This. Let the Russian communists reckon with Putin and other conservatives like him when the time comes to sweep away Russia’s bourgeois regime. For now the priority of communists in the imperial core is to throw as many wrenches in the gears of the imperial hegemony and its war machine as possible. It is in the interest of the communist cause for Russia to prevail over NATO and its Nazi puppets in Ukraine. Us non-Russians criticizing Putin achieves absolutely nothing, it is not going to make Russia restore the Soviet Union and return to socialism any faster. It is empty virtue signaling, the lowest hanging fruit of all time, an insignificant drop in the bucket of demonization and hatred that the imperialists and the libs already hurl at him, not because they are against his reactionary social views but because they despise the anti-imperialist position that he has been forced by geopolitical circumstance (remember that Putin tried very hard to be integrated into the liberal western system and even NATO) into adopting. They recognize the existential threat that a Russia whose leaders are not Washington puppets and that protects its own interests poses to the imperial hegemony. That is why they have such a hate boner for Putin - almost as much as they do for Xi Jinping - despite Putin being otherwise a run of the mill economic liberal with reactionary positions on gender and sexuality not too different than your average right winger in the West (just way less racist).
We need to learn to pick our battles and identify primary and secondary contradictions. It is absolutely not a priority at the moment to pile on to the already ubiquitous anti-Putin rhetoric. If he were to be ousted tomorrow he would not be replaced by a communist, nor, as the imperialists hope, by a complacent liberal puppet. Rather another more hardline conservative would follow who would be no less socially reactionary and even more hostile toward the West and its “values”. For us this would just be a pointless destabilization of Russia at a time when it is engaged in an anti-fascist, anti-imperialist struggle.
When we start doing agitprop against a political figure it needs to serve a purpose, it needs to advance the revolutionary cause in some way or another, otherwise we are at best wasting our time. The correct people to be putting out polemics against Putin are the Russian communists who, imo, would be best advised to attack his liberalism and his economic policies, demanding better conditions for workers and that Russia adopt more economic planning and a more heavily nationalized economy, especially in light of the ongoing military conflict and the economic sanctions.
This. Let the Russian communists reckon with Putin and other conservatives like him when the time comes to sweep away Russia’s bourgeois regime. For now the priority of communists in the imperial core is to throw as many wrenches in the gears of the imperial hegemony and its war machine as possible. It is in the interest of the communist cause for Russia to prevail over NATO and its Nazi puppets in Ukraine. Us non-Russians criticizing Putin achieves absolutely nothing, it is not going to make Russia restore the Soviet Union and return to socialism any faster. It is empty virtue signaling, the lowest hanging fruit of all time, an insignificant drop in the bucket of demonization and hatred that the imperialists and the libs already hurl at him, not because they are against his reactionary social views but because they despise the anti-imperialist position that he has been forced by geopolitical circumstance (remember that Putin tried very hard to be integrated into the liberal western system and even NATO) into adopting. They recognize the existential threat that a Russia whose leaders are not Washington puppets and that protects its own interests poses to the imperial hegemony. That is why they have such a hate boner for Putin - almost as much as they do for Xi Jinping - despite Putin being otherwise a run of the mill economic liberal with reactionary positions on gender and sexuality not too different than your average right winger in the West (just way less racist).
We need to learn to pick our battles and identify primary and secondary contradictions. It is absolutely not a priority at the moment to pile on to the already ubiquitous anti-Putin rhetoric. If he were to be ousted tomorrow he would not be replaced by a communist, nor, as the imperialists hope, by a complacent liberal puppet. Rather another more hardline conservative would follow who would be no less socially reactionary and even more hostile toward the West and its “values”. For us this would just be a pointless destabilization of Russia at a time when it is engaged in an anti-fascist, anti-imperialist struggle.
When we start doing agitprop against a political figure it needs to serve a purpose, it needs to advance the revolutionary cause in some way or another, otherwise we are at best wasting our time. The correct people to be putting out polemics against Putin are the Russian communists who, imo, would be best advised to attack his liberalism and his economic policies, demanding better conditions for workers and that Russia adopt more economic planning and a more heavily nationalized economy, especially in light of the ongoing military conflict and the economic sanctions.