Keep in mind, I am not Russian, and that I do not consider Russia to be imperialist. I do have this one question however.
Considering that the Russian communist party originally disagreed with going beyond Donbas and invading the rest of Ukraine too (and also because in WW1, it was the communists who decided against continuing to fight in the war, but that is distant history), I have to ask, is this truly a fight for Russia’s survival, that absolutely necessitates drafting regular people, at this point in the conflict?
The draft, despite being partial and applicable to ex-soldiers only, still affects some people that have nothing to do with the army - this is happening because there are quotas that need to be fulfilled. Some privileged people also seem to have been given immunity from it, and some protesters were also drafted:
https://zona.media/chronicle/211#49874
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/russia-mobilisation-ukraine-war-army-drive
Assuming that all of these stories are true, what should regular Russians do about it? Should they do anything, should they oppose it? And, if these stories are not true, should they still do something? Even if it’s true that only ex-soldiers are being drafted, that still carries a similar weight with it - because they are still just regular people, who could have joined the army for a variety of reasons, voluntarily or otherwise.
I know next to nothing about Russia, the true state of the Ukraine conflict, and the present threat level that NATO poses. All I know is that multipolarity is preferable to unipolarity, but is this the only correct path forward towards that goal?
I can’t speak for Russians nor anyone if they should dodge the draft or not. While I had my struggles in life none of them were eventually as monumental as choosing to go die in a war. So there’s 0 weight to whatever I think about it.
All I can say is that this has got me thinking what I would do if I were to get drafted for this. My country is on the Western side of this so I would have to fight for NATO, something I don’t support. I would dodge the draft for that. I think it boils down to that for Russians as well. If you believe something has to be done, then join I guess. But I can’t blame people for not wanting to go to the hell of war and possibly die. That’s not my thing to judge about.
Also let us keep in mind there are Russian comrades on this site. We should not pressure them into doing anything nor should we call them immoral for refusing to do anything either. It’s about actual lives of people.
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i’m honestly very confused by this comment. if it’s shameful to make moral statements about theoretical or actual drafts, then why are you strongly implying that drafts are immoral? as primarily westerners, we discuss things that don’t directly affect us all the time, just by virtue of being westerners. i thought we did this with the full understanding that our discussion very rarely affects much of anything, especially without any material organization. what makes this case any different?
the actual content of your argument seems focused on the morality of drafts in the general sense, which i will address. drafts are a tool of the state, enacted through threat of and a monopoly on violence. because drafts are state policy, like literally any other state policy they should primarily be judged by the class character of the state in question. is it socialist or capitalist, is it in the core or periphery, is it fighting for its sovereignty against aggression or being aggressive itself?
i think the most important thing to understand here is that drafts are seen as tools of necessity, i.e. generally a last resort, by those enacting the draft. literally no populace wants a draft, at the very least unanimously. how true that actually is, again, generally relies on geopolitics and class character like any war does. the US draft for vietnam was an act of desperation to complete a decade-long war, but was obviously not justified given the imperialist aggression. the draft in the USSR was an act of desperation to continue to exist as a state, and i hope we can all agree that in this case it was not only justified but necessary. in fact, the USSR had a shoot-to-kill policy against deserters, which as brutal as it was, was enacted because of how desperate the situation was.
the other thing i’ll say about drafts generally is that it’s not an either/or thing, there can be degrees to which a draft is in service of the working class, so long as the aim of the war is also in their interest. i’m talking about things like drafting the elderly and children, which nazis did in their last days. or, drafting inexperienced people for the front lines, regardless of perceived or real necessity.
what about in the specific case of russia? let me preface by saying that almost all of us, including me, are not qualified to say very much regarding the specifics of the draft in russia, which is all the more reason why we should not take places like reuters and the guardian (literal MI6 operations) at their word before investigating further. however, we can be pretty certain that given the nature of drafts, the russian state sees this as a necessary act (again, whether or not this is actually true) in the same way that they saw starting the original SMO as a necessary act to defend its sovereignty. given that russia is currently de facto at war with NATO in ukraine, i could perceive this escalation as either wanting to finish what was started ASAP, as a preemptive escalation to prepare for total war with NATO, or both. as far as the class character of russia, it is industrial bourgeois with relatively strong state power and industry, taking an anti-imperialist stance against the west and alongside the global south. imperialism is the primary contradiction in our global society today, but the lack of socialism and proletarian dominance opens up space for criticism. make of all of this what you will.
do i wish that we lived in a world without drafts? yes. i also wish we lived in a world without weapons, war, and exploitation, but that’s not the hand that any of us was given. personally it’s a little ridiculous for me to see “drafts are always bad in every situation, and i would dodge every theoretical draft” because this is ahistorical and implies a metaphysics of morality. do you also morally decry the USSR’s draft? if china were on the brink of destruction and implemented a draft out of necessity, would you also morally decry it?
+1
although no one would like to be get drafted (including me) voluntarily. It’s a last resort and a necessary measure to protect the state 🙂 We do not live in a DisneylandAs somebody from Russia, I would be fine with USSR draft. Protecting my Motherland and fellow workers from capitalist assholes is a thing I find worthy to put my life on. However, paying with my own blood for capitalist geopolitical games and our bourgeoisie - I do not find appealing.
I am sitting here, in Russia, in contact with soldiers and all news on the line and I can see how all this shit is going on. The whole operation which some morons around here put as a line of victories with inevitable success was a line of fuckups over fuckups. Day by day. Driving us closer not to the inevitable victory, but to a certain fucking defeat. Without the mobilization it all was doomed to fail. It was supposed to happen way before Ukraine got saturated with high-quality western weaponry, while they were weak. Now when it’s fucking late they suddenly decide it’s time to go.
THEY allowed those Nazis to breed there calmly for YEARS. DECADES. THEY destroyed the big united country we lived in. THEY turned our lives into an endless ocean of fucking despair, which we experience daily walking out into the dimming daylight. THEY robbed us of any fucking future. Now THEY are sending us to die for them. WE will be sitting there on the frontlines with no medicine (confirmed problem, even bandages are scarce), no food (confirmed by relatives who returned from the front, those cases of maraudeurs going for stuff in Ukraine might’ve been caused by lack of food supplies), no equipment (confirmed by fellas in the acting military, no optics, no NVGs, lack of simple things like leg and arm protection, lack of additional uniforms). While THEY and THEIR children, like young “Master Peskov” and other similar removed will be sitting in safety.
I would rather shoot those fucking smug capitalist assholes who are sending us to die for their fuckups and their cash. Nazis can wait. We’ve got similar nazi capitalists sitting right here. They just play their games with the good guy faces right now. In reality, in peace time they can do as much shit as those fuckers in Ukraine. They just don’t need swastikas to rally their supporters, they’ve got different symbols for that.
Seriously. Wtf are these comments.
At the cost of sounding like an anarkiddie, I would call this a conservative current in communism. Many communists are deeply patriotic, so my question was aimed mainly at them. From an idealist perspective however, my personal opinion is pretty clear. I would betray whoever tried to draft me, regardless of which side they were on. I don’t know if that’s an anti-communist thing to say. I just want to believe in something that would produce the most happiness for everyone.
With my very limited knowledge, I mostly agree with the KPRF that they should stop with Donbas, but I think they should also include the territories they’ve occupied so far to prevent their population from being (further) “filtered” by the wholesome Nazis. Complete demilitarization of Ukraine will be extremely difficult now that their army is fully entrenched in NATO
EDIT: I don’t think that anyone should be forced to fight. I’d like this war to end as soon as possible, for the sake of both Russian and Ukrainian civilians (and non-fascist soldiers), but as @seanchai said, the only opinions that matter in this case are those of the potentially conscripted Russians
Maybe Russia does need an overwhelming force to do what they need to do and do it with safety in numbers.
I don’t think everyone should be forced on the basis of age without consideration. But I think Russia should try and do what’s necessary to get the numbers they think they need.
This one is a lie from lib telegram channels that were calling to start rioting and burning enlistment offices as soon as Putin’s speech aired.
Didn’t hear shit about bankers and journalists, but “IT proffessionals” might be the ones working for military contractors - they stay at work even during full mobilization for obvious reasons.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/russia-mobilisation-ukraine-war-army-drive
“Mobilized from protests” stories might technically be right, but as far as I’ve seen those were packed with young lib dumbasses that weren’t gonna get mobilized anyway. Stuff about people who never served getting mobilized is a lib lie. Can you people just look at the numbers before going into hysteria mode? 300k is less then the number of contract soldiers was in February. Just contract ones, nevermind career military. Why the fuck would someone mobilize people who never held a gun with ~2m of the ones that served?
Lastly, some ethnic minorities disproportionately volunteer, that’s for sure. You should see one of the Chechen enlistment offices. Oh wait, I can show you.
A minute of culture - mandatory military service the way it works now goes back to USSR with little change. Everyone who served knows they might be called back an there is very little whining about it. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen angry reports of people who served, have combat experience and volunteer but get turned around due to beurocratic mishaps. As a capitalist state, Russia extra special can’t afford to take only volunteers between it’s size, it’s enemies and almost no defence against western lib propaganda among the youth.
Lastly, I don’t know what changed for a lot of people here with mobilization, but my marxist-sense still points to “drive NATO influence out of Ukraine with weapons” and “NATO is an existential threat to Russia (and the rest of the world, but Russia is near the top of the list right now)”.
With this I and happy people from Donbass referendums that expect protection leave you to decide whether Russians should resist the draft. /dripping with hostile sarcasm
Good point. I think the main struggle right now on here is that we have a bunch of westerners calling out other people, that are faced with actual war and death, immoral. And that’s just weird, coming from someone sitting in decent safety and comfort.
And that’s what this questions was asking. Whether or not the Russian should dodge the draft or if they should fight. You can argue about that but calling the people refusing to do this, even if they are leftist, any names is a bit weird to do.
but calling the people…any names
Did I?
No, nor did I say you did. I’m not arguing with your point.
Oh, ok. Just wasn’t clear on that. Also, wouldn’t be surprised if I did somewhere.
I believe that Russia should get fully involved to deal with the situation once and for all. Drastic measures have to be taken for this war to come to a satisfactory end in the foreseeable future.
When Ukraine did their offensive and managed to take territory due to weak Russian resistance, many here were being deeply critical of the decision to evacuate. The Ukrainian state has to be denazified in it’s entirety, otherwise death and suffering will keep piling up even if the war ends.
I disagree with the partial mobilization, because it is not enough. It is the Russian state’s duty to make the necessary decisions for the war to come to an end relatively quickly. Leaving the eastern territories in those fascists’ hands would be unforgivable. This would leave untold hundreds of thousands to suffer under fascist rule.
The Kiev regime has to go for peace to be an option. The morality of conscription is a silly question and shouldn’t even be discussed. What matters now is victory, while not whatever the cost, it is unlikely that Russia and it’s people will lose more from this mobilization than what they and the entire world are to gain from victory.
Even with western help, this terrorist state will be unable to survive long when facing the entire might of the Russian federation. The latter’s cautious approach and lack of political will is the only reason this war is still going on.
I fear that I might have appeared overly Jingoistic here, but you have to understand that there is no such thing as a moral middle ground with fascists. We have to destroy them while we can. If Russia accepts peace now, Ukraine will undoubtedly effectively enter NATO, which will put the fascists there out of reach from the righteous peoples of the world. We have to make the dominoes fall wherever we can, whenever we can. This is the only way we can hope to defeat imperialism and eventually capitalism.
From Russia itself I can say that many of the more aged men from the population went as volunteers in order to prevent their children from going. The other large part is ready to go to war if their children get summoned.
It’s treated here as more of a natural disaster for a nation than some political effort or whatever. Something that more modern soy “porridge” boys are trying to evade by running and the rest is bracing to endure.
It’s quite simple here really. If we all don’t get together and end this we and the weaker less healthier and less capable ones will get put for the Ukrainians to kill.
This war is vastly different from what those morons in Slava and other less ridiculous propaganda channels are writing. People from the front itself tell this.
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I don’t think so. If only those who want to, go to war, you end up with an army comprised of sickoes and fetishists. In my world view, your country should only enter wars supported by the people, and all people should be required to serve their country in the army. Inshallah you never have to fight (and we know that if you’re Russian, you’ll end up fighting a lot), but that’s how it is in my idealistic view.
So then draft dodging is cheating your country. If the war isn’t popular, Russia should pull out. But in this case, they and everyone else on earth has a moral obligation to protect the people of eastern Ukraine, and Russian soldiers have a patriotic duty to protect their border.
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Don’t know about the draft.
However I will say this is not as simple as some people trying to declare this as some sort of imperialist war that Lenin warned against or to resist. I think Russian communists fighting for Russia against fascists is fine. It’s not ideal. But anti-imperialist real-politik often isn’t pretty (see for example the current Iran situation with what is unfolding to be a color revolution attempt. I’m a woman so the treatment of women there I consider abhorrent and abominable but I also know for a fact given the location and geopolitical situation there is near zero chance of any revolution there not turning the state into a puppet proxy for NATO/Israel).
Ukraine is a pawn and the current puppeted champion of NATO, a fascist terror organization run by the world imperialist consortium of capitalist exploitation loving monsters. It is being used in a proxy war to weaken and contain Russia. NATO intends to move into Ukraine if Russia loses. It is aggressive, it does engage in regime change, it supports internal fascism and it brings territories under indirect control of the evil empire. It does all kinds of cartoon evil shit, biological labs engaging in suspicious research on the Russian border, pushing fascist rhetoric and propaganda, cross-border incursions are likely in future, etc.
Ukraine is full of Nazis. The CIA has been promoting and breeding nazism and Ukrainian nationalism together since the 50s. It is not a simple matter of these people sprouting up in 2014 out of nowhere. This is a deep, deep problem that goes back to before the break-up of the Soviet Union but which got much worse and accelerated then.
Nazis must not be given quarter. Russia is as a matter of fact the only who can or will fight and destroy them.
It is a fact that if Russia loses in Ukraine it is much more than humiliation for Russia and a win for fascist NATO. We are already seeing growing fascist sympathies in Europe and the US as a direct result of this war, excusing of fascist terror, denial of fascist symbols being fascist, and pumping of weapons via the most corrupt country in Europe into the criminal underworld and probably staged for a new European gladio, and given to extreme reactionary groups, fascist paramilitaries, etc in the rest of Europe. If Ukraine wins the liberals will even more openly celebrate and venerate fascism and fascists and the fascists will celebrate as a victory will draw more to their ideology. Ukraine will be turned into an explicitly fascist state run by nazi gangsters if they win.
What then must we do to support the dual duties as communists of supporting anti-imperialism (and that in practice means Russia surviving not as a humiliated country in defeat or a western puppet, but strong, allied against the west with China) and of supporting the destruction of Nazis?
And what of supporting sanctioned countries? Russia is on the road to destroying the sanctions system of the west if they continue to resist and prevail.
Modern Russia is not the Soviet Union but sadly it is the only force here we can and must support critically. It is the only force for the destruction of these Nazis, it is the only force for the humiliation of NATO, the weakening of the criminal EU, the destruction of US hegemony in totality thanks to resistance to sanctions.
One last thing. I don’t think it’s problematic for communists to evade the draft in Russia. I can understand not wanting to fight under what increasingly looks like a not terribly competent and ultimately capitalist serving military. I don’t think staging protests or engaging in action against Russia’s fight for its survival (as this has turned into a fight over whether Russia prevails over NATO and the west or they prevail over it and there should be no question there as to who we prefer to win in that) is however an advisable thing for communists to do. I think that’s serving of the enemy in this situation and I think we have to analyze that if successful such resistance would serve the fascists, NATO, and hurt the Russian people (and many other peoples if fascism wins in Ukraine). But this is ultimately a call local communists will have to make.
The Russian communist’s party early statement about not supporting anything beyond the Donbas is not practical at this point. There was a time where it looked like Ukraine could be pressured to sign some agreements giving those regions freedom and a wider war was unnecessary. Time has shown that to be false. Zelensky’s regime survival depends on fighting to the last Ukrainian. It is necessary to topple it to stop the fighting, they’ll never stop fighting, never stop using NATO weapons against Russia as long as that regime stand and they’ll never stop arming Nazis and promoting nazism in their schools to brainwash a new generation of Russian-hating fascists.
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Russia just need to surrender and become the Western puppet once again or whatever.
I just feel now that this all is so fucking irrelevant and pointless.
Your sarcasm is a bit heavy here, judging from the downvotes.
I can only speak for myself and not for any Russian, but i would like Russia to win this war and do not become balkanized western puppet.
You cannot be serious. Were I not Western, I’d sooner see my nation driven under, plowed with salt, and turned into a wasteland of molten glass before I’d ever see them as a puppet to Americans.
Oh, didn’t you know that being a Western puppet is actually good? Well, at least that’s what libshiso says, I don’t really know.
Although the last time this happened, the post-Soviet countries lost more people than the USSR in World War II, but liberals want to be puppets so much, so why not? Surely nothing bad will happen this time, right?
