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Ah yes, the sterling and unassailable anti-imperialism of… checks notes …Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I am sorry man but what?
Most sides in most wars are bad. Just because they are fighting your current enemy doesn’t make them good. It makes them, at best, a lesser evil and an ally of convenience. If todays Russia had the global position to do so, they would create their own version of Nato and it would be just as imperialist as Nato is. Just because they used to be cool 40 years ago, doesn’t make them cool now.
Ukrainian-nazi-NATO defenders should be banned on site IMO. Just like we should ban anyone taking the middle ground on Israel. Or the middle ground on bigotry.
One side in all cases is objectively correct and it’s highly suspicious “leftists” years into this conflict are still using talking points straight from the Pentagon.
Yes but the point is intent in this case. If what’s preventing a chud from chudding is a jail cell, does that stop them from being a chud? No it fucking doesn’t
They ally themselves with targets of imperialism, or I should say targets of imperialism often ally themselves with Russia, because they have a common enemy. It really doesn’t have anything to do with an ideology that died in that country decades ago. China actually does domestic shit that’s respectable which is what’s given them the ability to contend with western influence and financial power
Russia is susceptible to western interference because they’re much weaker than they once were, and so they’re forced into preemptive action (which is not wrong), but it’s not out of some anti-imperialist ideology, it’s for their own sovereignty. Just because those actions are taken doesn’t make them anti-imperialist.
I mean the blind and uncritical faith in both Russia and China simply because they are aligned against a foe completely discounts their significant differences in the modern day, and frankly it’s insulting to China’s progress to even lump them together. Russia hasn’t just swapped places with China in the US-Russia-China relationship, it’s swapped places but is in a decline; it doesn’t have potential anymore. Its leadership has failed from a starting point significantly more privileged than China’s, it cannot fend off western influence outside of physical war, of which most if not all is entirely preemptive which begs the question, was all of it necessary, since it creates yet another drain on their workforce and people?
Frankly I don’t even think the west really considers them very threatening outside of their locale. Current power is dominated by finance. China understands that, and China’s decisions put them in a position to fight on a front that matters. Most western rhetoric on Russia is in an attempt to divert public funds towards private arms companies, not to stunt a legitimate threat. Their investment in Ukraine is more a dumping ground for old equipment than anything else, and to prevent a short-term engagement that might spread beyond that, that would be considered short term because Russia’s population is in literal decline and has been for decades because their domestic policy has generated nothing for their people besides extraction. The Soviet Union collapsed and is still being looted, and the call is predominantly coming from inside the house
It really doesn’t have anything to do with an ideology that died in that country decades ago.
Communism isn’t as dead in Russia as you think. There are far more communist sympathies in Russia than there are in any other western or post-Soviet country. The communist party is the biggest opposition to the ruling party.
China actually does domestic shit that’s respectable which is what’s given them the ability to contend with western influence and financial power
China and Russia are more alike than you might think. China is not a perfect socialist country, it has a very active market economy, and a lot of capitalistic elements to their economy, albeit always with the state having the final word and making sure capital doesn’t get out of line. Russia is not a perfect capitalist country. They have a fairly large state owned sector, especially in military and resource extraction industries, and the state at times exercises strong control over the economy to discipline rogue capitalists. China has a socialist ruling party and Russia a capitalist one, but in practice their economies are closer to each other than they are to the neoliberal West.
they’re forced into preemptive action (which is not wrong), but it’s not out of some anti-imperialist ideology, it’s for their own sovereignty. Just because those actions are taken doesn’t make them anti-imperialist.
I think here there are just differing philosophical views on the importance of intent vs practical results. What good is good intent if the results are objectively bad? And if the results are objectively good, does it really matter what the intent is?
I mean the blind and uncritical faith in both Russia and China simply because they are aligned against a foe completely discounts their significant differences in the modern day, and frankly it’s insulting to China’s progress to even lump them together
I don’t think we should have uncritical faith in either of them. In Russia’s case it should definitely be critical support.
And yes the two countries are very different. Russia is certainly not the USSR. But Russia is for all intents and purposes allied with China, and the two countries have complementary strengths. Russia is a raw material superpower with a very advanced military industry. In many ways Russian military technology is still ahead of both the US and China, even if it’s not as big by sheer size. It’s also about as close to self-sufficient as a country can get. China on the other hand is a manufacturing and technology superpower. Each has what the other needs. This partnership is not going away any time soon. Their relationship is only deepening.
Most western rhetoric on Russia is in an attempt to divert public funds towards private arms companies
True. But a defeat in the Ukraine proxy war would still be extremely destabilizing for them. Due to the sheer amount of money and political capital that they have invested into this conflict, it would be viewed as a humiliating defeat of NATO and the EU, and both organizations risk falling apart as a result.
Russia’s population is in literal decline and has been for decades because their domestic policy has generated nothing for their people besides extraction
Pretty much all European countries are struggling with their demographics and for the most part the growth they do have is thanks to immigration. China’s situation is not much better in this regard either. But i don’t think this is as big of a deal as it is made out to be. Russia isn’t going to run out of people and neither is Europe and neither is China.
Also, you should not underestimate the level of recovery that Russia has achieved compared to where they were 25 years ago. Russia today is not the Russia of the 1990s. There are a lot of problems but from what i can tell the mood seems to be generally optimistic. They have solid growth, they are regrowing their domestic industries as a result of the sanctions, living standards have greatly improved, and their international standing outside of the collective West is very good.
Whether this is sustainable in the long term remains to be seen. They may need to take a page out of China’s playbook and copy some of China’s policies and development strategies. But if that is the case then they are well positioned to do it, with a communist party as the second biggest independent political force in the country, and with China right next door to look to and gain inspiration from.
Hey I just wanted to say I appreciate your response a lot. I disagree with parts of it but also agree with parts of it and was just a little frustrated at the seemingly uncritical support we often see here of nations simply because they’ve found themselves in opposition to western forces. I do want to respond to it but it’s hard to do from mobile which is how I typically access this site but did want to just mention that I appreciate it!
If a nation’s material position forces them into an anti-imperialist stance then their ideology will follow. The opposite is true as well - of a nation’s material position allies them with imperialism then their ideology will follow.
If ideology is downstream from material reality then why has material reality over the course of all human history begged for a more equitable distribution of resources among its laborers, but no nation has ever ended up with an ideology that made that a reality (China still pending)?
Material reality does influence ideology. In that those who control the means dictate the ideology much, much more often than not, with an occasional revolution that very often ends up with the same dichotomy between owner and worker.
Do not conflate nation with people, as very often a nation is represented by a very thin margin of elites pretending to represent the interests of their “people”. And very often from a failed state comes corpse-picking vultures who understand the economic situation and trajectory their nation is in, and the economic situation they are personally in, and take advantage of it for good reason.
Ideology is only downstream from your perception of reality if
that reality is a revolution among labor, not among elites. Last I checked the Soviet Union falling wasn’t one driven by its labor. Its ideology is aligned with its elite material interests, since it’s very much owned by its elites. Barring some occasional theatrics, Putin is not the people’s president. And that’s not because he’s a permanent ruler, I understand the necessity of one in the face of stronger imperialist forces, it’s because he’s a shitty leader
Look at WW2. France and the UK fought the Nazis and that’s a good thing. Does it excuse the clearly evil shit they did as colonial powers before WW2, during or after? Fuck no. No need to carry water for them, no need to carry water for post USSR Russia.
You only proved that changing material conditions changes material conditions. Why does it matter what one would or wouldn’t do in a hypothetical scenario that exists in only in your brain.
It doesn’t matter what they would do, we can speculate all day about intentions and alternate universes. All that matters is what they are doing right now in the real world that we live in. Russia is allied with China, Iran, the DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mali, Burkina Faso, etc. All targets of US imperialism. They support and are supported by all socialist or socialist adjacent countries.
The fact is that at the moment Russia is one of the biggest anti-imperialist forces in the world, and certainly the one doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of actually militarily taking on the imperialists and their proxies. They are militarily supporting anti-imperialist governments all over the world. They are killing more fascists each day than anyone else on the planet. And they are second only to China in their contribution to upending US hegemony.
If February 2022 didn’t happen we would be living in a very different world today, one in which US imperialism would still be in a much stronger position. The SMO has been and continues to be, objectively, a historic game changer and immensely positive contribution to the global anti-imperialist cause. Vladimir Putin’s personal ideological inclinations don’t change these factual realities. He has no choice but to act according to the geopolitical circumstances that Russia finds itself in.
I can still stan neither the US, nor Russian, now Ukraine. They can all be bad to a point where I don’t want to cheer for them. I will cheer for China any day though, or the other countries you mentioned. Russia is just a bit too reactionary for me, which is only likely to change once Putin stops leading the place.
And yes, they happen to be a target of imperialism by the US, mainly because the US is incapable of letting anything go and the average hog still equates russian with communist, which is not Russia’s fault. Them having allied with the block of countries that oppose the US/West globally is a pretty obvious move, since they have no other potential allies. in that sense they are indeed anti-imperialist, but that is like saying Hitler was an Anti-Imperialist for wanting to conquer France and the UK.
I will cheer for China any day though, or the other countries you mentioned. Russia is just a bit too reactionary for me
Iran is objectively more reactionary than Russia and we still critically support them.
that is like saying Hitler was an Anti-Imperialist for wanting to conquer France and the UK.
No, it’s the opposite. Nazi Germany was the bigger imperialist threat at the time. At the time we would have expressed, as most communists did, critical support to France and the UK, despite them being imperialist, in the war against the Nazis.
Ah yes, the sterling and unassailable anti-imperialism of… checks notes …Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I am sorry man but what?
Most sides in most wars are bad. Just because they are fighting your current enemy doesn’t make them good. It makes them, at best, a lesser evil and an ally of convenience. If todays Russia had the global position to do so, they would create their own version of Nato and it would be just as imperialist as Nato is. Just because they used to be cool 40 years ago, doesn’t make them cool now.
“If Russia’s historical and material conditions were different, it would be different.”
This is what happens when ZPoster gets banned (again).
Ukrainian-nazi-NATO defenders should be banned on site IMO. Just like we should ban anyone taking the middle ground on Israel. Or the middle ground on bigotry.
One side in all cases is objectively correct and it’s highly suspicious “leftists” years into this conflict are still using talking points straight from the Pentagon.
Yes but the point is intent in this case. If what’s preventing a chud from chudding is a jail cell, does that stop them from being a chud? No it fucking doesn’t
They ally themselves with targets of imperialism, or I should say targets of imperialism often ally themselves with Russia, because they have a common enemy. It really doesn’t have anything to do with an ideology that died in that country decades ago. China actually does domestic shit that’s respectable which is what’s given them the ability to contend with western influence and financial power
Russia is susceptible to western interference because they’re much weaker than they once were, and so they’re forced into preemptive action (which is not wrong), but it’s not out of some anti-imperialist ideology, it’s for their own sovereignty. Just because those actions are taken doesn’t make them anti-imperialist.
I mean the blind and uncritical faith in both Russia and China simply because they are aligned against a foe completely discounts their significant differences in the modern day, and frankly it’s insulting to China’s progress to even lump them together. Russia hasn’t just swapped places with China in the US-Russia-China relationship, it’s swapped places but is in a decline; it doesn’t have potential anymore. Its leadership has failed from a starting point significantly more privileged than China’s, it cannot fend off western influence outside of physical war, of which most if not all is entirely preemptive which begs the question, was all of it necessary, since it creates yet another drain on their workforce and people?
Frankly I don’t even think the west really considers them very threatening outside of their locale. Current power is dominated by finance. China understands that, and China’s decisions put them in a position to fight on a front that matters. Most western rhetoric on Russia is in an attempt to divert public funds towards private arms companies, not to stunt a legitimate threat. Their investment in Ukraine is more a dumping ground for old equipment than anything else, and to prevent a short-term engagement that might spread beyond that, that would be considered short term because Russia’s population is in literal decline and has been for decades because their domestic policy has generated nothing for their people besides extraction. The Soviet Union collapsed and is still being looted, and the call is predominantly coming from inside the house
Communism isn’t as dead in Russia as you think. There are far more communist sympathies in Russia than there are in any other western or post-Soviet country. The communist party is the biggest opposition to the ruling party.
China and Russia are more alike than you might think. China is not a perfect socialist country, it has a very active market economy, and a lot of capitalistic elements to their economy, albeit always with the state having the final word and making sure capital doesn’t get out of line. Russia is not a perfect capitalist country. They have a fairly large state owned sector, especially in military and resource extraction industries, and the state at times exercises strong control over the economy to discipline rogue capitalists. China has a socialist ruling party and Russia a capitalist one, but in practice their economies are closer to each other than they are to the neoliberal West.
I think here there are just differing philosophical views on the importance of intent vs practical results. What good is good intent if the results are objectively bad? And if the results are objectively good, does it really matter what the intent is?
I don’t think we should have uncritical faith in either of them. In Russia’s case it should definitely be critical support.
And yes the two countries are very different. Russia is certainly not the USSR. But Russia is for all intents and purposes allied with China, and the two countries have complementary strengths. Russia is a raw material superpower with a very advanced military industry. In many ways Russian military technology is still ahead of both the US and China, even if it’s not as big by sheer size. It’s also about as close to self-sufficient as a country can get. China on the other hand is a manufacturing and technology superpower. Each has what the other needs. This partnership is not going away any time soon. Their relationship is only deepening.
True. But a defeat in the Ukraine proxy war would still be extremely destabilizing for them. Due to the sheer amount of money and political capital that they have invested into this conflict, it would be viewed as a humiliating defeat of NATO and the EU, and both organizations risk falling apart as a result.
Pretty much all European countries are struggling with their demographics and for the most part the growth they do have is thanks to immigration. China’s situation is not much better in this regard either. But i don’t think this is as big of a deal as it is made out to be. Russia isn’t going to run out of people and neither is Europe and neither is China.
Also, you should not underestimate the level of recovery that Russia has achieved compared to where they were 25 years ago. Russia today is not the Russia of the 1990s. There are a lot of problems but from what i can tell the mood seems to be generally optimistic. They have solid growth, they are regrowing their domestic industries as a result of the sanctions, living standards have greatly improved, and their international standing outside of the collective West is very good.
Whether this is sustainable in the long term remains to be seen. They may need to take a page out of China’s playbook and copy some of China’s policies and development strategies. But if that is the case then they are well positioned to do it, with a communist party as the second biggest independent political force in the country, and with China right next door to look to and gain inspiration from.
Hey I just wanted to say I appreciate your response a lot. I disagree with parts of it but also agree with parts of it and was just a little frustrated at the seemingly uncritical support we often see here of nations simply because they’ve found themselves in opposition to western forces. I do want to respond to it but it’s hard to do from mobile which is how I typically access this site but did want to just mention that I appreciate it!
If a nation’s material position forces them into an anti-imperialist stance then their ideology will follow. The opposite is true as well - of a nation’s material position allies them with imperialism then their ideology will follow.
Ideology is downstream from material reality.
If ideology is downstream from material reality then why has material reality over the course of all human history begged for a more equitable distribution of resources among its laborers, but no nation has ever ended up with an ideology that made that a reality (China still pending)?
Material reality does influence ideology. In that those who control the means dictate the ideology much, much more often than not, with an occasional revolution that very often ends up with the same dichotomy between owner and worker.
Do not conflate nation with people, as very often a nation is represented by a very thin margin of elites pretending to represent the interests of their “people”. And very often from a failed state comes corpse-picking vultures who understand the economic situation and trajectory their nation is in, and the economic situation they are personally in, and take advantage of it for good reason.
Ideology is only downstream from your perception of reality if that reality is a revolution among labor, not among elites. Last I checked the Soviet Union falling wasn’t one driven by its labor. Its ideology is aligned with its elite material interests, since it’s very much owned by its elites. Barring some occasional theatrics, Putin is not the people’s president. And that’s not because he’s a permanent ruler, I understand the necessity of one in the face of stronger imperialist forces, it’s because he’s a shitty leader
Yea and if I had wheels I’d be a wagon.
Look at WW2. France and the UK fought the Nazis and that’s a good thing. Does it excuse the clearly evil shit they did as colonial powers before WW2, during or after? Fuck no. No need to carry water for them, no need to carry water for post USSR Russia.
WW2 and modern day are two completely different world dynamics. You can’t just compare Russia in 2025 to the UK 80 years ago.
so making things up counts as analysis now?
This is funny to me. Yea, Putin would totally usher in world commulism if only he could reach that button my guy.
It doesn’t matter what they would do, we can speculate all day about intentions and alternate universes. All that matters is what they are doing right now in the real world that we live in. Russia is allied with China, Iran, the DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mali, Burkina Faso, etc. All targets of US imperialism. They support and are supported by all socialist or socialist adjacent countries.
The fact is that at the moment Russia is one of the biggest anti-imperialist forces in the world, and certainly the one doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of actually militarily taking on the imperialists and their proxies. They are militarily supporting anti-imperialist governments all over the world. They are killing more fascists each day than anyone else on the planet. And they are second only to China in their contribution to upending US hegemony.
If February 2022 didn’t happen we would be living in a very different world today, one in which US imperialism would still be in a much stronger position. The SMO has been and continues to be, objectively, a historic game changer and immensely positive contribution to the global anti-imperialist cause. Vladimir Putin’s personal ideological inclinations don’t change these factual realities. He has no choice but to act according to the geopolitical circumstances that Russia finds itself in.
I can still stan neither the US, nor Russian, now Ukraine. They can all be bad to a point where I don’t want to cheer for them. I will cheer for China any day though, or the other countries you mentioned. Russia is just a bit too reactionary for me, which is only likely to change once Putin stops leading the place.
And yes, they happen to be a target of imperialism by the US, mainly because the US is incapable of letting anything go and the average hog still equates russian with communist, which is not Russia’s fault. Them having allied with the block of countries that oppose the US/West globally is a pretty obvious move, since they have no other potential allies. in that sense they are indeed anti-imperialist, but that is like saying Hitler was an Anti-Imperialist for wanting to conquer France and the UK.
Iran is objectively more reactionary than Russia and we still critically support them.
No, it’s the opposite. Nazi Germany was the bigger imperialist threat at the time. At the time we would have expressed, as most communists did, critical support to France and the UK, despite them being imperialist, in the war against the Nazis.