The conflict in Ukraine is an atavistic return to the world of 1914

[Prigozhin began making veiled threats to Russia's military command as his men ran out of munitions needed to maintain their campaign, telling the governor of Russian city Svedlovsk, "During the 1941-45 war … Stalin simply shot people like you" and "I’m sure that the time is not far off when people will reach boiling point and raise you and people like you up on pitchforks." ] The irony of history : A good percentage of older Russians still have warm memories of that " Man of Steel " " communist " leader Joseph Stalin who did lead " Mother Russia " to victory over invading Nazis in World War II. What if the fall of Putin will ironically -bring back the Russia familiar to the West for 70 years - the Soviet Union established by the ORIGINALS in 1917 the Old Bolsheviks, then led by two true revolutionary shakers of the world, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky ? Recall that THIS revolution did indeed inspire the workers of the world . All this was recorded in radical American journalist John Reed 's famous book " Ten Days That Shook The World ". Despite the chaos and confusion I don't see any " New American Century " ( for American imperialism ) coming out of another historic catastrophe for Russia. Even for democratic , anti-Stalinist socialists the collapse of the old " communist " Soviet Union circa 1991 was a tragedy of history. A POLITICAL revolution was still possible that kept in order SOCIALIZED industry and state property . POST-COMMUNIST Russia became very much CAPITALIST - betraying the principles of the 1917 October Revolution. Leon Trotsky did not rule this development out in his classic " The Revolution Betrayed ". Trotsky was assassinated by Stalinist agents in Mexico in 1940. The conflict between Putin's POST-COMMUNIST Russia and the United States and all the bourgeois governments of Europe has nothing to do with the exalted principles of " OUR democracy " vs. evil totalitarianism . And it is not over a dubiously " sovereign " Ukraine led by the puffed up NATO " hero ", war monger Zelensky. The conflict is , in fact , an atavistic return to the world of 1914 when the " Great War " slaughtered millions over clashing nation-state interests. And the WILSONIAN blather which justified President Woodrow Wilson entering that conflict - " to make the world safe for democracy " -was just as stale and fatuous back then. Wilsonian blather !