• beleza pura@lemmy.eco.br
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    8 days ago

    sure but one thing is calling out putin for his ultraconservative policies and possible ties to neonazi groups; other thing is to attack russian with what basically amounts to cold war anti-russia propaganda

    • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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      8 days ago

      Absolutely. Going further, Putin is undeniably better for the Russian people and for the world than e.g. Navalny would’ve been: a literal neo-Nazi who called immigrants “cockroaches who should be exterminated” in a televised interview, and who’s top aide met with MI6 offering to create a color revolution for 10-20 mln USD.

      For as long as the West is attempting to install a Yeltsin 2.0 in Russia, Russian people will keep electing Putin or some “continuation Putin” if they know what’s good for them.

      Having said that, I don’t consider modern Russia “anti-imperialist” as some other posters here, and I have no love for Putin. It’s a bit like Assad, the least bad option under the imperialist assault of the USA and it’s vassals.

      • beleza pura@lemmy.eco.br
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        7 days ago

        calling him “anti-imperialist” is a bit of a stretch, but he’s definitely acting as a force against western hegemony, if only for his own benefit

          • beleza pura@lemmy.eco.br
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            7 days ago

            true but imo it assumes commitment against imperialism in a fundamental level which i do not believe putin has at all. he would gladly be yet another collabolator for western imperialism if he could*, but the “russian enemy” archetype is just too useful for the usa to give up

            *i think he even tried to join nato afaik

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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              7 days ago

              but imo it assumes commitment against imperialism in a fundamental level

              In most famous example, Lenin and Stalin considered a literal monarch, emir of Afghanistan and his fight for independence against the British, an antiimperialist and offered him friendship and support of USSR. If even that case was considered antiimperialist by the two guys who literally formulated the theory about imperialism and antiimperialism then Putin’s Russia, currently the foremost force actively resisting the empire on multiple fronts is so much more.

              • beleza pura@lemmy.eco.br
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                7 days ago

                makes sense. do you have any text i can read on that?

                edit: in any case, i still think that it’s useful to make a distinction between entities that seem to be anti-imperialist as a fundamental goal (eg china imo) and clearly opportunistic “antiimperalists” (russia)

                • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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                  7 days ago

                  Of course, obligatory Foundations of Leninism by Stalin, 6th chapter in particular is possibly the most concise and to the point explanation of imerialist and antiimperialist tenedencies (Stalin even calls it “objectively revoutionary” and “objectively reactionary”).

                  Lenin writings iirc in 1919 include some letters to the emir, and also of interest might be much earlier Lenin articles about Russo-Japanese war in 1905 in which he clearly formulate theory of revolutionary defeatism and also straight up critically support imperialist Japan since at the point even clearly imperialist Japan is more progressive than half-feudal Russia and Russia’s defeat can lead to changes in it (as we know it did, loss in that war was one of the main catalyst of 1905 revolution).

                  Plus of course Lenin’s “Imperialism…”

                  in any case, i still think that it’s useful to make a distinction between entities that seem to be anti-imperialist as a fundamental goal (eg china imo) and clearly opportunistic “antiimperalists” (russia)

                  Absolutely, nobody even suggest we extend it to the past and possible future reactionary actions. In fact, Putin was heavily criticized by Russian, Ukrainian and Donbass communists for his procrastination and unwillingness to help DPR and LPR and constant reaching to the west. If west wasn’t so determined to recolonize Russia today’s world would look very different.

              • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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                5 days ago

                This is very uninformed. They were specifically talking about national liberation movements of oppressed peoples. Russia is not colonised and not fighting for independence.

                Emphasis mine:

                The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such “desperate” democrats and “Socialists,” “revolutionaries” and republicans as, for example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its results was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism. For the same reasons, the struggle that the Egyptians merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British “Labour” Government is waging to preserve Egypt’s dependent position is for the same reason a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of the government, despite the fact that they are “for” socialism. There is no need to mention the national movement in other, larger, colonial and dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which along the road to liberation, even if it runs counter to the demands of formal democracy, is a steam-hammer blow at imperialism, i.e., is undoubtedly a revolutionary step.

                • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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                  5 days ago

                  Russia was not colonised? Independent? Did you missed 90’s? Did US empire do not currently want to colonise it again? Did you missed literally everything happening after 90’s too? And you call me “uninformed”?

                  • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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                    5 days ago

                    I lived through what happened during the 90s and I’ll always remember it, which is why I didn’t believe for a second Europe has anything in store for Ukraine (or Russia) but massacre, rape, plunder, and slavery. Bandera (and Vlasov) made this mistake, then Kravchuk (and Yeltsin) made the same mistake. Putin did too some time ago, and more recently pro-Western Ukrainian governments. We can all see the outcome for Ukrainians.

                    You are uninformed about the content of the self determination theory you’re attempting to quote. It simply doesn’t apply here, apples and oranges.

            • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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              7 days ago

              This is not a fair comparison. Russia has not yet reached the imperialist stage of capitalism. Russia’s presence in West Asia and Africa is currently a counter to the imperialist West. Therefore, it currently has an anti-imperialist character. There is no doubt that Russia as a capitalist nation will eventually reach the stage of imperialism, or become imperialized.

              Amerikkka and TERF Island are both imperialist nations. They will continue to be imperialist even if they were to pull out of Ukraine.

              • Magicicad@lemmygrad.ml
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                7 days ago

                Genuine good faith question here. Did Russian oil companies play a role in the invasion of Ukraine? And if they did, was it in a monopolies expanding outside of the bounds of the Russian economy kind of way or was it of a different character?

                • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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                  7 days ago

                  Invasion of Ukraine was going contrary to their interests, as we could see in countless maneuvers around that. Not accidentally west decided to play all the sanctions, there was very real possiblity of Russia really keeling over under them like it was intended. If you look at this war as imperialist war from the Russian point of view, it does not have any sense to do it, it only have sense if you see that Russia is reacting to prevent its own recolonisation.

                • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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                  7 days ago

                  Gazprom is majority state owned so it’s a bit difficult to separate these things since it’s the Russian state that launched the SMO. That being said, the only accusations of resource theft that I’ve seen have come from the western mainstream media. The only evidence given being the invasion itself. IMO, Russia’s initial position of attempting to have negotiations that would give autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk while remaining a part of Ukraine shows that Russia’s motivations are not the theft of resources.

              • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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                7 days ago

                WW1 Russian Empire was even further from reaching the imperialist stage of capitalism, yet Lenin did not consider it anti-imperialist. That’s the context in which revolutionary defeatism theory was developed.

                • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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                  7 days ago

                  Lenin also called WWI the imperialist war. If anything, the Russian empire was on the side of imperialism. Modern Russia has aligned itself with the anti-imperialist block. This is an opportunistic alignment due to the western powers’ hostility toward Russia, but for now, Russia’s actions are a counter to empire.

            • davel [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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              7 days ago

              I wouldn’t say that they “are anti-imperialist”. I might say that—from an empty, shallow, rhetorical standpoint—they are “doing an anti-imperialism”. Putin is doing a less shallow/empty anti-imperialism, because he’s gone beyond mere rhetoric, but I wouldn’t call him a principled anti-imperialist, but an opportunistic one.

      • PeeOnYou [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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        7 days ago

        he absolutely wanted to join the imperialist forces, and asked several times to join NATO only to be kicked in the balls each time and told that he was the bad guy