of the civil war.” In reality the Civil War was far more: it was an open fight between the Bolshevik new order and the ex-Tsarist, pro-Western imperialists, who were trying to dislodge the Lenin Government.

While there are a number of pro-Marxist and Marxist-Leninist forces in Russia today, none have reached anywhere near the point of being able to intervene with mass credibility. Until such a party emerges, anti-Putin struggles are doomed to remain largely in the realm of inter-oligarch struggles. 

In those the people have no voice. That is not to say that alliances at certain points might not be necessary. But only a principled working class party leading the way forward can hope to dislodge the oligarchs and recreate conditions for a new socialist revolution in Russia. The same largely applies to Ukraine, although there a precondition will be the removal and forcing back of Russian aggression. Only then can remaining reactionary forces – including their own oligarchy – be dealt with. 

Categories: International, Russia