Pol Pot also defined himself as Marxist-Leninist. I feel like lines are being blurred everywhere.

Does Lukashenko deserve our critical support in defiance of Western hegemony?

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Quoting from Lenin, he outlines imperialism as:

    (1) The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.

    (2) The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy.

    (3) The export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance.

    (4) The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves.

    (5) The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.

    Please explain how you come to the conclusion that Russia is imperialist under this understanding of imperialism. Capitalist? Yes. Imperialist? Fuck no. And they are OBVIOUSLY anti-imperialist in their actions fighting against ACTUAL imperialist states.

    Might they be imperialist in the future? Of course. But no they're absolutely not right now and they represent a force against the actual imperialists in the world today. If you don't understand that it's a serious problem with your thinking. Their collapse would be fucking devastating for socialists.

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        1. Yes.

        2. No. You can not sidestep this. The construction of this pre-requisite is well underway but incomplete. Russian finance capital is an interesting topic though and worth getting into if you have time.

        3. Exports of commodities are not exports of capital. There is a distinction here, the export of capital is different to the export of commodity. You can't use commodity export as a tickbox here.

        4. Literally every socialist country in the world today is a WTO member except the DPRK. It's an organisation that represents 96% of all global trade, membership does not mean imperialist power within it. Russia has within the WTO prevented powers being used to advance the western imperialist project.

        5. What? There is no "posturing" around them. NATO is trying to colour revolution states into neoliberalism one by one and Russia is simply acting as a barrier to that helping states to prevent it.

        We meet 2 of these. Not 5. 1 and 3 are met, 3 is met because Russian banks take part in considerable export of capital through investment in projects that generate debts for other countries.

        We do not meet the bar for imperialism. And we can objectively point to plenty of anti-imperialist actions Russia undertakes. These may be because Russia itself wants to be the imperialist state in future but that does not change the fact that it is currently in opposition to the imperialist project in the world, it is not a competing imperialist power, we only have one imperialist project underway, that of the NATO aligned neoliberal west alliance of finance capital.

    • Putinbot [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      This is a decent article on the "Russian imperialism" question. The West desperately wants regime change in Russia to install another neoliberal puppet (Navalny in particular) for Western capital and finish off what Yeltsin started in privatization for Western plunder. This would be a return to the neoliberal hellscape of 90s Russia. Like in Ukraine, the most reactionary fascist elements would also likely be unleashed to establish a Western puppet state. Russia contains about 30% of the world's natural resources valued at about $75 trillion. It's the second largest exporter of petroleum. Russia has the largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and is the largest exporter of natural gas. Oil and gas account for over a third of its federal budget revenues (which are essential for funding public services/education/healthcare and the large-scale privatization that the West wants critically threatens this). It's also the third largest arms exporter in the world. While obviously not being a socialist country, it still retains a high degree of state ownership for a capitalist country with the state controlling over half of banking, almost half of the oil and gas sector, and over a third of the utility sector. State-owned enterprises account for almost 40% of the capitalization on the Russian stock market.

      Russia also plays a large role in undermining Western regime efforts against other countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. According to neocon ghoul Elliott Abrams:

      We underestimated the importance of the Cuban and Russian support for the [Venezuelan] regime, which has proved I think to be the two most important pillars of support for the regime and without which it wouldn’t be there, it wouldn’t be in power.

      Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, on Cuban relations:

      We did make huge mistakes in the 1990s while turning our backs on Cuba. That time is definitely over, and I'm absolutely sure that our relations deserve better attention from Russia.

      They deserve more investments from Russia both in terms of finances and equipment of course, but also human resources. And definitely we should assist, we should help, Cuba; we should support Cuba as long as it's discriminated against, as long as it's sanctioned, as long as it's blockaded by the United States."

      In 2014, Putin forgave about 90% of Cuba's debt that it had accumulated from the Soviet era. In 2019, Russia had sent Cuba 1,000 minibuses, 50 locomotives, tens of thousands of tourists, and a promise to upgrade the island's power grid with a multi-million dollar improvement plan. Russia is currently building 4 power plants in Cuba and pledging over $1 billion to revitalize Cuba's railroad system.

      In Nicaragua, Russia is heavily arming Nicaragua's socialist government, distributing food aid, working to improve Nicaragua's public transportation, and helping the country's ability to manufacture vaccines.

      Russia and Belarus serve as buffer zones against the West and NATO for Vietnam, China, DPRK, and Laos.

      So, yeah, Putin obviously isn't a comrade and he certainly opposes socialism at home as it threatens his own power and the Russian oligarchs that support him, but the current Russian government nevertheless plays a crucial role in establishing the multipolar world order that socialism desperately needs to survive. Putin's current shitty oligarchy also still manages to be far better for Russians than what neoliberal Western sellouts like Yeltsin ever was (a low bar I know).