Interview with a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth League (bolsheviks)

In September, Rebel Youth met with a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth League (bolsheviks) (RKSM(b)) to discuss the realities of the war economy in Russia. As the inter-imperialist war between Ukraine and Russia is well into its fourth year, the economic realities and oppression within Russia have intensified. Sanctions from NATO-allied countries have aggravated the conditions within the country, and comrades are forced to organize underground.

Canada’s continued participation in funding the war has only increased the drive to militarism and the war economy in Canada, Ukraine, and Russia. As Canada continues to arm Ukraine and has recently toured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy around the country, Canada and its allies continue to strangle the Russian workers with sanctions and prolong the inter-imperialist conflict.

It is under this context that Rebel Youth met with an anonymous member of the RKSM(b) operating underground to discuss the effects of the war economy in Russia. [Editor’s note: for the comrade’s anonymity they will be referred to as C in the interview].

RY: Could you please describe the overall economic situation in Russia?

C: There are so many statements we can make from this question. At a basic level, each war needs money, and this money needs to be prepared beforehand. The National Wealth Fund has been directed towards the war economy, and this is a process which dates back years. The fund was ready in case of a war, and at the end of the day, this was utilized to fund a war with Ukraine. Right now, the Russian economy is pointed in two directions: towards military spending, and towards everything else. One direction is funded on credit, whereas the other is funded on credits from the National Wealth Fund, where interest is accrued on military expenditure.

At the outbreak of war there were sanctions. This saw patriotic propaganda from the government that claimed Russia could survive sanctions. As the war continued, this proved to be false.

Before the war, the national debt was 22 billion rubles. In the fours years since, our debt has doubled. To illustrate this shift, it took 35 years for our debt to reach 22 billion. This has resulted in prices for everything going up: groceries, rent, gas. For some Russian workers, especially young workers, 60-70 per cent of their salary goes towards landlords. Interest rates are close to 20 per cent. Companies cannot make profits with these percentages. We are seeing a crisis where monopolies are getting bigger very quickly to swallow up businesses which cannot survive the inflation we are seeing in Russia, leading to further consolidation.

RY: How has the war affected organizing? What is the extent of the repression seen in the country?

C: Even in 2022, things were not good. Prior to 2022, there were many protests in Moscow which faced heavy repression. You could say that the state was training for repression. After 2022, there was a wave of repression. At the outbreak of the war, the government declared a “special military operation,” and used this as an excuse to crack down on anti-war positions. It was illegal to call it a war at the outbreak, many were imprisoned.

Nowadays there’s normalization of war due to the contradictions of the war. Despite this, anti-war organizations are suffering because of court decisions and previous legal battles. There is lots of fear.

A year ago some workers in a factory with military contractors attempted to organize. In this factory, groups of workers had different salaries. One group demanded the same wages as the other workers. The leader of this group encountered police repression, police showing up to his home, his workplace, and threatening him. In response, the organizing employees petitioned the boss of the factory. The leader of this group was arrested for 15 days, and his lawyer was stopped on the way to the court by police, making him late and unable to properly represent the organizer. There have been many similar cases. The goal is to threaten employees.

RY: What response are we seeing to recruitment and conscription?

C: When the war began there was a lot of patriotism, and lots of volunteerism.

The “special operation” lasted longer than anticipated, and mobilization increased. People opposed as they felt they were lied to about the nature of the conflict. After this first wave of mobilization, opposition to the war efforts increased. Every day we see more people still opposing the war.

We have also seen contractors who join to fight. Remember the debt to inflation I mentioned? These contracts pay well. Many join up because they need money to support and provide for their families.

In the last year, we have seen the government work with students. There are recruiters in schools who hold lectures where students are made to attend.

We had a campaign where students shared stories about what’s happening on campuses. For example, recruiters were targeting students with bad marks to sign a one year contract with promises to be deployed to the backlines. We see that this tactic failed, students did not care.

Our society is against this war, and it is suffering. You cannot see this from the outside because of all of the misinformation from the media owned by the ruling class in Russia.

We are seeing a possibility of a second wave of mobilization around the [September legislative] election. The elections are used to normalize and justify the decisions made surrounding the war.

RY: How has the war economy impacted the youth in particular?

C: The war economy should be familiar to all comrades. We are facing job shortages. That’s the problem. Crisis on the job market and the “special operation” did not go as planned. Facing financial questions with more money diverted to the war, the government had to find the money from somewhere. Cuts to education, healthcare, the social sector primarily. What is interesting because of big tensions in Russian society, the ruling class needs to take its frustration with inflation out. Thus, the immigration question and reactionary trends which seek to divide the workers. Ruskaya obshina and severniy chelovek come to mind as the current reactionary trend. Of course, this is an effort to try and separate society to find enemies in the working class. This “immigrant question” is further used to justify cuts to social services.

The military sector is getting more money, with opportunities for higher salaries.

The government said sanctions are not working because the GDP is increasing, but what is tricky here is that with the GDP, it is increasing not because of the manufacturing of goods for society, but it increases for war related manufacturing and not economic prosperity for workers.

RY: There are some in the West who claim, due to Russia’s resources and economic relations through BRICS that the Russian people can withstand the sanctions. As you just said, this is propaganda from the Russian media. What are the real impacts of the sanctions? How are they impacting workers?

C: Firstly, let’s discuss resources. People don’t have access to these natural resources. The people don’t see the profits because of the oil monopolies, for example. What is going on is as follows. When the war began it was a big question regarding Russian-Western trade relations. There were narratives of Western threats, but trade between Russia and Europe continued. The oil trade in particular is highly profitable for Russian monopolies.

Russia describes that these companies provide taxes. In reality, they are all subjected to tax breaks. Unofficially, they are just not paying taxes. These profits don’t go back to the state or the people.

The result of the gain of the monopolies is evident if you consult the Forbes list. Russian went from having 122 to 166 billionaires during the war. There has been an incredible wealth transfer. The main problem here is the concentration of the ruling class.

Regarding BRICS, we in Russian society do not see BRICS as a real power. In economic relations between Russia and China, there is nuance. There have been some problems selling gas to the West after the war started, so Russian companies have turned to the East to sell oil. The so-called alliance is a fabrication because China is exploiting Russia’s position by pushing for lower prices to get more out of the situation where Russia has to sell more to China.

Russia’s still not in a position to accept China’s conditions, as there remains some access to Eastern European markets. This is not a strong economic relationship. This is a similar situation with other BRICS nations.

Can the Russian people survive under the sanctions? We cannot survive our ruling class. But it is worse than it was. A good indicator of the situation is demographics. From 2023-2025, there was a natural decline of 1.7 million people. People are not having kids, society is not reproducing itself. It’s also hard to get accurate numbers as we cannot fully understand death rates versus those of us fleeing the country since 2022. The government is aware of these problems and has worked to cancel these statistics and prevent them from being published going forwards.

The sanctions don’t affect the ruling class. There is currently a record level of profits for the banks. Sanctions are merely increasing the existing contradictions of capitalism.

In our society, people are just starting to understand one statement. Through the past five years, there have been many sanctions. The biggest influence on our society was not the sanctions from outside, but suffering from sanctions from the inside. The main struggles we are facing are not from Europe, USA, or China, but from the Russian government. Cutting to education, healthcare, internet access, free speech. The main threat to workers in Russia is from our own ruling class.