Under the pressure of the non-aggression pact, signed by Hitler and Stalin on August, 23, 1938, most of the communist movement, including the Communist Party, USA, kept its distance from the widening war between Hitler’s remilitarized Germany and other European states. With its signing, the military clash became overnight no more than a fight between imperialist states with no democratic or anti-fascist content in the eyes of the communists. In the U.S. Roosevelt, not Hitler, became the party’s target of criticism and vitriol. Much the same, albeit with different particulars, happened elsewhere. It was’t until June 22, 1941 when Hitler’s invaded of the first land of socialism did this policy change.

Overnight, the inter-imperialist conflict in the political imagination of the communists turned into an existential, all class fight for democracy and against fascism. In the U.S., it would be led in the U.S. by none other than FDR.

In today’s circumstances, I can see echoes of this mistaken policy once again insofar as the democratic, anti-imperialist content of the war between Russia and Ukraine shows up on a much lower register of the communist movement than the clash between NAT0 and Putin’s Russia. As is said, past is prologue to the future.

If Putin agrees to a ceasefire and a de-escalation, it seems obvious to me that three factors stand out in an explanation: one – and this is by far the most important – is the armed resistence of the Ukrainian army and people; another is the further congealing of a Ukrainian identity. People don’t die for a country unless their believe it’s theirs. The last is the provision of certain types of aid, especially military aid, to the freedom fighters by NATO.

NATO’s provision of military hardware to the war effort is a difficult needle to thread considering that it runs the danger of escalating the conflict miltarily and geographically. But so far it has been done judiciously by and large. In its absence it is hard to see how the Ukrainian army would have fought Russia’s army to a standstill. And in doing so give some hope that Putin won’t achieve his war aims and Ukraine will remain a sovereign and independent state.

That said, a diplomatic-peace offensive by the Biden administration is very much in order.

While walking out of the farmer’s market Saturday, I ran into a oldish troubadour – he’s there every week – strumming his banjo and singing Dylan’s Jokerman. So I happily listened. At song’s end I mentioned to him that I had played Jokerman roughly a dozen times this week. He was surprised to hear that, thinking, I suppose, that it isn’t a song that most people are familiar with. By conversation’s end we were kindred spirits – in that moment anyway. But these days, I will take that!

Biden is right. A worldwide struggle between authoritarian and democratic rule is gaining steam. Moreover, it takes place in the context of a crystallizing hegomonic clash between competing blocs on a global level.

Where Biden errs is in his assertion – most recently in his speech in Poland – that the resumption of the Cold War, albeit in new conditions, is the proper response to these challenges. It isn’t.

Instead, he might want to take a page out of the much maligned Mikhail Gorbachev’s book and accent peace, disarmament, sustainability, and global cooperation as well as democracy, equality, and glasnost (openess and transparency). It will be the force of example and policies along these lines, not the projection of military power and a restart of the Cold War that will secure a humane, democratic, and liveable world as well as the progressive dimensions – and there are many – of his agenda.

To think that Putin is a creature of and restrained by a circle of oligarchs finds no evidence in reality; only a simplistic reading of Marxist theory, in which abstractions – the executive branch of government is no more than a committee charged with the task of managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie – crowd out real political processes, allows one to make such a claim. Actually, it’s the other way around in Putin’s Russia.

In a similar vein, the suggestion that the current goverment in Russia is center left finds no evidence in reality either. To believe so is to take flight from reality.