Russian officials have reported several detentions for vandalism at polling stations on the first day of voting in the presidential elections.
Russian officials have reported several detentions for vandalism at polling stations on the first day of voting in the presidential elections.
But not the first part? Unlike the US it isn’t founded on stolen land and settler colonialism that was taken with genocide. Unlike western Europe it got into the colonialism game late, was never much of an empire and after WW1 became the Soviet Union so it has no colonial interests like say France had/has with the African sahel which recently broke from them.
And unlike the US and western Europe it isn’t part of the western hegemony club that uses racial divisions, separatism, inflaming tensions, regional destablization to weaken and control various regions of the globe. For its own internal stability in fact given its huge size and range from Asia to Europe it has built in interests in racial harmony, not stoking white supremacy, a kind of everyone part of the whole ideology which while not socialist or perfect is miles better than the west and there is no sign it’s part of their national mythos like white supremacy is in the west. Indeed to survive in the face of the break with Europe and it’s turn east, Russia must develop good relations with the global south and they’re obviously not going to beat the US and NATO at the racism and neo-colonialism game given their head-start and other advantages so their other choice is engagement and presenting a better looking, less racist, more fair option than the west. The Russian bourgeoisie has no choice, they’re not magicians, they are as constrained by material and historical forces as you or I. That and the western bourgeoisie has been totally unwilling to compromise with them, they chose this, they forced them into this corner thinking they could destroy them and gain power over them to loot them.
This. The “west” is infinitely worse than Russia, because the similarities end at bourgeois democracy (which could be said to be the same of the majority of the world- from Nigeria to India to Indonesia and Brazil and beyond.)
Bourgeois (or monarchic like in Saudi Arabia, or theocratic like in Iran, etc) issues are for a society to deal with at their own pace, at their own terms, and to their discretion as far as I’m concerned. That is not to wave away all their issues, but imperialism- the highest stage of capitalism, the most monstrous and inhumane stage- is infinitely worse and utterly incomparable IMO.
What we are talking about is not just bourgeois activity in one state, and one state alone (which in reality stands alongside- even if that is coincidental- all the AES, anti-imperialist, multipolar aspiring nations of the world at large, and which seeks peaceful and mutually beneficial development and prosperity). What we are talking about is an ideology, a structural framework, of nations (the “west” or “international community”) which has brutalized, and seeks to continue its brutalization of, every single nation and people in the world- a framework which has committed countless acts of genocide and continues to perpetuate all the worst aspects of the human condition- forever wars and racial/tribal/religious/ethnic/etc hatred and supremacy, food instability and insecurity, settler-colonial genocide and all other forms of deprivation and exploitation, etc…
Russia’s issues are incomparable to that of the west, even if the Russian prole may be little better off than a western one, even if Russia is prone to the same “social conservative” cultural issues that exist in- frankly, near every society (and which also are issues which each society needs to deal with at their own pace- not to dismiss or excuse such issues). Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or even India with its current Hindutva government, are still incomparable to the murderous, genocidal, inhumane, global collective effort of western nations- even the “social democrat,” “neutral” (not often directly, but indirectly imperialist) states like Sweden or Finland.
Mere bourgeois activity constrained within a state- a state as constrained as Russia at that (and one which still bears the legacy of Soviet liberation and semi-autonomous empowerment for its indigenous peoples) is incomparable to the international bourgeois activity of the west. The US is infinitely worse than Russia, but even nations like the spineless (and arms-less) states of Germany or Italy, or the pinkwashed states of Sweden or Canada, or prosperous succdem states like Norway, are infinitely worse, because they are part of a global system that is so, and their crimes on a global stage as such are worse than all of Russia’s various internal issues combined.