Part of This Series of Posts:
Back in 2020 Left Twitter exploded after a user posted that U.S.S.R. 2 was incoming. Little did they all know that this was far more than just a meme.
To begin I will dispell some common myths, to start, Russia is not imperialist. To suggest so is to side with NATO. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and throughout the 90’s, Russia was subservient to the West, today it is a strong ally of other anti-imperialist states such as Iran, Syria and China. However there has been a power struggle within Russia, for example Medvedev of United Russia wanted to overthrow Libya, while Putin did not, had Putin been in power then the overthrow of Gaddafi could have been prevented. Since Putin returned to the helm, Russia has not capitulated in such ways and has been firmly anti-imperialist. Another lie about Russia is that it is fascist, in fact every fascist, nazbol and neo-nazi party is banned. Neo-nazi skinheads were cracked down upon hard. Russia is also a country of dozens of ethnicities who are all proud Russians and united around the flag. Chechnya is essentially an independent Islamic emirate within Russia and from the Soviet era all the other ethnic groups such as the Tuvans enjoy a great deal of autonomy.
According to the words of Vladimir Putin himself, since 2020 Russia has been in an NEP. The process of moving towards a socialist state began in 2020 with the establishment of a new NEP. Russia is still capitalist, specifically state capitalist with a strong market sector similar to China but it could be argued that Russia is currently a Dictatorship of the Proletariat:
– DOTP -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11
A recent example of Russia being a DOTP was when Putin at the start of the special military operation in Ukraine scolded the bourgeoisie for not falling in line. Russia deals with their bourgeoisie similar to China, with an iron fist.
Putin has called for further state planning:
– Planning -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8
Three-quarters of the economy is owned by the state, while there is also strong and vibrant small and medium medium sized firms in a market sector which have been promoted by the state as alternatives to foreign oligopolies.
The leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov has high praise for Putin and has even suggested that he should become leader of the party. This suggestion does not come from an empty vacuum, Putin has actually for the last several years not been apart of United Russia and has been antagonistic towards the party. He has instead supported Fair Russia (in the last election) who had talks of joining in a coalition with the Communist Party. Putin has also on multiple occasions praised Communism and Communist figures of the past.
Russia is now sovereign, it could be said that this war is Russia’s declaration of independence from the globalist system. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the declaration of the uni-polar world, Russia has been on the losing side, throughout the 90’s Russia was looted by the West, only with the emergence of Putin did Russia start to fight back. The very willingness to defy the United States and engage to liberate Ukraine from Neo-Nazi Banderites and NATO (4th Reich) shows that Russia has defiantly broken free completely from the grip of the West. Russia has taken soveriegnty of all sectors previously controlled by the West. Companies that have pulled out have seen property nationalised, no longer will profits flow to Wall Street and London from Russia. The sanctions are accelerating the process of Russia moving towards socialism. The Russian bourgeoisie who as I stated earlier are under a heavy thumb are under the threat of having their property returned to the people. Putin declared the ‘oligarchs’ are traitors who have betrayed the people. Russia has also taken control of it’s internet, providing it’s own certificates, bypassing the U.S. hegemony of the internet and soft imperialism. Western big-tech companies have been banned, we saw Facebook lift bans on calls to violence against Russian people, and we saw every other mainstream platform quickly fall in line with the agenda of Western imperialism. They were all quickly banned for extremism. This step of independence can be seen as the emergence of the multi-polar world.
Russia is moving towards socialism out of necessity. It has long been said in Russia that there are only two paths that can be taken by the country. Either a return to socialism or capitulation to the West. Socialism is the only way forward if Russia want true sovereignty.
There has been real talk in the last couple of years about a Union State, this would provide a Chechen like arrangement (similar to the U.S.S.R.) for all countries that join, they would effectively be independent but the states would be united around the Union State. The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko recently said in December 2021 that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine would all be united soon. Belarus held a referendum in February 2022, the purpose of which was to make the Belarusian constitution become compatible with the Russian constution. The vote passed strongly with 65% support. The vote was also a litmus test of the popularity of Lukashenko showing that he is still popular. All of this was despite threats by the United States of of cybersecurity attacks and the forming of a ‘government in exile’ by the opposition on behalf of their Western masters. The passing of the vote opens up the establishment of the Union State as the official successor to the RF. Armenia also expressed a desire to join such a formation. As do Kazakhstan although for the time being their application has been rejected. Unity around the CSTO had been seen in early 2022 with the Central Asian republics all contributing to ridding Kazakhstan of the Western-backed terrorists.
There have been serious talks of a union state uniting the former Soviet States, since 1991 there has been the CIS as well as the CSTO peacekeeping force, which we recently saw prevent a colour revolution succeeding in Kazakhstan. More recently the Shanghai Pact includes, Russia, China and the central asian republics. These countries all have close economic ties.
Three things unite the former Soviet Union - Communism, religion (Orthodox Christianity and Islam) and language (Russian) - principally Communism could be said to be the greatest common denominator, so it is no suprise that the Soviet flag could be seen atop Russian tanks. Given that the breakway Donbass republics, of the Lugansk Peoples Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) (as well as Transnistria) are led by Communists it should be assumed that the ideology of Communism will continue to more and more be brought to the forefront. In fact it was actually the KPRF’s bill to recognise the republics, no matter what government was in power in Russia it would have had to intervene militarily in Ukraine. Had the KPRF been in power, they would have intervened all the way back in 2014. It is very likely that more people’s republics will be created by the people themselves in Ukraine (in 2014 the Kharkhiv People’s Republic was crushed) and as they become more and more important we will see Communism become more relevant. The KPRF are likely to become even more and more popular and we could see the pressure they put on Putin continue. To all Communists who claim that the KPRF are controlled by United Russia, you just have to look at the pressure they put on them (such as with the bill to recognise the Donbass republics) to see that they are a thriving, independent party representative of a broad section of the Russian masses. They are currently the most popular party and I only expect them to become more popular as the Soviet Union becomes closer to being revived.
The Soviet Union still lives on, it is engrained in the Russian civilisation and collective national consciousness. It has left a permanent mark that remains, Russia has for the last two decades taken on the mantle of the main anti-imperialist power, this was supported by the national bourgeoisie. When there was effectively no resistance to the uni-polar world order there was Russia resisting, whether it be in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, they have had and are having an objective net positive effect, unlike the West which trys to keep countries poor and divided, Russia on the otherhand has been a force of stability. Russia is a far more collective civilisation and out of all of the Former Soviet Republics it has recovered well from shock therapy, while Turkmenistan, Belarus and Tajikistan never really opened up or privatised in the same way, while Ukraine is a state that still has not surpassed the GDP the country had in 1990 due to all the corruption and looting by foreign powers. What we will see in the next few years as Russia moves towards a socialist system and the union state unites the former Soviet Union is the old returning in new way, the dialectic coming to it’s fruition. The sanctions following the Russian intervention in Ukraine have caused Russia to move even closer to (Socialist) China. When the Nordstream 2 pipeline was cancelled by Biden, straight away a new deal was made to redirect the export of gas to China instead, and when sanctions banned the importing of Russian grain into the West, it was China who made a new deal. We are seeing China and Russia develop a strong and resolute alliance. With the fruition of the Union State and the construction of socialism in Russia we will have two strong Socialist superpowers side by side.
Ironically the Western sanctions could cause the collapse of the West themselves rather than Russia as Russia has effectively made themselves immune to their worst effects. All that is left for the West to do is decouple Russia from SWIFT, however that would backfire even more spectacularly than the current sanctions as it would lead to the anti-imperialist bloc creating their own alternative.
Recently we saw Communists in America of the Center for Political Innovation (CPI) openly celebrate the breakaway republics in the Donbass and state how there is no contradiction between being patriots of their own country (despite the U.S. causing the whole conflict) and supporting the revolutionary movements of the world. American Communists should desire the victory of Russia against Ukraine as any victory of an anti-imperialist state against their own ruling class is a victory not just for Russia but for the American working class. Russia has a long history of supporting the American working class, from the Russians sending ships to prevent the British supplying the confederates to the solidarity and internationalism of the CPSU and CPUSA towards each other for decades.
As Russell Bentley, a proud American fighting on the frontlines of the Donbass against the Ukrainian neo-nazis said:
To all the detractors to this post (to which I expect many), Russia unlike most of the Eastern Bloc is erecting statues to Stalin, a majority of Russians see the Soviet Union as the greatest period in Russian history. Majority also regret the collapse, Putin himself states that it was the greatest geopolitical disaster and celebrates the Red Army and victory in WW2 unlike other countries of the Former Eastern Bloc (such as Ukraine, Latvia and other Neo-Nazi infested countries). To conclude we should support Russia on anti-imperialist grounds, have critical support for the government and be supportive of efforts in recent years towards a return to the socialist past, which we now see being accelerated. I have high hopes that in the coming years we will see the emergence of a strong, socialist Union State.