I’ll never understand why it’s so hard for some people to understand that the US is literally an evil empire that exploits, oppresses, and murders people all over the world. Of course all rightwing governments suck, but it’s easy to see that the US is the primary enemy of leftist movements across the planet. If we want communism, we need the US to collapse and movements all over the place preventing the vacuum from being filled by something worse.
Idk seems like anyone left of liberals would understand this.
“I’m comfortable which means the US can’t be that bad”
Similar reasoning for why suburbanites generally don’t care about police violence.
I think it literally is because books like 1984 and other propaganda has given people this idea that “authoritarian” countries are just this miserable 24/7 nightmare for everyone who lives in them and therefore any country that has any significant population of people who seem happy and comfortable can’t be evil. It’s like how liberals shit their pants when they hear accounts of people living in the USSR who actually enjoyed their lives and did fun stuff like go to the beach and have barbecues cuz apparently under evil communism everyone is just supposed to work in the orphan crushing factory all day and then go home to eat gray mush.
“In bad countries, the color pallet is dark gray or tan. In good country, they use all the colors of the rainbow.”
Russia isnt even that authoritarian so in this case it’s literally propaganda
Plus, even if Russia wasn’t much weaker than the US, I still can’t do anything to affect them except support the Military Industrial Complex or their candidates. I’m not gonna do that anyway. So what does it matter if, emotionally, I like Russia? It’s not like my “support” for them means anything.
Right.
Any correct thinking leftist in the west would obviously be against their own government’s imperialist actions. They should all support limiting military spending, aiding arms embargoes, withdrawing our forces, pushing for peace/ceasefires in all of our active conflicts, etc. Any anti-war hippie knows this, even the lib ones going totally on vibes.
So as long as you do that part, actually opposing your own empire in material ways as directly as you can, what does it matter your opinion on the russian or iranian states are? We aren’t russian or iranian, we can’t do anything to change their policies from without - all we can do is beat the drums of war of our own empire to do it on our behalf, which directly contradicts the goals above. What’s the point in even bringing up how evil Russia or Iran are as a westerner? Whether they are pure saints or demons incarnate it doesn’t change what your short-term tangible goals are, so why are you wasting time squabbling over it instead of getting to work?
There’s a chinese saying… something like ‘an egg cracked from within brings new life. an egg cracked from without is someone’s meal’. This is how social progress must work, it must arise organically from within following the natural development of that society advancing. It cannot be imposed from without via violent force, and those who claim to do so are looking for a meal.
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Even if every claim of Russian ebil oligarchy was real, to which many of the claims are bogus, at worst it is still an economically and militarily less-influential version of the US-NATO empire?
Surely, even if you were an anarchist or otherwise anti-nationalist on the left, you would see the historic importance of said US Empire suddenly biting off more than it can chew and being drawn into collapse?
I know there are exceptions like the A"C"P, but most people on the left I know that “support” Russia are just supporting the growing attrition and contradictions against the imperialist system. Those same people are all very aware of limitations and contradictions within the Russian, Chinese, Iranian states.
In short, you can’t expect to win against the imperialists if every time the imperialists face a challenger you spend countless hours criticising the challenger’s politics as if this wasn’t already universally agreed within the statement critical support.
I’m a lot more anti-ethnic cleansing than I am pro-liberal democracy. If one side of a conflict is doing ethnic cleansing, and the other side’s biggest failure (relative to the first side’s) is not being a liberal democracy, I’m taking the side that’s stopping ethnic cleansing 10 times out of 10.
Also, FWIW, Ukraine’s political system is obviously is at least as corrupt and antidemocratic as Russia, and the other obvious example is Israel, which doesn’t even give equal voting rights to all Palestinians. So even if you were a Fukuyamist who only cared about which side is a liberal democracy, you still can’t make the argument to support the West in either conflict just based on that. All roads lead to
Really it’s more a question of how much red carpet they lay out for Western corporate interests. Saudi Arabia is a majority Muslim country led by a monarchy that offs journalists for being critical of them. But they get the pass from
because they play nice with the oil industry.
Lenin invented revolutionary defeatism and it lead to the revolution. Luxemburg and Liebknecht said the main enemy is at home. From both follows, that the main task of leftists in the imperial core is, to oppose “our” imperialists. The ones we actually can affect. I’m happy if I see comrades in Russia do work against their oligarchy but I won’t get tricked into supporting western oligarchs’ NATO wars. Guess that’s campist now? It just makes sense to spend time and resources where they actually change things - unless you don’t really want fundamental change, because you enjoy your white western privilege too much.
From both follows, that the main task of leftists in the imperial core is, to oppose “our” imperialists. The ones we actually can affect. I’m happy if I see comrades in Russia do work against their oligarchy but I won’t get tricked into supporting western oligarchs’ NATO wars.
Pretty good way of putting it, comrade! I’ll definitely try to explain it along those lines next time I chat with my more liberal leaning progressives.
Yeah this is how I frame it always. There is nothing I can do to affect a change in Russian policy from the US as a broke ass communist. All I can do is organize and speak out against/try to undermine our own imperial forces. Same with when people talk about Chinese data harvesting, I give not one fuck what china has of my internet data why would they give a fuck about me? I do care about my data being in the hands of corporate black box algorithms and US federal agencies.
jesus, they’re gonna bring back “campists”? I thought they already exhausted that one past its expiration date back in 2020 or something?
“Campism” in practice always just looks like “knowing what side you’re on and rooting for outcomes accordingly.”
Streamers and other e-celebs who make their money off of “challenging people’s ideas online” (contain your laughter!) hate the idea of people making up their minds and moving on.
Liberals keep raiding the Trotskyist piggybank for left-punching terms. Once campist gets used up in 10 years they’ll go with “left-deviationist” or something.
They’ll circle back to Stalinists eventually
Ok Contra, but you don’t support any opposition, State or non-State.
You don’t have any problem with the state or capital, only see those running it as incompetent and wish they’d fulfill their part of the class collaborationism deal.
She supports the only opposition that matters: democrats and socdem video essayists
No, those aren’t an opposition. They’re people who peddle ideas to the government and hope to take the wheel for a few years.
I am once again screaming into the void that is the yankoid skull “YOU GOT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANTED, YOU DISSOLVED THE USSR, YOU WON, PUTIN IS LITERALLY YOUR GUY, SHUT THE FUCK UP”
The USSR was a vastly more rational geopolitical actor it’s astounding the Yankoid brain still counts transferring control of a giant nuclear arsenal to a less reliable government as “winning.”
I hate them. I hate them so fucking much.
Ok I have to disagree ,Russia is not any less rational than the USSR was under Brezhnev
That she’s responding to “Decolonize Russia” makes this post even more funny
Russia is not a far right country ,in fact Russia is one of the ONLY counties in Europe not led by a fascist maniac
If you know anything about geopolitics you would know that Russia is opposed by right wingers in the global south but supported by left wingers ,example (election with a pro trump candidate vs a pro Putin candidate)
Also let’s look at Putin’s policies : more tolerant on immigration than the USA ,Germany ,Poland ,Baltic states ,France
Abortion is legal and will likely never be removed as a right
Muslims and ethnic minorities are actually protected by the state
Is NOT viewed as a nationalist
His MAIN opponents are Nazis ,Neo Nazis ,monarchists (who are also Neo Nazis) , NeoLibs who want to privatize Russia
Is Putin a communist ? No he’s not and Russia is not a communist country by any means but that doesn’t fucking matter ,there are ONLY 5 communist countries on the fucking planet
And I hate this absolutely braindead thing from westerners not libs but comrades about Putin being a fascist ,I don’t respect liberals so I don’t care but I hate when our comrades say this while simultaneously defending Bashar Al Assad (rightfully)
If Bashar isn’t a fascist (he isn’t but he has more reactionary opinions than Putin) than Putin isn’t
Also as for the Russia is anti communist thing ,yes I don’t care ,Russia is not even close to being the most anti communist country in the world proven by the fact it’s literally an ally of communist states and Putin is not much of an anti communist as a lot of Russian are these days (unfortunately) as well as his opposition
Putin also isn’t really a dictator but this one is more complicated as elections are rigged in Russia just not to a full extent ,most Russians would vote for Putin even if elections were completely fair but there is indeed corruption
Sorry for how angry I have been but I can’t tolerate nonsense
And please mods I’m not gonna deal with any of the libs that will reply to this comment ,it’s your job
Russian liberals are amongst the most racist, islamophobic and western-servile people imaginable. They would sell out their grandma for a tacky overpriced western “luxury item”. That alone should be an indication that russia is conservative and reactionary but aligned with the progressive forces of history. And so ironically pro-putin russians are driven closer to internationalism than the average western leftist is.
And so ironically pro-putin russians are driven closer to internationalism than the average western leftist is.
not that much tbh
Putin is much better than his supporters in Russia but this is an opinion in the end
I’m from country with HEAVY anty-russian propaganda, so you know, Russia bad. Could someone point me into the direction on materials about Russia with more balanced point of view?
The current war in Ukraine would never have happened if Ukraine had bothered to implement the Minsk Agreements.
They would have gotten back ALL of their territory lost during the civil war excluding Crimea (which they’re never getting back anyway), on the account that they have to stop pursuing ethnic cleansing policies in the eastern regions (the Minsk Agreements explicitly gave some level of cultural autonomy to the provincial governments so the Rada cannot, for example, simply impose a ban on the Russian language on a whim like they did on February 2014, which sparked the civil war in the first place).
Ukrainian fascists chose no, they cannot live without ethnic cleansing the Russians. So now they are going to lose everything.
I’m from country with HEAVY anty-russian propaganda
Do you have any idea how much that lowers it down 😭
🤔 let me think for this one ,I’m sure some comrades here have something
Do you have any idea how much that lowers it down
fair enough
Calling people “campists” while retweeting the NAFO camp.
All while the usa is preparing to invade and slaughter a country of 90million together with his bestie, little hitler
Trotsky, the inventor of the term “campist”, thought that the trial in the process of decapitating the CPUSA would be a great platform to offer testimony to warn the world of the evils of Stalinism and tried to work with the US government to testify. It only fell through because they decided they had no use for him.
Wow what a fuckin tool.
I should have included the obligatory link:
Remember when she said she was going to become a white liberal woman and we laughed at the bit. I am starting to think it wasn’t just a bit.
going to become a white liberal woman
Nah, I think she was a soc-dem at least at some point
soc-dem
she was already called a liberal white woman.
Nah, there was a time where her stuff had potential. I think maybe before she got mixed up with genX vs GenZ queer discourse.
Okay, to be clear, social democracy literally is a form of liberalism definitionally as they want to reform, and therefore retain, capitalism.
it’s safe and comfy to her. i don’t think she goes outside much.
she seems really driven by anxiety and social anxiety
my kind of materialist analysis
It’s my favorite thing when neoliberal slime appropriate the stupidest elements of Trotskyism.
Also, I have no respect for anyone who uses the word “oligarch” to mean “Asiatic-style capitalist” and I struggle to conceive how professed anticapitalists can still like her. Well, of course I can, she’s part of their consumer lifestyle brand, she’s an affectation of quippy, artsy, intellectualism that is so much more effective at bringing about real change by punching left over and over and over.
In my experience people think im unconditionally for Russia if I make any criticism of Ukraine
I mean this isn’t entirely wrong. I do think the Western powers are a unique evil that must be destroyed by any means necessary, and am willing to extent critical support to any and all who oppose their hegemony.
i think there gotta be bordiga addendum to this
if they are not trying to get colonies?
A Bordiga addendum, like “I love Hitler, but not as much as I love Mussolini”?
he thought, at some point, that overthrowing british empire was worth whatever (i think that hitler line is on the same page) (
that was before holocaust, but after dachau opening for kpd,if i recall correctlygotta reup my bordiga lore smh).we should call it “bordiga limit of campist critical support” ™
He floated the idea that Germany was revolutionary for opposing the British empire, yes. Now of course he would use the idea that you could sign a pact with Hitler to oppose Britain/France as evidence that the Soviet Union had lost their way, after having previously supported that exact thing when Hitler did it. Bordiga just hated AES. That was literally his guiding principle from 1920 on.
i think he changed tune after 1948 (?), i remember there was some recalibration time of italian leftcoms/particularly him in the 30-40s. hmm but now i can’t find that quote, maybe i’m wrong
In an article he wrote in 1960 he condemned the Soviet Union both for the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact AND for siding with the allies to defeat the nazis.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1960/vae-victus.htm
In the second war of German revanchism, Russia – now deviated from revolutionary Marxism – at first made a pact with Hitler for a moment, using as a pretense the Leninist thesis that France and England (later America) were fighting for exquisite imperialist motives: those of 1914.
That was the first disgrace, but the second stage was even worse. Reaching out to the French, the English, and the Americans, the Russians threw themselves once again into the most criminal democratic crusadism.
Oh oh and here’s the best (worst) bit.
Almost half a century has been enough to show that the Russian leadership of the struggle for communism has ended in failure. [Our] hopes can only be placed in a mission of the great Germanic proletariat
In an article he wrote in 1960 he condemned the Soviet Union both for the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact AND for siding with the allies to defeat the nazis.
Well there’s a reason why Gramsci died in prison while Bordiga didn’t.
