Against the Stream: Gaza genocide escalates Ukraine peace talks and comrades arrested in Pakistan A

Against The Stream · 2025-05-22

Core Argument

The central thesis of this episode is that the Western ruling classes are losing control of the geopolitical crises they have created, and that the mass media functions as a crucial ideological lever to obscure this reality. The hosts argue that three seemingly disparate stories — the Washington DC shooting, the Ukraine peace negotiations, and the repression of communists in Gilgit-Baltistan — are united by a single thread: the deepening crisis of imperialist authority and the growing gap between official narratives and material reality.

The episode claims that US imperialism is in relative decline, unable to defeat the Houthis despite overwhelming military superiority, and that this weakness forces Trump to cut losses in both the Middle East and Ukraine. The European ruling classes, by contrast, are portrayed as living in a fantasy, refusing to accept that the Ukraine war is lost and continuing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives for imperialist ambitions that can no longer be sustained. The shooting in Washington is presented not as an act of terrorism but as the desperate product of a genocide that Western governments have enabled for 19 months, while the media's focus on "anti-semitism" serves to criminalise dissent and protect the ruling class's strategic interests in Israel.

The Gilgit-Baltistan segment grounds the analysis in class terms: the struggle there is not merely a national question but a fight against a land grab that would dispossess working people for the benefit of imperialist mining interests, with the Pakistani state using reactionary nationalism to suppress opposition.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on several classical Marxist concepts:

The media as an ideological state apparatus: The episode opens with a clear statement that the media's function is not to inform but to "cover for the true class divisions in society" and "cover for the true intentions of the ruling class." This is a direct application of the Marxist theory of ideology — that the ruling ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class.

The distinction between reactionary nationalism and the nationalism of the oppressed: The hosts explicitly differentiate between the nationalism of the rich, which obscures class contradictions, and the nationalism of the poor, which is fundamentally about "the question of bread." This draws on Lenin's and Stalin's writings on the national question, and on the Marxist tradition of supporting the right of oppressed nations to self-determination while opposing chauvinist nationalism.

Imperialism and the uneven development of capitalism: The analysis of US decline relative to China, and the inability of the most powerful imperialist state to defeat one of the world's poorest countries, reflects Lenin's theory of imperialism as a system of uneven and combined development. The episode argues that US imperialism is overstretched, unable to fight multiple wars simultaneously, and being forced to retreat from both Ukraine and the Middle East.

The class character of the state: The repression in Pakistan is understood not as a matter of law and order but as the state acting in the interests of the ruling class — specifically, to facilitate a land grab for rare earth minerals that will benefit imperialist corporations.

The analysis sits firmly within the revolutionary Marxist tradition associated with the RCI: it rejects reformism, treats the state as an instrument of class rule, and insists that only the overthrow of capitalism can resolve the crises described.

Conjunctural Relevance

The episode is dated 22 May 2025 and engages with events from the preceding fortnight:

Gaza: The episode reports that Israel has renewed its ground invasion of Gaza after an 11-week blockade, with the stated aim of forcibly removing the population of northern Gaza. The UN humanitarian chief warned that 14,000 young children are at risk of severe malnutrition. The hosts note that 53,000 Palestinians have been officially killed, but argue the real figure is much higher. They highlight that the UK Labour government has increased weapons shipments to Israel and continues to provide intelligence for targeting, even as David Lammy publicly calls the war "morally unjustifiable."

The Washington DC shooting: Two Israeli embassy staff were killed by Elias Rodriguez, who shouted "Free Palestine" upon arrest. The episode situates this within the context of rising anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian violence in the US that goes unreported, and argues that the media's focus on "anti-semitism" is a deliberate attempt to criminalise the Palestine solidarity movement.

Ukraine: The episode provides a detailed chronology of the peace negotiations. On 5 May, European leaders issued an ultimatum to Putin for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. Putin responded by offering negotiations in Istanbul on 12 May. Zelensky initially refused, then sent a delegation after a three-hour meeting with Erdogan. The outcome was a prisoner exchange and agreement to further talks — but no ceasefire. Trump then had a two-hour phone call with Putin and signalled he wants to lift sanctions in exchange for trade deals, effectively abandoning Ukraine. The hosts report that European leaders were "in a state of shock" at Trump's position.

US military weakness: The episode reports that a 30-day US campaign against the Houthis cost $1 billion, failed to destroy Houthi air defences, and resulted in the loss of seven MQ-9 Reaper drones and an F-18. The Houthis successfully hit Ben Gurion Airport. The Pentagon reportedly estimated it would need another 10 months just to suppress Houthi air defences.

Gilgit-Baltistan: On 14 May, leading members of the Awami Action Committee — including communists from the Revolutionary Communist Party of Pakistan — were arrested for mobilising against a "land reform" bill that would transfer communal land to the Pakistani state for sale to mining corporations. The region has never been formally incorporated into Pakistan, leaving its people without constitutional rights.

Where the Argument Continues

The episode explicitly leaves open several threads:

The trajectory of US-Iran relations: The hosts note that US intelligence leaked Israeli plans to strike Iran, apparently as a warning to Netanyahu not to proceed. They suggest this tension between US and Israeli interests will be a major story going forward.

The collapse of the Ukrainian front: The episode reports mass desertions, a public resignation by a senior commander, and widespread corruption in weapons procurement. The implication is that Ukraine's military position is unsustainable without US support, and that a collapse is imminent.

The Gilgit-Baltistan struggle: The Awami Action Committee had called a grand jirga for 24-25 May to plan mass mobilisation. The arrests are presented as an attempt to decapitate the movement, but the hosts imply the struggle will continue.

These threads are developed in other Against the Stream episodes and in the RCI's theoretical journal, The Spectre of Communism. The analysis of the Ukraine war as an imperialist project that has failed is a recurring theme; the hosts reference previous episodes where they discussed the Kursk incursion as a "media stunt." The broader theoretical framework — the crisis of US imperialism, the role of reactionary nationalism, and the necessity of revolutionary organisation — is developed in the RCI's programme and in texts available on their website.

Connections

Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The episode's analysis of US overstretch and the rivalry with China is a contemporary application of Lenin's theory.

Lenin and Stalin on the national question: The distinction between the nationalism of the oppressed and the nationalism of the oppressor is a direct inheritance of this tradition.

Mao Zedong, On Contradiction: The episode's method of identifying the principal contradiction (US-China rivalry) and showing how secondary contradictions (Ukraine, Middle East) are subordinated to it reflects a Maoist analytical approach.

Other Against the Stream episodes: The hosts reference previous discussions of the Kursk incursion and the Ukraine war more broadly. Regular listeners would be familiar with the RCI's position that the war is an imperialist conflict provoked by NATO.

RCI texts on the Palestinian question: The RCI has published extensively on the genocide in Gaza, arguing that the Palestinian struggle is part of the global class war and that the two-state solution is a dead end.

The Spectre of Communism: The RCI's theoretical journal develops the analysis of the current conjuncture in greater depth, particularly the crisis of US hegemony and the rise of multipolarity.

Key Quotes

1. "The media, the education system, and so on represent an important lever of capitalist rule in society. They dispel ideas that serve to cover for the true class divisions in society and cover for the true intentions of the ruling class in carrying out their projects."

2. "If you want to know the reason why someone like Elias Rodriguez carried out this action, you probably have to look for the fact that this genocide in Gaza has now been going on for 19 months... People have been demonstrating, there's been a wave of public opinion, mass demonstrations, encampments, and still the western governments continue to fully back and support Israel. So some people felt completely frustrated, angry, powerless and decided to take this action."

3. "The mightiest country in the world militarily and economically taking on one of the poorest countries of the world... and yet American imperialism could not make a dent in the capabilities of the Houthis. What does that say about the American army? If they can't even take out the Houthis, what can they do against a country like Iran?"

4. "The Europeans do not want peace. They're the ones who started this war. They provoked this war in order to defeat Russia, to weaken Russia, and to subjugate it. It was an imperialist project, but they lost and they don't want to accept this."

5. "Nationalism is a very broad concept but it has two sides. There's the nationalism of the poor and of the oppressed, which is about the question of bread. That puts those movements on the side of the working class. And then you have the nationalism of the rich, of the ruling classes, which is a means to cover class contradictions and to rally a section of the poor and oppressed behind the regime."