This story has very little to do with imperialism, it’s a ruling party suppressing its biggest political opposition, which is what happens in every country. What it shows is that, unlike in the West, the communist party in Russia is still a powerful enough force that the government fears it and its ability to draw support from the population. This is a good sign. It makes me less fearful of the possibility that Russia will turn imperialist (not that this is a realistic possibility anyway as long as Western imperialism continues to be implacably hostile to Russia, which they have no choice but to be since they need to defeat Russia in order to save their own failing system). When there is a powerful and active communist movement, this forces the government to toe a certain line if it wants to prevent rising discontent from driving more people right into the arms of its largest opposition party, a party that explicitly agitates for socialism and anti-imperialism.

From my perspective, this is yet another example of internal contradictions within Russia. The two internal identities that they have are: The pro-soviet Identity and the liberal identity(Yeltsin liberalism that came from the 90s and it is weakening by the day thanks to the strong organizing of our comrades in Russia).

To delve into this, I wrote a small comment sometime ago to expand on this idea:

Using as a guide Mao’s “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”, both identities within Russia have non-antagonistic contradictions as well as an antagonistic aspect. In this case, the non-antagonistic contradictions is Western Imperialism while the antagonistic aspect, it is the internal exploitation produced by the liberal identity that Russian capitalists favor.

With the war in Ukraine, the non-antagonistic contradiction became the priority for both identities which forced them to collaborate into solving those.

Another case of this contradiction showing up is the fact that the Russian gov’t have been mimicking the Soviet identity or to explain it in another way: Soviet words, oligarchic deeds. This other post that I shared before also delves deeper into the mimick idea.

I can understand the fear in a way, but I feel the need to ask:

1. Why would Russia specifically become imperialist? Is the logic simply that they’re “big and capitalist” or something else?

2. Who would they exploit? Attempting to do it to their neighbors would only increase regional instability. If they attempted it in Africa, it could rupture pre-existing positive ties.

3. What would the processes look like? How would they pull it off without undermining their ties with anti-imperialist powers?

Imperialism takes time and opportunity to develop, and Russia is enmeshed in an existential anti-imperialist war. Succeeding in this global war means the ability for imperialism to do its thing and/or reoccur becomes severely weakened. Failing in this war means Russia’s sovereignty could be lost, along with the wealth (or even lives) of its local capitalists. So in order to protect their capital, the local capitalists are forced to take a position that limits the growth of that same capital, while also keeping them safer in a way, since the working class contingent needs the stability they provide for now, lest internal chaos lead to collapse. Which is sort of a more casual way of talking about what rainpizza covered well in talking about the contradictions.

That said, when it comes to “defending” Russia, this is where terms like “critical support” come in. The ruling capitalism is a danger and a problem, but the primary contradiction is imperialism and so the decision to fight back against it, which the leadership was sort of cornered into doing in a way, has meant they have developed into a real, substantial force in that fight. That part is worth defending. Arresting KPRF demonstrators is not.

The beauty of analyzing it at the dialectical materialist level is we’re able to pull back the curtain on a nation, city, town as the face it puts on and instead understand it as the class and caste dynamics that are defining it, the material conditions that are driving it, and the cultural overlay that is scouting the road ahead. Things that otherwise seem like they make little sense can start to make a lot more sense.

What surprised me the most is the amount of young people in this rally. Regardless of the negative news, it is very positive to see young people participating which shows the results of Russian comrades agitation.