calling Putin a ‘hero’ is going way, way over the mark. Putin has two aspects worthy of critical support: He’s slightly more moral than the US, and he opposes US hegemony over the world.
Russia’s government is much like the US was in WWII, shitty but contemporarily useful against worse enemies. He’s a useful bourgois pissant - definitively not a hero.
Russia’s government is much like the US was in WWII
Is it even comparable to that, though? WW2-era USA was still borne off of stolen land, genocide, and slavery; it practiced neo-slavery upon its black Americans (still does, but far less so) right up till the war, where it stopped for PR purposes. It was an expansive empire no different from any of the European ones, just that it had spread across North America and the Pacific instead, and otherwise flexed its muscles through similar indirect means (banana republics across Latin America, regime changes, etc). This same USA, was the one which had been killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos that same decade and decades prior, which had stolen the independence of Hawai’i and countless other states, which had been waging “wars” (read: genocidal pogroms) of its native populations up until the mid-1920s, which was growing fat off of the exploitation of trade in Asia and Latin America and had engaged in atrocities like its interventions in the Boxer Rebellion, and which had played a part in the global effort to try to destroy the Russian bolsheviks during the Russian civil war.
And to top it all off, the US during WW2 was, even then, actively working to preserve Nazism and other fascist ideologies (the various ideologies that American actions had been the primary inspiration for- such as Lebensraum, Aryan supremacy and racial purity, etc) so they could use it just as they have since- throughout the cold war and right till this very day as seen in Ukraine, across post-Warsaw pact Europe, in Japan, South Korea, and rogue Taiwan, in Israel, etc…
I’d say Russia’s government is nothing alike to the US in WWII. It’s like comparing Hitler with a boy scout.
Not my first time hearing it, but it brings a smile to my face every time. There’s a reason indeed, and even if there is mild misogyny (there is) I’d certainly die on the hill of defending it in this context.
Communists shouldn’t be talking about Putin as if he’s a “good guy” or “hero” in the first place. These are lib-rot, idealist descriptors of a head of a periphery state. I know we’re just memeing here, but if we’re gonna have a serious discussion about contemporary Russia or any other country (even the Marxist ones) we should be weary of romanticizing them. This ain’t the MCU. States have interests, which their leaders and the ruling parties that back them pursue, and Russia is anti-imperialist due to circumstance, not out of benevolence. Reminder that in the beginning, post-Soviet Russia under Putin tried to join the Western imperialist club.
Russia’s government is much like the US was in WWII, shitty but contemporarily useful against worse enemies. He’s a useful bourgois pissant - definitively not a hero.
Is it even comparable to that, though? WW2-era USA was still borne off of stolen land, genocide, and slavery; it practiced neo-slavery upon its black Americans (still does, but far less so) right up till the war, where it stopped for PR purposes. It was an expansive empire no different from any of the European ones, just that it had spread across North America and the Pacific instead, and otherwise flexed its muscles through similar indirect means (banana republics across Latin America, regime changes, etc). This same USA, was the one which had been killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos that same decade and decades prior, which had stolen the independence of Hawai’i and countless other states, which had been waging “wars” (read: genocidal pogroms) of its native populations up until the mid-1920s, which was growing fat off of the exploitation of trade in Asia and Latin America and had engaged in atrocities like its interventions in the Boxer Rebellion, and which had played a part in the global effort to try to destroy the Russian bolsheviks during the Russian civil war.
And to top it all off, the US during WW2 was, even then, actively working to preserve Nazism and other fascist ideologies (the various ideologies that American actions had been the primary inspiration for- such as Lebensraum, Aryan supremacy and racial purity, etc) so they could use it just as they have since- throughout the cold war and right till this very day as seen in Ukraine, across post-Warsaw pact Europe, in Japan, South Korea, and rogue Taiwan, in Israel, etc…
I’d say Russia’s government is nothing alike to the US in WWII. It’s like comparing Hitler with a boy scout.
Comparing Hitler with a boy scout who stopped Hitler, no less
I’m not disagreeing with you, but there’s a reason things like this exist across the Global South:
Harden your heart, Putin (Palestinian song) (CW: misogyny)
Not my first time hearing it, but it brings a smile to my face every time. There’s a reason indeed, and even if there is mild misogyny (there is) I’d certainly die on the hill of defending it in this context.
This song is so fire I wasn’t ready for it 😭
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Communists shouldn’t be talking about Putin as if he’s a “good guy” or “hero” in the first place. These are lib-rot, idealist descriptors of a head of a periphery state. I know we’re just memeing here, but if we’re gonna have a serious discussion about contemporary Russia or any other country (even the Marxist ones) we should be weary of romanticizing them. This ain’t the MCU. States have interests, which their leaders and the ruling parties that back them pursue, and Russia is anti-imperialist due to circumstance, not out of benevolence. Reminder that in the beginning, post-Soviet Russia under Putin tried to join the Western imperialist club.