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.
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.