See the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/russias-party-on-87936354The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) is the second ...
Do you seriously think that Putin invaded Ukraine not knowing they would get sanctioned by the entire Western world and losing hundreds of billions of their oligarchs’ money?
I've heard people say that United Russia is made up of two main components - the Oligarchs and the Siloviki (the security and intelligence complex). Occasionally they struggle for power internally but since Putin is strongly of the silovik background, the oligarchs have been subordinated to the siloviki for a long time.
I don't understand the complexities of Russian politics enough to have a firm view, but it's possible that the Oligarchs losing a bunch of money (and therefore power) actually benefitted the Siloviki faction inside United Russia. That goes hand in hand with the idea that by sanctioning the Oligarchs, the West actually threw away their best chance at overthrowing Putin internally via some sort of Oligarch-backed coup.
Edit: preemptive apologies to Russian speakers for probably butchering the grammatical forms.
The fact is that both Merkel and Hollande (guarantors of Minsk II) have publicly admitted that Minsk was merely to buy time for Ukraine to militarize itself, and was not a serious attempt to pursue peace between both countries.
Nitpick but I see this claim a lot but I don't buy it. Mostly because I don't believe Germany would plan so heavily around Russian gas if it knew the war was inevitable. I'm inclined to think they're impling it to look like they knew what they were doing and cover their own asses for negotiating a failed agreement, while appealing to an audience that is (for the most part) uncritically supportive of Ukraine. I also think its a pretty big stretch to characterize their words as "publically admitting it was not a serious agreement." What Merkel said was,
Then, in order to prevent even worse things, everyone signed this agreement. Was it possible to stop the war then? This question is no longer relevant. I believe that the Minsk agreements gave Ukraine more time to develop between 2014 and 2021.
What she's saying is that regardless of whether or not it was possible to achieve peace through the negotiations, they were still beneficial to Ukraine in buying time. That's not the same thing as saying they were done in bad faith.
I think the Russian charactization of this quote is trying to paint a picture of Western governments as highly co-ordinated, when the reality is more complex. Germany isn't holding Ukraine's leash, the US had to blow uo Nord Stream because the Germans weren't willing to co-operate, etc. There's bumbling, competing interests at play.
I've had this conversation before but I find it extremely implausible that the West planned all of this out in advance and the lynchpin of the entire plot was being able to destroy Russia with sanctions alone. Again, Germany wasn't even willing to fully participate, and they had to resort to some pretty desperate measures after the pipeline was destroyed. Nothing was done to ensure India's cooperation, and they were saber-rattling with China, neither of which makes sense if they were planning on all this.
I also haven't heard any real explanation for what caused this miscalculation, other than pure stupidity and buying into their own propaganda. I think this is the same flawed analysis behind the initial point that I disputed. When a politician says something you can't just take it at face value, even when it fits into your narrative and makes them look bad, you still have to consider why they're saying it, what they're trying to accomplish, and who they're trying to appeal to. When they started doing sanctions, obviously they would say they thought they would work, but this indicates nothing about their actual beliefs. They were just trying to drum up support for the sanctions, there's no reason why they'd say, "Well, who knows if these will work or not" if they're trying to get people to support them. Very rarely do politicians say something just because they think it's true.
The narrative that fits actual events better without requiring abject stupidity and actions contrary to the actors' own interests, is that Germany did not expect a full scale war and did not plan for losing Nord Stream 2. The outbreak of war came as a surprise to a lot of people, including the majority of this site, and Merkel did not have a crystal ball. The ceasefire was broken due to domestic pressure from the far-right, plus international pressure from the US, which did not assume sanctions would work, but rather saw extended bloodshed as a possibility and did not care, due to the profits it would mean for the military-industrial complex and not caring at all about the lives of Ukrainians. There are internal fractures within NATO and within NATO states, due to competing class interests, it's not one big conspiracy working together.
Why do you think it would need to be a conspiracy?
Because you're assuming coordination between different groups, even when it doesn't make sense and goes against their interests. This is like the third time I've brought this up - Germany relied heavily on Russian gas, then didn't shut it off, which led the US to blow up the pipeline. How do any of those events make sense in your narrative? Is all of that part of an elaborate ruse to trick people into thinking that my narrative is correct and yours is wrong? It's nonsense.
The Europeans simply didn’t see Russia as a potent threat and felt entitled to not giving Russia the respect it deserves.
And this is where I think your narrative is coming from. It's all about Russia surpassing everyone's expectations and proving how strong and powerful it is, and it's like, every event has to be somehow contorted to fit that narrative, when there's much more coherent ways to fit them together.
Tbh, it just seems like this is what you want to believe, in which case I can't stop you. You're not looking at countries' actions and you're also not looking at class interests, it's just "everybody hated Russia and thought they were weak when they were actually big and strong." It's a very biased and oversimplified narrative that I find hard to take seriously, I'm just as skeptical of that as I would be about one that's brazenly pro-Ukraine tbh.
Europe did not turn off Russian gas because they expected Russia to fold within a few months. They were confident that their sanctions were going to work.
So you're saying that not only was everyone in the West convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that mere sanctions would cripple Russia, but also that those sanctions wouldn't even have to include gas?? That's even more absurd than I thought. I'm absolutely baffled at why you think Western leaders have such a ridiculously inflated view of the power of sanctions, when there's such a more reasonable explanation, that they were simply exaggerating the power of sanctions for the people watching at home.
Here’s what George Soros said in May 2022:
I don't care what he said. This whole time I've been explaining to you why you can't just take quotes at face value, and here you're just posting another quote and taking it at face value, and this time not even from a policy maker. People can confess to murder and still turn out to be innocent. You have to examine why they're saying it. In this case he's saying sanctions will work, as I have explained several times, because he supports them and wants to sell people on them, it tells us nothing about his actual beliefs. People in positions of power generally make public statements because of a rational calculus of what effect that statement will have, whether they think it's true or not is irrelevant. This is why you have to look at actions and interests and not just statements.
This is a very common assumption even in mainstream media
You're assuming that what's said in the media is the same reasoning and calculus that's happening behind closed doors. As I said, statements to the public are made based on political calculus, not actual beliefs. The reality is that the West's grip has been slipping even with smaller countries due to Chinese investment, which is why I find it completely implausible that Western policymakers simply didn't consider that Russia could just trade with China and India.
Assume for a moment that I'm correct, and that nobody actually expected sanctions to work. What consequences have any of them faced for saying that they would? None whatsoever. But saying they'd work helped build support for them. So there's a benefit to saying it an no drawback to saying it, so of course they're going to say it. What's so hard to understand about that?
Where did I ever say that?
It's literally your whole narrative!
but that does not mean their economy is stronger than Europe’s.
I never claimed you said anything like that.
It simply means that the global supply chain is far more complex than the European policymakers drafting the sanctions had anticipated
Right, because you think that they're unbelievably stupid and naive (yet at the same time managing to orchestrate a complicated long-term plot). Did they just not know that China exists? It's absurd to think that they wouldn't consider this possibility.
Here's the points that I think you're being fundamentally unreasonable about:
Taking politicians' words at face value as a reflection of genuine belief, instead of critically examining the calculus of why they would say something
Claiming that the idea that sanctions alone (not even including gas) would cripple Russia is anything but an absurd and blatantly unrealistic fantasy sold to the masses, to the point that policy-makers not only believed it but even relied on it as a lynchpin to their plans.
Believing an oversimplified narrative designed to make Russia look good over a more realistic narrative based on facts and class analysis, which still makes Russia look pretty good.
To the third point, I mean, come on. I can't count the number of cartoons I've seen where the bad guy underestimates the protagonist only for the protagonist to prove their worth. This is exactly the kind of simple narrative about empowerment and resiliance that I'd expect any country to put out during war-time. But Russia is a geopolitical entity and not a shonen character. Both it and it's rivals are composed of various competing interests acting more or less rationally. It's tiring to argue with this nonsense, Merkel does not control Ukraine and is not always in agreement with the US, and she also doesn't reveal her schemes to the hero in a villainous monologue to the hero just for shits and giggles.
I guess we're at an impasse, your narrative seems completely unreasonable to me, while it seems mine seems completely unreasonable to you. I think that our methods of examining the situation and drawing conclusion are completely different and irreconcilable, yours relies far too heavily on quotes, which I find unreliable.
You seem to think that German politicians have some “secret calculations”, but there aren’t
Of course there are and it's ridiculous to claim otherwise. Every politician (hell, every individual) considers the effects of their words and what they say or don't say is influenced by that. This is a basic fundamental truth, literally nothing you say could convince me it's wrong lol. Maybe you misunderstood what I meant? That's the only reason I could imagine you disagreeing with it.
Germany’s position on sanctioning Russian gas was heavily reliant on the following two papers that were published in early March 2022
I don't read German, unfortunately. Think tanks have the same incentives to say things people want to hear as anybody else, so it doesn't mean much to me regardless. None of this stuff is what I look at to draw conclusions from which is why I think our approaches are just fundamentally incompatible. All the evidence you've presented can be explained by my narrative just as well as yours.
It’s just plain old political and bureaucratic processes based on faulty assumptions of a complex scenario.
I think I'd be more receptive towards your argument if you were claiming like, they thought the threat of sanctions would be painful enough to deter Russia from crossing the West due to the influence of Russian capitalists. But it would take extraordinary evidence to convince me that everyone essentially just forgot that China exists. It's very obvious to me (and was at the time) that sanctions alone would not cause Russia to collapse and I am unwilling to accept that policy makers with access to much more information and intelligence than me could be so much dumber than me, when more plausible explanations exist.
Sanctions didn't even bring down Afghanistan, nobody seriously believed they'd bring down Russia, it's absurd on its face.
Russia was following Minsk 2 much, much closer than Ukraine was, who had tens of thousands of cease fire violations. Its not a “both sides didn’t follow it” situation. It’s a “one side was acting in bad faith to buy time to militarize and always fully intended to attack eventually vs. the other side just didn’t want to have to deal with the whole situation and wanted it to chill out”
No they didnt. The obama regime was already thretening european companies that planned to invest in iran after the deal was suposedly in effect and before trump won.
This always seems like a poorly based position to me. All Russia wants would've been guaranteed by successful implementation of the agreement. What part of the Minsk agreements did Russia not adhere to?
the invasion was a terrible idea that has greatly harmed Russia and Russian interests
speaking a bit soon, aren't we? Also we'll never get to see what the alternative was.
VASTLY worsened Russia's strategic position vis a vis the west.
USSR asked to join NATO in 1954. They were told "no." Then NATO let west germany in and appointed a bunch of "former" nazis to key positions. Russia tried to join NATO in 2002. Were told "no." Russia supported America in its reactionary "war on terror." and that still didn't tighten Russia's relationship with "the west." turns out the only thing that can make Russia have a better relationship with the west is balkanizing themselves, breaking up into dozens of tiny republics, and privatizing everything, because the west's vision for Yugoslavia is the same vision it has for Russia. Turns out there is nothing Russia can do to have a better relationship with the west. Because the west isn't mutually interested in a better relationship. The west is interested in balkanizing and privatizing former soviet nations. To punish them for having the audacity for being socialist once upon a time. To make sure it never happens again. To turn them into neocolonies. Ukraine has tried to have a better relationship with the west. What did it get them? It got them to sacrifice themselves by the thousands in a western proxy war in exchange for not even a NATO membership. Ukraine is getting balkanized and privatized on NATO's behalf.
Oh, and the sanctions? They aren't working. Russia is still selling gas to Europe, just through third parties. The entire situation is a reactionary shitshow, and the chief responsibility lies with the imperial core for deliberately instigating the conflict for years and years and years. Russia's options were to allow itself to get slowly encircled, or to ruin its "reputation" with a bunch of reactionary capitalist nations. It chose the latter.
Russia is reactionary and capitalist too? No shit! How did that happen? The west was gleeful when the Russian federation came into existence.
there was no good moves for russia, even fewer for ukraine. i don't think of it in terms of good moves. I think of it in terms of russia and ukraine as they currently exist both being byproducts of imperialism.
Also I don't think we can really know if it chose the better of two bad moves because we cannot see what the alternative would have been, we can only speculate. I thought that was clear in the last post.
There is no evidence that Russia ever seriously meant to give up its influence over the D/LPRs.
Minsk what? Ok no evidenc-Minsk 2 what?
Ya'll could have a Minsk 3 and then 4 years of ukraine bombing people they supposedly want to reintegrate into their country and still find it hard to fault the ukranian state
I wonder what kind of parallels can be drawn with Ukraine now and China during WW2 (when the communists allied with the nationalists in order to fend off the Japanese). Perhaps strategically it makes sense for Russian communists to "support" Russia in order to stave off NATO. This would give more breathing room for leftist agitation inside of Russia (and eastern Ukraine for that matter, perhaps western Ukraine too I hope).
The shock therapy was done by the west to Russia. Are you saying that Russia should receive millions? That’s like blaming the massacre of Indonesian communists on the communists
uh... i mean the massacre of indonesian communists wasnt done by the american military, it was done by the indonesians as a proxy of the west. the russian government started as a proxy of the west for shock therapy. they participated.
the russian government started as a proxy of the west for shock therapy. they participated.
Comprador traitors indeed, but not the current Russian state or people. This is extreme levels of victim blaming of the Russian people and using their own deaths and suffering against them
These exact parallels have been discussed here quite a bit. The class breakdown of China in WW2 was that the communists (representing the landless peasants and proletariat) built a temporary alliance with the national bourgeois (the local owners) in order to fight outside colonizers, invaders and the international bourgeois (global imperialist capital hegemony).
Russia, Iran, Syria, Belarus, Brazil and others are currently representing the national bourgeois in this alliance with the proletariat states of China, Cuba, DPRK, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc. They are temporarily allied to defeat the greater enemy, the international bourgeois of imperialist capital (NATO, America, UK, EU, Israel, Anglo-nations).
I get the impression the DPRK's support boils down to the fact that, if the US is bogged down supporting Ukraine, that's less resources going to harass the North.
Their support of Russia has zero impact on the status of the war as imperialist or not.
They have stated their position very clearly, you don't need to go off "impressions". They understand how anti-imperialism works. DPRK has never once in its history supported an imperialist war and have been on the correct side on basically every single conflict. They have a 100% track record in my view.
For sure, I just didn't want to type out a whole argument spelling out Lenin's definition of imperialism and analyzing Russia's economy and foreign policy
Well every single western leftist poo pooed Syria and Russia for a decade, and now most realize that the anti-imperialists were correct and Syria/Russia were the side to be supported against the imperialists invaders and their proxies (ISIS, Turkey, US, etc). Just like Iraq should be supported against the US during the American invasion and Libya should have been supported while it was under attack. Nations being invaded by imperialists deserve critical support, regardless of if they are bourgeois capitalist states or not.
Not all capitalist nations are imperialist.
I’m going to trust DPRK’s assessment of the war over the westerners who have shown consistent patterns of chauvinist errors in regards to analysis of geopolitics. There’s a reason why Russia is allied with every single AES nation on Earth, do you really think every socialist nation is wrong and you have the perfect analysis from within the bowels of the empire?
So when the Minority Region is at War with the Nation state it "de Jure" belongs to
Show
Then THAT is the Imperialism. Serbia did Imperialism TO Kosovo .. not Kosovo to Serbia ... And Nato the intervene to Protect the Minority against the raging hate of the Majority)
Same story with Ukriane , dont get confused .. it is West Ukraine , that did the Imperialism TO the Russian Majority Eastern Ukraine
Proudly proclaim you want to Cleanse them when you "retake the territories"
Russia protects Its Minority from Racial Persecution by a Faschist Regime.
No Imperialism.
This is a Anti imperialsit Global war , You lack the Expertise to understand that , it is no problem .. BRICS 11 , Africa , Saudia Arabia , India , Latin America , Turkey , Eagypt , Iran all Understand it perfectly...
on the Street of Niamey , Quagadgou and Bamako , they all understand it.
its only your Tiny Minority in the West that still have not figured out that 2014 comes chronologically before 2022.
its a Fascinating Phenomenon.... Maybe its the Vitamen D deficit they have in the West ? maybe thats makes "the West" so collectivly unable to understand , basic physical concepts like "CHRONOLGY" .. and "CAUSE AND EFFECT"
The problem with the theory that Russia only invaded to pre-empt a Ukrainian invasion of the Donbass or to protect Russian-speaking minorities (and nothing else) is that the initial Russian push was, above all, towards Kyiv
i dont accept this reasoning to protect your minority you try to topple the regime .... ???
If this was true, then why would Russia have committed so many documented atrocities in Russian-speaking areas during the invasion?
name a specific one thats not "atrocity propaganda bullshit like "they aim Missile on Residential blocks and graveyards .. etc..
. Stop try to argue on the baseline of knowledge thats "American thats watch TV" , i now what they tell you on TV ..
Enemy Bad !.. Does bad things !.. We Godd .!. do good things !
Most of their youth wing literally split over supporting the war. when at best the only people worth supporting even critically was the LPR and DPR (and Putin couped their nascent proto-Socialist governments almost as soon as they formed.)
I mean it's right there ffs "Revolutionary Defeatism"
no one here doesn't agree that NATO should stop arming ukraine and withdraw, the rhetorical sheen of 'critical support' or 'defeatism' doesn't change the priorities of western leftists, but it gives everyone around here endless excuses to lecture each other about the way they talk about it being more "marxist" and "materialist". it doesn't matter what we call it, all that matters is pressuring natio governments to stop perpetuating the war
its a war to protect the Russian minority of theDonbass againt the assault by the western Backed Nationalist.
If you deny the 2014-2022 war and then call it a Imperialistic war You follow 1:1 the Imperialistic "Atrocity- Propagnda- Narrative" .. which is a Untrue narrative... like every Narrative before was (Sarin-Gas , Tonkin Bay , USS Maine ..etc.. ) as it tries to turn around "Cause and Effect" and make the Victims the Perputrators and the Perputrators the Victim..
Dont support Nazis , even if its "allowed" by your Media .
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Seems to be KPRF, the revisionist parliamentary party that supports the war
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I've heard people say that United Russia is made up of two main components - the Oligarchs and the Siloviki (the security and intelligence complex). Occasionally they struggle for power internally but since Putin is strongly of the silovik background, the oligarchs have been subordinated to the siloviki for a long time.
I don't understand the complexities of Russian politics enough to have a firm view, but it's possible that the Oligarchs losing a bunch of money (and therefore power) actually benefitted the Siloviki faction inside United Russia. That goes hand in hand with the idea that by sanctioning the Oligarchs, the West actually threw away their best chance at overthrowing Putin internally via some sort of Oligarch-backed coup.
Edit: preemptive apologies to Russian speakers for probably butchering the grammatical forms.
Nitpick but I see this claim a lot but I don't buy it. Mostly because I don't believe Germany would plan so heavily around Russian gas if it knew the war was inevitable. I'm inclined to think they're impling it to look like they knew what they were doing and cover their own asses for negotiating a failed agreement, while appealing to an audience that is (for the most part) uncritically supportive of Ukraine. I also think its a pretty big stretch to characterize their words as "publically admitting it was not a serious agreement." What Merkel said was,
What she's saying is that regardless of whether or not it was possible to achieve peace through the negotiations, they were still beneficial to Ukraine in buying time. That's not the same thing as saying they were done in bad faith.
I think the Russian charactization of this quote is trying to paint a picture of Western governments as highly co-ordinated, when the reality is more complex. Germany isn't holding Ukraine's leash, the US had to blow uo Nord Stream because the Germans weren't willing to co-operate, etc. There's bumbling, competing interests at play.
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I've had this conversation before but I find it extremely implausible that the West planned all of this out in advance and the lynchpin of the entire plot was being able to destroy Russia with sanctions alone. Again, Germany wasn't even willing to fully participate, and they had to resort to some pretty desperate measures after the pipeline was destroyed. Nothing was done to ensure India's cooperation, and they were saber-rattling with China, neither of which makes sense if they were planning on all this.
I also haven't heard any real explanation for what caused this miscalculation, other than pure stupidity and buying into their own propaganda. I think this is the same flawed analysis behind the initial point that I disputed. When a politician says something you can't just take it at face value, even when it fits into your narrative and makes them look bad, you still have to consider why they're saying it, what they're trying to accomplish, and who they're trying to appeal to. When they started doing sanctions, obviously they would say they thought they would work, but this indicates nothing about their actual beliefs. They were just trying to drum up support for the sanctions, there's no reason why they'd say, "Well, who knows if these will work or not" if they're trying to get people to support them. Very rarely do politicians say something just because they think it's true.
The narrative that fits actual events better without requiring abject stupidity and actions contrary to the actors' own interests, is that Germany did not expect a full scale war and did not plan for losing Nord Stream 2. The outbreak of war came as a surprise to a lot of people, including the majority of this site, and Merkel did not have a crystal ball. The ceasefire was broken due to domestic pressure from the far-right, plus international pressure from the US, which did not assume sanctions would work, but rather saw extended bloodshed as a possibility and did not care, due to the profits it would mean for the military-industrial complex and not caring at all about the lives of Ukrainians. There are internal fractures within NATO and within NATO states, due to competing class interests, it's not one big conspiracy working together.
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Because you're assuming coordination between different groups, even when it doesn't make sense and goes against their interests. This is like the third time I've brought this up - Germany relied heavily on Russian gas, then didn't shut it off, which led the US to blow up the pipeline. How do any of those events make sense in your narrative? Is all of that part of an elaborate ruse to trick people into thinking that my narrative is correct and yours is wrong? It's nonsense.
And this is where I think your narrative is coming from. It's all about Russia surpassing everyone's expectations and proving how strong and powerful it is, and it's like, every event has to be somehow contorted to fit that narrative, when there's much more coherent ways to fit them together.
Tbh, it just seems like this is what you want to believe, in which case I can't stop you. You're not looking at countries' actions and you're also not looking at class interests, it's just "everybody hated Russia and thought they were weak when they were actually big and strong." It's a very biased and oversimplified narrative that I find hard to take seriously, I'm just as skeptical of that as I would be about one that's brazenly pro-Ukraine tbh.
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So you're saying that not only was everyone in the West convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that mere sanctions would cripple Russia, but also that those sanctions wouldn't even have to include gas?? That's even more absurd than I thought. I'm absolutely baffled at why you think Western leaders have such a ridiculously inflated view of the power of sanctions, when there's such a more reasonable explanation, that they were simply exaggerating the power of sanctions for the people watching at home.
I don't care what he said. This whole time I've been explaining to you why you can't just take quotes at face value, and here you're just posting another quote and taking it at face value, and this time not even from a policy maker. People can confess to murder and still turn out to be innocent. You have to examine why they're saying it. In this case he's saying sanctions will work, as I have explained several times, because he supports them and wants to sell people on them, it tells us nothing about his actual beliefs. People in positions of power generally make public statements because of a rational calculus of what effect that statement will have, whether they think it's true or not is irrelevant. This is why you have to look at actions and interests and not just statements.
You're assuming that what's said in the media is the same reasoning and calculus that's happening behind closed doors. As I said, statements to the public are made based on political calculus, not actual beliefs. The reality is that the West's grip has been slipping even with smaller countries due to Chinese investment, which is why I find it completely implausible that Western policymakers simply didn't consider that Russia could just trade with China and India.
Assume for a moment that I'm correct, and that nobody actually expected sanctions to work. What consequences have any of them faced for saying that they would? None whatsoever. But saying they'd work helped build support for them. So there's a benefit to saying it an no drawback to saying it, so of course they're going to say it. What's so hard to understand about that?
It's literally your whole narrative!
I never claimed you said anything like that.
Right, because you think that they're unbelievably stupid and naive (yet at the same time managing to orchestrate a complicated long-term plot). Did they just not know that China exists? It's absurd to think that they wouldn't consider this possibility.
Here's the points that I think you're being fundamentally unreasonable about:
Taking politicians' words at face value as a reflection of genuine belief, instead of critically examining the calculus of why they would say something
Claiming that the idea that sanctions alone (not even including gas) would cripple Russia is anything but an absurd and blatantly unrealistic fantasy sold to the masses, to the point that policy-makers not only believed it but even relied on it as a lynchpin to their plans.
Believing an oversimplified narrative designed to make Russia look good over a more realistic narrative based on facts and class analysis, which still makes Russia look pretty good.
To the third point, I mean, come on. I can't count the number of cartoons I've seen where the bad guy underestimates the protagonist only for the protagonist to prove their worth. This is exactly the kind of simple narrative about empowerment and resiliance that I'd expect any country to put out during war-time. But Russia is a geopolitical entity and not a shonen character. Both it and it's rivals are composed of various competing interests acting more or less rationally. It's tiring to argue with this nonsense, Merkel does not control Ukraine and is not always in agreement with the US, and she also doesn't reveal her schemes to the hero in a villainous monologue to the hero just for shits and giggles.
I guess we're at an impasse, your narrative seems completely unreasonable to me, while it seems mine seems completely unreasonable to you. I think that our methods of examining the situation and drawing conclusion are completely different and irreconcilable, yours relies far too heavily on quotes, which I find unreliable.
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Of course there are and it's ridiculous to claim otherwise. Every politician (hell, every individual) considers the effects of their words and what they say or don't say is influenced by that. This is a basic fundamental truth, literally nothing you say could convince me it's wrong lol. Maybe you misunderstood what I meant? That's the only reason I could imagine you disagreeing with it.
I don't read German, unfortunately. Think tanks have the same incentives to say things people want to hear as anybody else, so it doesn't mean much to me regardless. None of this stuff is what I look at to draw conclusions from which is why I think our approaches are just fundamentally incompatible. All the evidence you've presented can be explained by my narrative just as well as yours.
I think I'd be more receptive towards your argument if you were claiming like, they thought the threat of sanctions would be painful enough to deter Russia from crossing the West due to the influence of Russian capitalists. But it would take extraordinary evidence to convince me that everyone essentially just forgot that China exists. It's very obvious to me (and was at the time) that sanctions alone would not cause Russia to collapse and I am unwilling to accept that policy makers with access to much more information and intelligence than me could be so much dumber than me, when more plausible explanations exist.
Sanctions didn't even bring down Afghanistan, nobody seriously believed they'd bring down Russia, it's absurd on its face.
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Both sides pro-imperialist nonsense akin to "Both sides never seriously intended to follow the Iran deal" to defend ripping it up
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Russia was following Minsk 2 much, much closer than Ukraine was, who had tens of thousands of cease fire violations. Its not a “both sides didn’t follow it” situation. It’s a “one side was acting in bad faith to buy time to militarize and always fully intended to attack eventually vs. the other side just didn’t want to have to deal with the whole situation and wanted it to chill out”
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@ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net
I saw you posting the data on ceasefire violations running up to the invasion, can you post this here?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk
https://www.youtube.com/@PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos (sort oldest )
i just saw it yesterday at sleepy time , they are here
https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/512872
No they didnt. The obama regime was already thretening european companies that planned to invest in iran after the deal was suposedly in effect and before trump won.
This always seems like a poorly based position to me. All Russia wants would've been guaranteed by successful implementation of the agreement. What part of the Minsk agreements did Russia not adhere to?
speaking a bit soon, aren't we? Also we'll never get to see what the alternative was.
USSR asked to join NATO in 1954. They were told "no." Then NATO let west germany in and appointed a bunch of "former" nazis to key positions. Russia tried to join NATO in 2002. Were told "no." Russia supported America in its reactionary "war on terror." and that still didn't tighten Russia's relationship with "the west." turns out the only thing that can make Russia have a better relationship with the west is balkanizing themselves, breaking up into dozens of tiny republics, and privatizing everything, because the west's vision for Yugoslavia is the same vision it has for Russia. Turns out there is nothing Russia can do to have a better relationship with the west. Because the west isn't mutually interested in a better relationship. The west is interested in balkanizing and privatizing former soviet nations. To punish them for having the audacity for being socialist once upon a time. To make sure it never happens again. To turn them into neocolonies. Ukraine has tried to have a better relationship with the west. What did it get them? It got them to sacrifice themselves by the thousands in a western proxy war in exchange for not even a NATO membership. Ukraine is getting balkanized and privatized on NATO's behalf.
Oh, and the sanctions? They aren't working. Russia is still selling gas to Europe, just through third parties. The entire situation is a reactionary shitshow, and the chief responsibility lies with the imperial core for deliberately instigating the conflict for years and years and years. Russia's options were to allow itself to get slowly encircled, or to ruin its "reputation" with a bunch of reactionary capitalist nations. It chose the latter.
Russia is reactionary and capitalist too? No shit! How did that happen? The west was gleeful when the Russian federation came into existence.
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there was no good moves for russia, even fewer for ukraine. i don't think of it in terms of good moves. I think of it in terms of russia and ukraine as they currently exist both being byproducts of imperialism.
Also I don't think we can really know if it chose the better of two bad moves because we cannot see what the alternative would have been, we can only speculate. I thought that was clear in the last post.
Minsk what? Ok no evidenc-Minsk 2 what?
Ya'll could have a Minsk 3 and then 4 years of ukraine bombing people they supposedly want to reintegrate into their country and still find it hard to fault the ukranian state
Do you have a source for Putin saying he wanted to return donbass to Ukraine? I can't find it on Google.
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KPRF has potential and extremely radical areas, but the main heads of it are old soviet bureaucrats
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DPRK supports Russia in this war because it's not an imperialist one
I wonder what kind of parallels can be drawn with Ukraine now and China during WW2 (when the communists allied with the nationalists in order to fend off the Japanese). Perhaps strategically it makes sense for Russian communists to "support" Russia in order to stave off NATO. This would give more breathing room for leftist agitation inside of Russia (and eastern Ukraine for that matter, perhaps western Ukraine too I hope).
Definitely more breathing room
Much easier for the communists to defeat the Russian state than all of NATO
NATO kill count: Tens of Millions
Russia kill count: Tens of Thousands
Some libs in here really require perspective
It's probably in the millions at least because of shock therapy
The shock therapy was done by the west to Russia. Are you saying that Russia should receive millions? That’s like blaming the massacre of Indonesian communists on the communists
uh... i mean the massacre of indonesian communists wasnt done by the american military, it was done by the indonesians as a proxy of the west. the russian government started as a proxy of the west for shock therapy. they participated.
Comprador traitors indeed, but not the current Russian state or people. This is extreme levels of victim blaming of the Russian people and using their own deaths and suffering against them
???
it was the government doing it. not the russian people. im literally czech the same shit happened to us you dolt
These exact parallels have been discussed here quite a bit. The class breakdown of China in WW2 was that the communists (representing the landless peasants and proletariat) built a temporary alliance with the national bourgeois (the local owners) in order to fight outside colonizers, invaders and the international bourgeois (global imperialist capital hegemony).
Russia, Iran, Syria, Belarus, Brazil and others are currently representing the national bourgeois in this alliance with the proletariat states of China, Cuba, DPRK, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc. They are temporarily allied to defeat the greater enemy, the international bourgeois of imperialist capital (NATO, America, UK, EU, Israel, Anglo-nations).
I get the impression the DPRK's support boils down to the fact that, if the US is bogged down supporting Ukraine, that's less resources going to harass the North.
Their support of Russia has zero impact on the status of the war as imperialist or not.
They have stated their position very clearly, you don't need to go off "impressions". They understand how anti-imperialism works. DPRK has never once in its history supported an imperialist war and have been on the correct side on basically every single conflict. They have a 100% track record in my view.
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For sure, I just didn't want to type out a whole argument spelling out Lenin's definition of imperialism and analyzing Russia's economy and foreign policy
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It's an anti-imperial war from Russia's perspective, they are fighting NATO encroachment and resisting imperialism as they did in Syria
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Well every single western leftist poo pooed Syria and Russia for a decade, and now most realize that the anti-imperialists were correct and Syria/Russia were the side to be supported against the imperialists invaders and their proxies (ISIS, Turkey, US, etc). Just like Iraq should be supported against the US during the American invasion and Libya should have been supported while it was under attack. Nations being invaded by imperialists deserve critical support, regardless of if they are bourgeois capitalist states or not.
Not all capitalist nations are imperialist.
I’m going to trust DPRK’s assessment of the war over the westerners who have shown consistent patterns of chauvinist errors in regards to analysis of geopolitics. There’s a reason why Russia is allied with every single AES nation on Earth, do you really think every socialist nation is wrong and you have the perfect analysis from within the bowels of the empire?
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Let me explain:
So when the Minority Region is at War with the Nation state it "de Jure" belongs to
Then THAT is the Imperialism. Serbia did Imperialism TO Kosovo .. not Kosovo to Serbia ... And Nato the intervene to Protect the Minority against the raging hate of the Majority) Same story with Ukriane , dont get confused .. it is West Ukraine , that did the Imperialism TO the Russian Majority Eastern Ukraine
Russia protects Its Minority from Racial Persecution by a Faschist Regime. No Imperialism.
This is a Anti imperialsit Global war , You lack the Expertise to understand that , it is no problem .. BRICS 11 , Africa , Saudia Arabia , India , Latin America , Turkey , Eagypt , Iran all Understand it perfectly... on the Street of Niamey , Quagadgou and Bamako , they all understand it. its only your Tiny Minority in the West that still have not figured out that 2014 comes chronologically before 2022. its a Fascinating Phenomenon.... Maybe its the Vitamen D deficit they have in the West ? maybe thats makes "the West" so collectivly unable to understand , basic physical concepts like "CHRONOLGY" .. and "CAUSE AND EFFECT"
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i dont accept this reasoning to protect your minority you try to topple the regime .... ???
name a specific one thats not "atrocity propaganda bullshit like "they aim Missile on Residential blocks and graveyards .. etc.. . Stop try to argue on the baseline of knowledge thats "American thats watch TV" , i now what they tell you on TV ..
Enemy Bad !.. Does bad things !.. We Godd .!. do good things !
Most of their youth wing literally split over supporting the war. when at best the only people worth supporting even critically was the LPR and DPR (and Putin couped their nascent proto-Socialist governments almost as soon as they formed.)
I mean it's right there ffs "Revolutionary Defeatism"
Revolutionary defeatism is when I root for NATO to finish what they started in their quest to destroy Russia so they can then move on to China
no one here doesn't agree that NATO should stop arming ukraine and withdraw, the rhetorical sheen of 'critical support' or 'defeatism' doesn't change the priorities of western leftists, but it gives everyone around here endless excuses to lecture each other about the way they talk about it being more "marxist" and "materialist". it doesn't matter what we call it, all that matters is pressuring natio governments to stop perpetuating the war
Hey at least they helped that Communist guy in Ukraine that lost his eye and had a red star etched into his back by the Nazis there
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its a war to protect the Russian minority of theDonbass againt the assault by the western Backed Nationalist.
If you deny the 2014-2022 war and then call it a Imperialistic war You follow 1:1 the Imperialistic "Atrocity- Propagnda- Narrative" .. which is a Untrue narrative... like every Narrative before was (Sarin-Gas , Tonkin Bay , USS Maine ..etc.. ) as it tries to turn around "Cause and Effect" and make the Victims the Perputrators and the Perputrators the Victim..
Dont support Nazis , even if its "allowed" by your Media .
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You think this Russian communist party is supporting America here? Much confusion.