cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7701162
I want to ask here too if that’s ok. Still not 100% sure how federation works but would like to get a bigger audience for more viewpoints.
I would love to hear the thoughts of this leftist community, not least any comrade in Russia. In the US it’s so hard to get any serious Russia news/analysis because of the propaganda here- you have red guys that love Russia & Putin to own the libs, and you have blue guys that hate Russia & Putin because it’s their favorite boogeyman. I ask because I personally don’t like Putin for his war on gayness (wake me up when we get to war of gayness) but I understand that countries in the US’s crosshairs are those that make their history under the least self-selected circumstances. I was looking at some stats when this question came to mind:
UA
RU
So material conditions have definitely improved under Putin, which is a miracle considering the fall of the USSR and the disgrace of Yeltsin, which makes me think there are probably people out there who like Putin for rational reasons, besides owning the libs. I would love to hear your thoughts either way.
Putin has a lot of admirable qualities and some far less admirable ones. He walks a really tight line. I think lots of people have a love/hate respect for him. The left and far right hate and love him for opposite reasons and then a bunch of ignorant anti-imperailists and liberal Russians love him.
He is very intelligent and well educated in history and political economy. He is in the running for the most competent national leader in the last 50 years. But he is a capitalist supporting liberal and with that comes an implicit form of supremacy that says the rich deserve to rule over the poor. Because of his intellect and education this becomes way more damning. He didn’t just accept liberalism because he was ignorant. He understands Marxism and actively rejects it. He does not want a classless society of equals and that means he is a fucking piece of shit who belongs in the chuck pit.
He has done a lot of good for the working class of Russia but I highly suspect that it was done to stave off a Counter-counter-revolution. His stance on LGBT could just as easily be political theater to galvanize support from the religious right as it could be his genuine belief. Either way it is a symptom of his supremacy complex.
For now he is fighting against the Great Satan of anglo-american imperialism which makes him useful to the left. but he isn’t doing it because he wants to but because the west will not let him join their world order. And this is where his intelligence and education fail him. He acts like western “liberals” believe in the values they claim without understanding that it is just words they say to hide that they are racist, classist, supremacists who only respect genocide. Japan was welcomed by the west with open arms after their actions in Korea and China. Zionists were only considered as westerners after the Nakba. Genocide is the true ideology of the western ruling class and Putin’s naivete to this is a sign of his better nature.
(also next time someone says “Holodomor” I’m gonna try arguing that if it was really a genocide than the west would have accepted Stalin as one of their own and the same goes for Xi and the Uyghur “genocide”)