Thoughts?
Don’t agree with his assessment at all pretty much, but still interested what yous think about that stance, because really I’ve not seen much theory based discussion on the topic since the early days of the conflict.
Thoughts?
Don’t agree with his assessment at all pretty much, but still interested what yous think about that stance, because really I’ve not seen much theory based discussion on the topic since the early days of the conflict.
They are by manner of action and results anti-imperialist.
I am so tired of this. This is a country that supports the sanctioned and strangled global south, that does business, arms them, helps them in votes at the UN, etc. What do you call that? I call it anti-imperialist solidarity. It’s not done for the best reasons as Russia is not communist, it is done pragmatically but it is done. What do the Cubans, the Venezuelans, the Chinese think of Russia and its support of them and friendship and resistance against the American global NATO imperialist order? Yet here you have once again westerners playing purity police.
There are not two dueling, equal, equally bad and threatening, equally anti-socialist imperialist blocs in the modern world. There is only one: the NATO led order. There is simply no room for another short of NATO fragmenting to pieces. Anyone acting against NATO which is the primary obstacle to socialism as well as global south liberation from neo-colonialism and imperialist plunder is as a matter of fact acting against the imperialist order, against imperialism.
Russia may want to be imperialist but it cannot be. They are until the fall of NATO bedfellows with us, with China, with the people of the global south struggling against the fascist extreme-reaction imperialist order of the US/NATO. At that point things will change but I think when that happens Russia will not be in any place to immediately replace them and many nations will have their first breath of fresh air in a long, long time and it will be many years before Russia would be in a place to similarly control them.
Remember the present imperialist order was not built in a decade, it was built on the order of centuries, it rests on the foundations of European colonialism and empire-building. The methods of control, loans through the world bank, superstructure dominance via media dominance and control of the global entertainment landscape, military training of officers in other militaries in the US to threaten and carry out coups, blackmail rings, osint intelligence sharing and spying organizations via the eyes agreements, etc are not something Russia could just spin up within 5 years to replace the NATO order if it fell. So there is IMO no risk of Russia simply replacing the NATO order. The world has moved on, once the chains break China’s extended hands will do the rest.
We must also consider that should Russia fall and become a western puppet then China is strongly likely to be in trouble and at great risk. Because with Russia with the NATO Imperialist western order they could successfully encircle, cut off, sanction, isolate, cripple and destroy China. With Russia with China, India is likely to maintain some amount of neutrality and between those powers and other friends China can survive, break out, extend, and offer alternatives to the global south. (Anyone who has studied the grand chessboard, the triangle of control, the US purpose in the middle east and the US alarm at the belt and road can see that cutting that off was their trump-card against China) Should Russia become a western pawn, carved up, humiliated, weakened, overthrown there will be enough pressure to force India’s hand as neutrality has always been a matter of practicality first, pride second. If there is much more to lose from a united west and puppet Russia bearing down on them they’ll buckle and join with the anti-China alliance rather than risk being the next encircled and destroyed.
Imperialism is not when finance abroad or when do capitalist things. Nor is it when do war thing in response to nearly a decade of good faith failed diplomacy against an aggressor imperialist power that has used nuclear weapons in anger before and has openly stated they intend to topple your country and make it a puppet.
Anyone conflating Russian actions and the state of things with NATO/US is uninformed or hasn’t looked at the situation practically and pragmatically instead of through the lens of quote cherry picking and western propaganda. There are massive differences.
Strong comment, comrade. Absolutely agree.
This is the strongest point and exactly my thoughts. People like Marxist Paul and Anti-Russian MLs approach to this topic, to me, is one of dogmatism and idealism. “Russia isn’t communist, it’s capitalist and therefore it can’t be anti-imperialist, because that’s not what they’re calling themselves.” True, but as materialists that shouldn’t be the end of our analysis. That, to me, would also hold up even if Russia somehow “ticked all of Lenins imperialism boxes”. They don’t, especially in regards to finance export, but say they were - then the current development would render that definition of imperialism insufficient. If our understanding of imperialism leads to us equating current day Russia and the US empire, if it equates the Ukraine war and the rape of the global south, it’s a dog shit understanding and obviously needs to be adapted. Theory has to hold up to our analysis and perception of reality, not the other way around (yes, there’s a dialetical relationship, etc etc). A theory that demands us to hold a Anti-Russian stance is not a theory we should follow, because a loss of Russia would be horrendous for anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist forces around the world and especially in the global south. By virtue of action and result, not by virtue of Russia nominally being anti-capitalist. A communist refusing to accept this, is simply horribly wrong in their analysis.
More on the point of dogmatism: People calling this an inter-imperialist war completely refuse to see the massive difference in material reality between the time Lenin wrote about this compared to today. The situation before and during WW1 was extremely different to the one today. That doesn’t mean his writing is useless, but we can’t just adapt it 1:1 to the current situation. You already mention the differences in blocs and equal competing imperialist, anti-socialist powers. There is one bloc upholding imperialism and really capitalism in general today. That is the US lead NATO/Western bloc. This is the main contradiction on the planet and the one main enemy we as anti-capitalists have to fight. If this bloc collapses, imperialism in its current form will fall. To say Russia somehow could or would want to replace this system of global domination in their stead is unmaterialist nonsense. Russia couldn’t if it wanted to. It doesn’t have the resources and most importantly the current status quo arose from very specific material conditions post WW1 & 2 and the resulting collapse of traditional imperialist/colonialist powers, the resulting opportunities of export of finance capital, industrialization, the preceding colonialism of the NATO powers, the armament of the US and simultaneous dearmament of former imperialist powers, etc. These prerequisite aren’t there for Russia, so even if NATO were to fall Russia simply couldn’t just build an enitre military alliance and globe-spanning military with corresponding systems of exploitation. The material conditions aren’t there.
I mentioned this before in another comment and this is why I made the threat, imo the lack of engagement with this topic and discussions on the applicability of theory on this situation is a critical oversight in ML spaces and part of the reason for many MLs confused Anti-Russian positions. Current developments are extremely important and a massive change in the status quo. They’re also so complex and rapidly moving we need a solid theoretical line of analysis to maintain what little cohesion we ahve. We also, should we realize theory is insufficient, need to adapt or analytical framework.
Also, is it just me or is this thread only showing a fraction of the 70+ comments made?
I as well notice the strange discrepancy between the amount of comments shown in the thread and the amount shown on the main page. Don’t know what to make of that though one can look to why that happens on reddit (on which this website’s framework is based) and perhaps get a clue. I won’t tip the hand here in case these are liberals being contained from sobbing fits about “Russia bad, propaganda told me so”.
Too many unfortunately become dogmatic to the point of turning theory into holy writ. Canonizing Lenin, Marx, etc not as great thinking men with a scientific framework they used to analyze history and conditions, but as prophets setting out edicts to hold for all time. Most great scientific thinkers got things wrong as well as right, missed this or that, didn’t have the information to understand something properly, were born too soon, etc.
Lenin and others call upon us to think critically. Science is a lens, a framework, a process, a mindset, not a book of solutions with an index that you can refer to in order to find the exact steps to solve any problem and Marxism-Leninism is a science. We must continue to think critically about theory, to understand it, to build on it.
It is a shame we have no great western Marxist thinkers of the stature of Lenin to do so and this is a real problem I think for the western communists in the modern age, to not have these great thinkers to set out and settle matters broadly to bring the coalition together. The Chinese are unfortunately not exactly eager to publish tracts from leading party figures on matters such as this that address fundamentals outside of their process inside China so little help will come from there in terms of evaluating imperialism in the modern age. But even there we can see the reaction of the Chinese party to this event, which is understanding for Russia’s unwanted choice, not condemnation, not mute tactical silence on something they find distasteful but anger at the west for this and rightfully so as they are responsible for this war and the suffering it inflicts.
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