I feel like you should have submitted this to /c/shitultrassay.
But yeah, this is a classic oversimplification. Just because the government at the receiving end of neoimperialism is also reactionary doesn’t mean that the NATO expanding its operations is okay. By that logic, we should have been neutral during the reinvasion of Ethiopia.
I was not aware that community existed. I will next time.
doesn’t mean that the NATO expanding its operations is okay.
That’s making the assumption that NATO expansion was ultimately the casus bellum of the current conflict. Russia has been pursuing territorial expansion into the Crimea peninsula since prior to the formation of the Russian federation.
While still the Soviet Union they proposed reforming the ukrainian assr, and throughout the 90’s disputes over the control of the black sea fleet led Russian leadership to pressure Ukraine into handing over control by questioning ukrainian ownership of all of Crimea. This would eventually lead to the partition treaty and the treaty of friendship in 1997 that settled territorial disputes and recognized the inviolability of existing borders. This treaty however would not prevent territorial disputes that began again just 6 years later during the tuzla island conflict.
Now during this time the russians imperative to control the black sea remained a constant, but their attitudes on NATO did not. In the 1990s their relationship with NATO began to improve starting with the Budapest memorandum. By 1997 the Russia founding act began the process of mutual cooperation, leading to joint military exercises by 2002. It wasn’t until the orange revolution in 2004 that NATO and Russian relations diverged.
I think alluding that NATO expansion is solely responsible for the conflict is pretty reductive, and ignores about 20 years of political and historical conflict. It also fails to take into account the perspective of historical materialism. Instead of just thinking of what materially motivates a capitalist nation to expand into a economically important territory, were trying to figure out a game of thrones level amount of political entanglement.
If NATO had not tried to expand into Ukraine, Ukraine could have kept Crimea. There was no way a powerful state like Russia would allow itself to be militarily boxed in and essentially zoned out of the Black Sea by having NATO come and take over Crimea and build its military bases there. Before Ukraine’s government was overthrown in a US orchestrated fascist coup Russia was leasing the naval base at Sevastopol. Ukraine profited from this lucrative arrangement, and only a NATO puppet regime in Kiev would do something so detrimental to the people of Ukraine as to provoke a Russian intervention by threatening to give the Crimean base to NATO.
Russia has been pursuing territorial expansion into the Crimea peninsula since prior to the formation of the Russian federation.
I don’t mean to be rude but this is one of the stupidest things i have ever read on this platform. The Crimean peninsula was under the USSR prior to the formation of the Russian Federation. It was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR (not independent Ukraine) in the 1950s for internal administrative reasons, but Moscow still had the final say. The USSR wanting to reorganize its internal borders again is not “territorial expansion”.
Why should the internal borders of the USSR at some arbitrary point in time be forever set in stone as the borders of sovereign states? Why not the borders of the Soviet Republics in 1922 for instance when the whole Transcaucasus was under one SFSR? Or 1945 when Ukraine SSR did not include Crimea? Crimea was and is a majority Russian speaking territory. Hardly any Ukrainian speakers lived there at any point in time. Turkey has more historical claim on Crimea than Ukraine does.
It wasn’t until the orange revolution in 2004 that NATO and Russian relations diverged.
Russia had been protesting NATO expansion ever since NATO took the Baltic states and turned them into anti-Russia military outposts. They protested the second round of NATO expansion as well and warned that if this aggressive behavior continued it would lead to conflict. Russia signed various treaties with NATO because they still hoped that the West would stop seeing them as an enemy and integrate them into their system. The Western orchestrated color revolution in 2004 is not what permanently soured Russia NATO relations, it was the 2008 Bucharest conference where NATO declared intentions to expand into Georgia and Ukraine.
Russia warned again and again that such an expansion would be a red line as such an encirclement constitutes an existential threat to the survival of the Russian state.
alluding that NATO expansion is solely responsible for the conflict is pretty reductive
Indeed, that would be reductive. Which is why we also point to the civil war that had been ongoing in Ukraine since 2014, the refusal of Kiev and the West to adhere to the Minsk agreements, the constant bombing of civilians in the Donbass, the preparation of ethnic cleansing of Russians by the Nazi regime in Kiev, the refusal of the US in 2021 to even consider Russian proposals for a new security architecture in Europe that would take into account Russia’s security priorities, and even the utterly insane announcement by Zelensky in the same year at the NATO summit of intentions to acquire nuclear weapons to which none of the Western leaders gave any pushback.
At every turn it has been made clear to Russia that NATO has hostile intentions toward it and that Ukraine post 2014 has been transformed into an instrument by which these would be carried out.
A socialist nation would not and could not have acted any differently than Russia did. In fact had Russia been socialist they would have already militarily intervened to stop the Nazi coup in 2014. Capitalist Russia waited too long. The USSR when it was faced with the buildup of an existential threat on its Western border acted proactively to bolster its defense by seizing buffer zones like Bessarabia, the Karelian isthmus, the Baltics and West Ukraine/Belarus thereby denying the Nazi imperialists those territories.
Complex analysis aside, if NATO, (more specifically the US) backs a country, then that’s already enough cause for skepticism.
Ah, the old “two things can be bad at once, mkay?” Otherwise known as “I am too lazy to actually try and think dialectically about the world around me, so I’m going to sit on my high horse and act morally superior” defense.
Why are we reposting Reddit stuff from over a year ago on SRS?
It’s a shit ultra say, I wouldn’t call them reactionary. To think that Russia is doing imperialism is only an oversimplification of Lenin’s theory imperialism. Plus we’re in a context of high media pressure, defending a foreign war is a massive unpopular opinion, especially since Putin is a conservative politician. Only the bravest dare speak their mind.
A lot of ultras will someday grasp that no, Russia being capitalist doesn’t automatically make it imperialist, since imperialism stems from an absolute necessity of exporting capital to not suffocate, which Russia doesn’t since they mostly just pump out fossil fuel and enjoy.
But I think it’s unreasonable to get angry at people for being wrong on this subject. We need to be more patient.
To think that Russia is doing imperialism is only an oversimplification of Lenin’s theory imperialism.
No, more like they never read it. They probably think military invasion = imperialism. More generously they have a general idea of Leninist imperialism, but use faulty analysis to claim Russia is, then use Lenin’s principle of not taking sides in an imperialist war, and call this an imperialist war.
They think acquiring land for their nation state is imperialism, but not acquiring every drop of oil and passing off costs incurred for an invasion as debt(us and iraq).
They probably think military invasion = imperialis
Maybe I give them too much credit but I’m pretty sure that, when interrogated, they would elaborate by saying that “capitalism love war because war makes money so a capitalist power going to war is necessarily just chasing money so that’s imperialism” which is a decent shot for a beginner
Unless they’re properly idealist, like anarchists and radlibs, but I don’t think they would be posting on a “communism” themed subreddit
Yeah, that’s my thought. The baby lefties are like “war make money,” then we have ultras like Maoist Paul misinterpreting Lenin.
Maoist Paul is on my top 10 anime betrayal
how many military bases does Russia have in foreign countries i wonder
I feel like “weedftw_69” is 14 years old and very opinionated and ignorant. Or is an adult with the mentality of a 14 year old who needs to show off how smart they are by using the term “irredentist.”
It doesn’t matter how much Putin may or may not hate dentists, the proxy war against the US is ultimately in the interest of the global working class. I don’t think any actual communist like Putin, or have any illusions about him being pro-capital, but in inter-capitalist infighting, they all grow weaker.
What’s this about dentists?
Irredeemable dentists, their crimes will not go unpunished👊
Irredentists
Hey, Putin’s not a cool guy or anything, we don’t love him, but damn if I wasn’t happy when I heard Yemen was allowing Russian shipments and troops to go through the Red Sea. There are too many scenarios that would have to happen (or not happened) for me to support Ukraine. 1.) Alley of Angels needs to have never happened 2.) Donetsk and Luhansk would need to be Pro-Imperialism 3.) Russia would have to be Anti-AES 4.) There would need to be zero Nazis (or Bandera supporters) in Ukraine’s military or parliament 5.) Ukraine would have to want political neutrality for foreign policy, aka not seeking NATO membership. I could probably list a few more if I thought about it even more but that’s the basics. Since none of these are the case, I can’t support Ukraine and I can’t take a neutral stance, I kinda have to give it up for Russia for fighting against Nazis and for defending Luhansk’s (and to a lesser extent, Donetsk’s, but I’m especially excited for Luhansk) claim. And considering how anti-comm and accepting of Nazis the early Russian Federation was, I’m much happier to see Putin interacting positively with Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping
“Neither Washington nor Moscow” and this purposefully incorrect definition of imperialism always has a psyop taste.
Russia is not a imperialist country in the moment. I will cite myself:
Looking into Russia: In whose interests does Putin rule? What impact has the privatization of state assets had on the way the Russian capitalist elite perceives its security interests? Which elements of Putins foreign policy have changed compared to the soviet foreign policy? Which have remained? Russia is trying to restore the previous status quo, where its bourgeoisie could exploit the country undisturbed. Russia has become a target of Yankee imperialism not because of the autocratic nature of the Putin regime but, first, because its defense of the interests of Russian capitalists clashes with the United States quest for world domination and its related preparations for war against China. The attack on Ukraine is a thoroughly reactionary response to the expansion of U.S. hegemony into Russias spheres. In doing so, Putin invokes the reactionary legacy of tsarist Great Russian chauvinism and revives the foreign policy of Tsar Nicholas by also calling for support for “Mother Russia.”
almost went blind from such an enlightened centrism
Lebanon is more imperialist than Russia.
I did some analysis here. This is fairly casual and only quantifies one mechanism of imperialism, but it is an important mechanism and it does give us a good picture.
Yemen is more imperialist than Saudi Arabia
I’m not sure what happened there. I don’t think Yemen’s GDP data was carried over correctly.
Edit:
So it turns out that Yemen’s GDP data was incorrect, and somehow it’s the same as Vietnam’s gdp data.
However, even when accounting for that, it would only push it past down Paraguay. This is because this chart uses Investor-State Dispute Settlement cases as data. So, for countries where the state is complicit in exploitation and is aligned with the interests of the exploiters, there won’t be many cases. (Which also explains why there is a revolution in Yemen at the moment.)
But in these instances, there won’t be many cases where the country is hosting an investor state either.
Damn that’s a stance someone with no real knowledge or care about the war would come to, not someone whose leading an entire ass community and banning people over it. Why do the most ignorant always have to be the ones who shout the loudest?
This is a good take. Putin is the result of Yeltsins brutal repression of the Russian people and an anti communist. He’s not an anti imperialist either. I can get behind toppling Nazis in Ukraine but if doesn’t make putin based or something.
Russia is not imperialist
It’s not anti imperialist either
It is but not by choice. The imperialists have forced Russia to adopt an anti-imperialist stance and now Russia is more anti-imperialist than most socialist states. The only state more openly anti-imperialist than Russia is the DPRK.
Cuba?
Cuba doesn’t really pose the same kind of danger to the imperialists. Yes they remain principled and they try to do all they can in terms of international solidarity against imperialist pressure in Latin America, but given their difficult geographical location they have to do what they can to just survive in the face of the strangling blockade imposed on them.
They aren’t sending volunteers over to fight in anti-colonial struggles anymore like they used to back in the day…though there have been a few rumors of Cuban volunteers in Russia’s SMO, but if i remember correctly the Cuban government was not very approving of that. And i can understand why since they are probably wary of provoking the US.
The DPRK on the other hand is in a much better position to take hostile action against the imperialists as we have seen with their material support of Russia, supplying them with ammunition of various kinds. This isn’t because the Cubans are less revolutionary, but simply because Cuba doesn’t have the same military might that DPRK does to defend itself.
And having nuclear weapons also makes a big difference in establishing deterrence…they give you a protective umbrella to act much more confidently against imperialism. Which is why i cannot understand why Iran still hasn’t gotten them, they absolutely could if they wanted to and the US and the Zionist entity could not do very much about it at all since Iran is also conventionally powerful.
fair points
By what definition? You do know the Russian federation has Russian occupied territories in Transistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Kurill islands, and that’s not even mentioning the current disputes in Ukraine.
The reasoning for expansion meets the definitions for imperialism, including Marx’s TRPF, Hobson’s theory of monopolistic growth, and Lenin’s theory of imperialism being a new stage of capital development.
All of these territorial expansions were motivated by monopolistic and oligarchic capital in Russia attempting to expand or protect their material interest.
Russian occupied territories in Transnistria
There are Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria but the rebellion of the region was its own. It has its own militia forces and its own government. When the USSR was dissolved this predominantly Russian region did not want to be forced to stay with the Republic of Moldova and fought a war to protect its independence. Russian peacekeepers came afterwards to ensure that no further conflict would break out.
Abkhazia, South Ossetia
Again, deeply misleading. These regions were never under the Georgian government and had always fought to be autonomous from Tbilisi since the USSR broke up. After the US installed its puppets in the Georgian government via color revolution, NATO promised Georgia membership in 2008 and pushed them to reincorporate Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a precondition for joining, by force if necessary (they did the same with Ukraine and the Donbass republics).
Even the EU investigation into the 2008 conflict concluded that Georgia started it by attacking the breakaway regions. Russia came to their defense and is still there because the governments of those regions asked them to ensure they are not attacked again.
Kuril islands
This one takes the cake. Are you a sympathizer of Japanese imperialism? Do you also advocate for Russia to give Kaliningrad to Germany? Do you not understand that when WW2 ended the USSR retained these territories not only as compensation for the aggression committed against them but also to deter future aggression from the same direction? Are you going to demand Poland give Silesia and Pomerania back to Germany? Are you going to demand Korea be given back to Japan?
Other than the Kurils these are not territorial expansions, they were not annexed. None of these cases were primarily motivated by interests other than security. Russia already has plenty of land and resources. The reason why Russia has had to intervene in both Ukraine and Georgia is clearly seen in US think tank policy papers which explicitly advocate for creating exactly such conflicts along Russia’s borders to “overextend and imbalance” them. If Russia had not responded, even bigger threats would have been created against them.
Modern imperialism does not take place via territorial expansion. The Anglo-European imperialists have been practicing neo-colonial exploitation and subjugation of much of the rest of the world since WW2 entirely without annexation and in many cases without military intervention. This does not make them any less imperialist, nor does Russia’s reaction to imperialist threats make it imperialist itself.
I’d genuinely like to know how Russia’s actions and conditions meet Lenin’s definition of imperialism.
I mean, the merging and control of the fossil fuel oligarchy with the Russian finance system covers the first three chapters of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
You can also see how the concentration of capital in these sectors creates surplus capital that needs to be reinvested in less developed regions to increase profits. This is an example of the exportation of capital covered in chapter 4.
In their acquired territory in moldova, oligarchs from the fossil fuel industry have taken control of large scale steel production. South Ossetia is strategically important as a buffer state for Iran and turkey, it also has access to large petroleum reserves. Abkhazia is strategically important to maintain trade routes in the black sea, and has become a large tourist destination for wealthy Russians.
I believe what we are currently witnessing with the ukrainian conflict is a resolution of a new version of chapter 5 and 6, A division of the world between capitalist powers and a reformation of the division of the world by the new great powers.
Imo climate change has shortened the run way for capitalist nations, so they need to make an attempt to secure economically and strategically important territories. Russia is just another capitalist country trying to get their house in order before the next global conflict, ensuring their place among the great powers.
The merging and control of the fossil fuel industry under Russian state ownership is actually the opposite of what happens in the neoliberal West where the economy relies on neo-colonial looting. Russia’s state control over its finance system is one of the reasons why it is able to prevent the kind of hyper-financialization that has devastated Western industrial economies. China does the same but to a much greater extent since it is a socialist state.
Russia has no territory in Moldova. Transnistria is a de facto independent republic. The idea that Russia extracts some great benefit from this impoverished strip of land that is essentially blockaded by NATO vassal states is absurd.
You are stuck in a paradigm of imperialism that does not correspond to how imperialism really functions today, via finance and neo-colonial unequal exchange. Imperialism of the late 20th and early 21st century does not operate as it did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The historical clock cannot be turned back, the division of the world between capitalist powers already took place. Today’s conditions and geopolitical dynamics are not the same as those of Lenin’s time.
There is only one imperialist nexus in the world now and it is centered around US unipolar global domination and their neoliberal hegemony. All actors that work against this hegemony are by necessity anti-imperialist. This new anti-imperialist camp is ideologically and politically heterogenous and includes socialist states like China, semi-peripheral capitalist states like Russia, and peripheral, underdeveloped states in the global south that are rebelling against neo-colonialism.
except this is not an inter-imperialist conflict; modern Russia isn’t anti-imperialist in ideology but it is in practice, at least for the time being
I think the main problem here is the “we will ban you if you don’t fall in line” on a take that’s not even that good to begin with.
