My name is Adam Novak, I'm one of the coordinators of the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine. We participate in the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign because we believe that liberation of all Russian anti-war prisoners is an important pillar in the struggle to end, end the war. And in that sense, it's good for Russia and it's good for Ukraine.

This session is on imperialism. I guess most of us who are here in this meeting are interested in that theme - understanding imperialism so that we understand how the world works, the decline of the United States, the conflicts in the Middle East, the rise of China, and of course to the topics we're discussing today: the nature of the Russian state and class relations under the Putinist project. To what extent is Russia imperialist? Or is Russia somehow defending itself in a defensive war against imperialism? Is this an inter-imperialist conflict? These are surely questions that many of of us have thought about intensively in the last few years.

I won't surprise you by saying that many of us in the Ukraine solidarity movement are not particular fans of Boris Kagarlitsky. We don’t think he ever understood the national question in the context of Russia as a multinational state - as Greg called it, a declining empire, a degenerating empire, a dissolving empire. We also remember well how Kagarlitsky acted in the earlier period of Russian aggression in Georgia in 2008 and Russian interference and finally invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014-16. Back then, Kagarlitsky had some kind of hopes, illusions or belief that something positive could come from that Russian aggression.

Indeed, for me, one of the disappointments of his latest book is that he didn't deal head on with that disaster, that failure of part of the Russian left.

I don’t know how he now explains that period. We'll have to wait for him and the other antiwar prisoners to be released to know what he now feels about that period and the trajectory that he and some of his comrades from that period have followed since. In any case, for many of us in the Ukrainian solidarity movement, one of the motivations for being involved in this campaign is that since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, Kagarlitsky has remained in Russia and spoken out against the war as well as some of its impacts inside the Russian Federation.

And very interestingly, and I think to the consternation, perhaps even the disappointment of some of his strongest supporters in the West, Kagarlitsky now says very clearly that his preferred solution for Russia is a defeat in Ukraine. He says that this will open the way towards - I think he didn't use the phrase political revolution – towards some kind of transformation, some unleashing of positive dynamics inside the Russian Federation. He stresses that this would create new opportunities for the Russian left, even if these are unpredictable. We heard it also in his recent letter from prison that was read out earlier. We don’t know exactly how such a scenario would develop, and the Russian left can't yet know exactly how it will respond.

So, Kagarlitsky has made that very strong statement in in favor of a Russian defeat, which is a brave step from somebody who remained in the Russian Federation, was in prison, and has chosen not to recant that statement.

At the same time, there are still other ambiguities in Kagarlitsky’s position which, if he was free, it would be good to discuss with him. For example, in his his most recent statement about the future of Ukraine, he said that Russia should withdraw to the February 2022 contact line, and UN forces should be interposed, presumably to prevent Ukraine from taking back Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.

I don't see how that is compatible with his other stated belief that a Russian defeat in Ukraine is essential for some kind of positive transformation inside Russia. Well, we'll have to wait for his liberation to discuss that with him

Today, we're here to explore different perspectives on imperialism, not necessarily related only to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and not necessarily related only to the class nature of Putinist Russia.
Kagarlitsky is often associated with the world systems theory school. We don't have a panelist directly from that tradition. Our three panelists are more focused on issues of the class struggle, ideology, history and so on. But, as in our previous sessions, participants are welcome to make short contributions or ask questions in the chat or after the panelists have spoken.

As you've seen in the program, we have three panelists: Robert Brenner, who has written extensively on the class struggle aspects of capitalist development; Ilya Matveyev, who's written about ideological and political aspects of the Putinist project, including a very interesting recently published article in Green Left Weekly. And, of course Hanna Perekhoda, a Donetsk native, active in the the Ukrainian radical left, whose academic work is on Russian imperial history, and nationalism in Russia and Ukraine.

So, three very interesting panelists. I'll invite Robert to take the floor first, please.