What? No it's not. Have you actually spoken to any Russian socialists? Putin is critically supported by a lot of the left there for anti-imperialist purposes and the fact that the country will literally become NATO controlled if any instability occurs.
Navalny and his party is the fascist threat inside Russia.
Putin is fucking awful, and "critical support" from Russian socialists means accepting the further marginalization of LGBT+ and non-white Russians, at a far greater degree than American "critical support" for Biden.
and “critical support” from Russian socialists means accepting the further marginalization of LGBT+ and non-white Russians
Yes it does and you don't have to be happy about that.. Just realistic. Not providing that support means condemning the entire population of Russia to becoming hyper-exploited by neoliberals, the anti-imperialist front would collapse because it's almost entirely propped up by Russian support, China would collapse in the aftermath because it can not secure a Russian border controlled by nato, and every single front the left currently holds in the world would be destroyed.
I agree the lgbt situation isn't great, but the situation is what it is. Socialists don't get to pick the conditions they have nor what strategies must be followed, the conditions pick what we must do for us. To not do this would be a fucking disaster for the world.
As for Putin, he's not great but he's still to the left of every US president that's ever existed. If your emotional response to him is above your emotional response to US presidents you should perhaps reflect on why that is.
I really urge having conversations with socialists actually within the conditions of other places. They are in vastly more knowledgeable positions to provide comment on their situation and it can be very enlightening.
I don't think Putin is genuinely to the left of even Obama. And if you think he is, I suggest reading The Privatization of Russia. Just because he is anti-US does not make him left. He stole his wealth off the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is entrenched in the system that led to modern day Russia. He is by no means in favor of wealth distribution, and has created the policies that have led to a widening of wealth inequality in former soviet states, including Russia.
He has been the leading figure in Russian politics since Yeltsin, and has continued or accelerated Yeltsin's privatization schemes during that time.
We don't heed American "socialists" saying VOOT BLOO there's even less of a reason to heed Russian "socialists" saying to vote for Putin.
I don’t think Putin is genuinely to the left of even Obama.
Putin might not be. United Russia certainly is though. I feel like this is dropping off into great man theory, Putin is just one person, not the entirety of government running every single aspect and detail of the country.
We don’t heed American “socialists” saying VOOT BLOO there’s even less of a reason to heed Russian “socialists” saying to vote for Putin.
This is silly. There are conditions where it is absolutely necessary to support people we may dislike. Like when failure to support them would set us back by 100 years. It's not even a difficult calculation, if Russia succumbs to nato aggression in Europe everything is fucked, the world WILL return to pre-ww1 situation, on top of burning, and the wars. The success of repelling the attempted colour revolutions in Belarus was absolutely critical and right now Ukrainian fascism is the front that is being pushed.
If socialists don't support him what happens is a collapse of the country's stability into disunited factions. This will inevitably be used as an opportunity to split parts of the country off, it would result in some temporary small socialist regional gains that would then fail because nato control of the Russian state would occur. This would swiftly send millions of people into the shitter in Russia.
There is currently a very precarious balance occurring. Yes Socialists might want to build a socialist russia but the principle threat of nato on the doorstep is preventing socialists from making that push, if socialists make that push nato will take control in the chaos and the opportunity will never arise again.
Remember, the Bolshevik revolution was extremely well timed, it came when world capitalist powers were distracted with other issues. Had they not been distracted at the time their revolution would have failed, that's where socialists in Russia are right now, unable to make a push because to do so would be to destroy the country and fail. The only option is to currently support stability and wait for an opportunity. Any instability is doom for everyone.
Yes Putin knows this. Yes Putin uses this. Yes it's also why Putin is anti-imperialist and helps the left in nominal ways -- it helps him manage the left factions in the country and keep them happier. Yes this is annoying. But no, there isn't another option.
Reason it out yourself. I'm sure you can see this delicate balance. Like I keep saying, you really don't have to be super happy about it or anything, but recognising it's the only strategy available and must be followed is important. A lot hinges on Russia staying stable right now for us all.
Putin is anticommunist. There is no reason any socialist, anarchist, communist, leftist, whatever should support him. He has always been anticommunist, he is still anticommunist.
I'm not going to keep responding, but I'll leave it at this: I would never vote for someone who wants me in jail. Instead I would spend time organizing and agitating.
That's not really true, he is in opposition to communists yes, and a supporter of liberalism, but he frequently helps and supports communists as well, has opposed removal of communist symbols, has waved fines that communists have earned for activities they shouldn't have been up to, and has prevented some of the worst right wing excesses of his party on a good few occasions. He also supports and probably arms the communist militia that have been working to help Donbas and Crimea fight fascists.
It feels like that "someone who wants me in jail" statement is weird hyperbole of a caricature you have in your head created by liberal media's portrayal of his persecution of the EU-backed opposition he has. You seem to forget that the communist party is the majority opposition party in Russia, which holds many seats itself. They are not in jail, the fascists are in jail. I feel like you've gotten the wrong picture from liberal media crowing about Putin's persecution of their candidates, and you've extrapolated that incorrectly into a belief that socialists receive that same treatment.
Do not mistake the people that the liberal media get upset about (Navalny etc) for your allies, they are supporting and backing literal actual fascists.
but he frequently helps and supports communists as well, has opposed removal of communist symbols, has waved fines that communists have earned for activities they shouldn’t have been up to, and has prevented some of the worst right wing excesses of his party on a good few occasions. He also supports and probably arms the communist militia that have been working to help Donbas and Crimea fight fascists.
And he frequently jails anarchists and communists that actually do shit and not just play opposition in the parliament. What you said is lip service. Also gonna need a source on that communist militia in Donbas because if it's true, that militia is fighting together with hungarian fash who get paid fortunes to go there.
As a foreigner, I get the sense that Russia is in a really strange place right now ideologically. Polling indicates that people who were alive at the time preferred the USSR over the Federation, however Stalin seems remembered more as a nationalist symbol than a revolutionary one. The 100th anniversary of 1917 passed four years ago with little fanfare (at least according to English language reporting), and the nominally Communist parties in Russia seem about as coherent and developed as the plonkers in England.
Personally, I think they need more time to untangle their shit and develop among themselves before I'm willing to direct support towards any particular organization as an outsider. Shock therapy really fucked them up badly.
As an Eastern European person living in the region and closer to the sources, this is close. Communists in Moldova and Russia are more about anti-Western conservatism, based in cold-war nationalism.
Common talking points: Russia VS the removed West. We won't give up our country to the US, to the LGBT EU propaganda, we protect our Christian values, we need a strict dictator, like Stalin(Putin will do) , to keep the order. World War 2 was a crowning achievement of our military might. We want to have our status as a global military power back.
That is like the conservative wing of the Putin supporters. The only thing that leftists have in common with them is being against a neoliberal takeover from foreign corporations. There are actual leftist organizations, including marxist-leninist ones, that will never support either Putin or the western-backed liberal opposition.
Reduction of consent manufacturing power, something that has probably been critical in failures of nato to make advances. Belarus could have been MUCH more aggressively taken if people around the world were not opposing the media narratives being presented to them. The imperialists want narratives they can control, both in real-time and in the historical record. Take Gaddafi for example, almost nobody would call him left wing, and we failed terribly to oppose the consent manufacturing machine that wanted to invade. Had we been stronger back then we may have been able to spin more left-wing narratives about Gaddafi and make the imperialists question whether they would hold control of the historical record on him.
It is important for them to maintain the air of illusion that they are the good guys, as soon as their citizens lose that illusion they lose the ability to control them.
Venezuela is another country that leftists online have probably up to this point in time managed to cause enough support for to prevent the US from just believing they can go in heavy-handedly. Other parts of Latam too. They will try less heavy methods because they can not manufacture stories that will hold up due to opposition they will receive from the left.
News media used by the ruling class to manufacture consent is just the same as the information we spread around online. Online social media is just a digital newspaper where the users are choosing the articles of the day, we are strong enough now to hurt their consent manufacturing. And the biggest issue it causes the ruling class is that every time they go too far without enough consent -- it grows the left. Every time the ruling class must take an action without enough consent manufacturing having occurred they must make a calculation on whether it is worth it or not. Our goal in both the online and offline space is to make it not worth or to set ourselves up to gain from it by having been vocally right all along.
Do you really think that we're the kingmakers, that we exercise any measurable sort of damper on imperialist policies, with less than a percent of the population voicing their public opinion?
Putin has been in power for 20 years. I don't think he's come close to losing it even once. So I don't believe that there is "a delicate balance of power", or that aggregate decisions of Western leftists (or even leftists in Russia) to critically support or reject him would have any bearing on whether he stays in power or not.
We're not kingmakers but anti-imperialist efforts are not worthless.
Putin has been in power for 20 years. I don’t think he’s come close to losing it even once. So I don’t believe that there is “a delicate balance of power”, or that aggregate decisions of Western leftists (or even leftists in Russia) to critically support or reject him would have any bearing on whether he stays in power or not.
Silly stuff. You saw how much the US could be destabilised in just 5 years of Trump by the opposition party actually trying to do destabilisation. The communists are completely capable of doing this, the choose not to because it is a very inopportune time and Putin gives communists enough of what we want in regards to anti-imperialism, china and support for anti-imperialist efforts elsewhere in the world in order to keep things balanced.
In Russia I suspect you might be onto something. I'm not very knowledgeable about Russia though.
In Anglo countries I think any impression of this is us just overstating our relevance. I can only think of one instance in the past 50 years when any Anglo country had its government subverted. Plus their institutions are some of the longest-standing and strongest in the world; this is connected to how they've been so dominant for so long.
Australia had one of its prime ministers get couped by the CIA and another one literally disappeared, just straight up vanished. Greece was couped by the CIA too.
You're right though though it is very difficult to destabilise anglo countries. It requires massive effort and resources, something socialists don't have in most places. The American destabilisation wasn't led by socialists, it was led by liberals, the liberal media, the liberal apparatus all working in one unified way.
The only place where socialists have similar strength is France, Spain and perhaps Greece. All three have successfully destabilised thanks to the efforts of the left.
Gough Whitlam was exactly who I was talking about. And even then, it's the great power subjugating a lesser power, so I'd say it's a different category from popular pressure that overturns a government's policy.
The other guy was dummy thicc and got nommed by some wildlife.
China would collapse in the aftermath because it can not secure a Russian border controlled by nato
I know this isn't your primary point, but this is not at stake. Barring international nuclear holocaust, China isn't really at risk.
rambling to explain where I'm coming from
Militaries have never mattered less than they do now. The United States was in Afghanistan for two decades and failed at curbing the Taliban, and the runaway costs of asymmetric warfare could not possibly compare to the ludicrous expenses of fighting anyone with even marginally greater technology.
The only mistake China could make is to charge full steam ahead in militarizing and sacrifice every material gain on the altar of maintaining parity with NATO, and that won't happen. They don't need parity, and they know that. China has around 250-350 nukes, compared to over 5,000 that the United States has, and the difference doesn't matter. They have enough. They don't try to have more, they don't overextend, they don't pick fights. They've been sitting on their thumbs for decades in regards to capturing Taiwan. Russia and the US could take some notes.
Add in complications with the West divorcing economies from China, and we're probably talking another two decades before anyone bothers to turn up heat. With the current course of development and the comparative decay of the United States, the only major fear is the desperation of a dying empire. There's not much question about who would be ahead.
Eritrea and Russia are super sus
Russia right now is a fascist state ala Franco, but they want to play pals with anti-US interests
What? No it's not. Have you actually spoken to any Russian socialists? Putin is critically supported by a lot of the left there for anti-imperialist purposes and the fact that the country will literally become NATO controlled if any instability occurs.
Navalny and his party is the fascist threat inside Russia.
Putin is fucking awful, and "critical support" from Russian socialists means accepting the further marginalization of LGBT+ and non-white Russians, at a far greater degree than American "critical support" for Biden.
Yes it does and you don't have to be happy about that.. Just realistic. Not providing that support means condemning the entire population of Russia to becoming hyper-exploited by neoliberals, the anti-imperialist front would collapse because it's almost entirely propped up by Russian support, China would collapse in the aftermath because it can not secure a Russian border controlled by nato, and every single front the left currently holds in the world would be destroyed.
I agree the lgbt situation isn't great, but the situation is what it is. Socialists don't get to pick the conditions they have nor what strategies must be followed, the conditions pick what we must do for us. To not do this would be a fucking disaster for the world.
As for Putin, he's not great but he's still to the left of every US president that's ever existed. If your emotional response to him is above your emotional response to US presidents you should perhaps reflect on why that is.
I really urge having conversations with socialists actually within the conditions of other places. They are in vastly more knowledgeable positions to provide comment on their situation and it can be very enlightening.
I don't think Putin is genuinely to the left of even Obama. And if you think he is, I suggest reading The Privatization of Russia. Just because he is anti-US does not make him left. He stole his wealth off the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is entrenched in the system that led to modern day Russia. He is by no means in favor of wealth distribution, and has created the policies that have led to a widening of wealth inequality in former soviet states, including Russia.
He has been the leading figure in Russian politics since Yeltsin, and has continued or accelerated Yeltsin's privatization schemes during that time.
We don't heed American "socialists" saying VOOT BLOO there's even less of a reason to heed Russian "socialists" saying to vote for Putin.
Putin might not be. United Russia certainly is though. I feel like this is dropping off into great man theory, Putin is just one person, not the entirety of government running every single aspect and detail of the country.
This is silly. There are conditions where it is absolutely necessary to support people we may dislike. Like when failure to support them would set us back by 100 years. It's not even a difficult calculation, if Russia succumbs to nato aggression in Europe everything is fucked, the world WILL return to pre-ww1 situation, on top of burning, and the wars. The success of repelling the attempted colour revolutions in Belarus was absolutely critical and right now Ukrainian fascism is the front that is being pushed.
If socialists don't support him what happens is a collapse of the country's stability into disunited factions. This will inevitably be used as an opportunity to split parts of the country off, it would result in some temporary small socialist regional gains that would then fail because nato control of the Russian state would occur. This would swiftly send millions of people into the shitter in Russia.
There is currently a very precarious balance occurring. Yes Socialists might want to build a socialist russia but the principle threat of nato on the doorstep is preventing socialists from making that push, if socialists make that push nato will take control in the chaos and the opportunity will never arise again.
Remember, the Bolshevik revolution was extremely well timed, it came when world capitalist powers were distracted with other issues. Had they not been distracted at the time their revolution would have failed, that's where socialists in Russia are right now, unable to make a push because to do so would be to destroy the country and fail. The only option is to currently support stability and wait for an opportunity. Any instability is doom for everyone.
Yes Putin knows this. Yes Putin uses this. Yes it's also why Putin is anti-imperialist and helps the left in nominal ways -- it helps him manage the left factions in the country and keep them happier. Yes this is annoying. But no, there isn't another option.
Reason it out yourself. I'm sure you can see this delicate balance. Like I keep saying, you really don't have to be super happy about it or anything, but recognising it's the only strategy available and must be followed is important. A lot hinges on Russia staying stable right now for us all.
Putin is anticommunist. There is no reason any socialist, anarchist, communist, leftist, whatever should support him. He has always been anticommunist, he is still anticommunist.
I'm not going to keep responding, but I'll leave it at this: I would never vote for someone who wants me in jail. Instead I would spend time organizing and agitating.
That's not really true, he is in opposition to communists yes, and a supporter of liberalism, but he frequently helps and supports communists as well, has opposed removal of communist symbols, has waved fines that communists have earned for activities they shouldn't have been up to, and has prevented some of the worst right wing excesses of his party on a good few occasions. He also supports and probably arms the communist militia that have been working to help Donbas and Crimea fight fascists.
It feels like that "someone who wants me in jail" statement is weird hyperbole of a caricature you have in your head created by liberal media's portrayal of his persecution of the EU-backed opposition he has. You seem to forget that the communist party is the majority opposition party in Russia, which holds many seats itself. They are not in jail, the fascists are in jail. I feel like you've gotten the wrong picture from liberal media crowing about Putin's persecution of their candidates, and you've extrapolated that incorrectly into a belief that socialists receive that same treatment.
Do not mistake the people that the liberal media get upset about (Navalny etc) for your allies, they are supporting and backing literal actual fascists.
And he frequently jails anarchists and communists that actually do shit and not just play opposition in the parliament. What you said is lip service. Also gonna need a source on that communist militia in Donbas because if it's true, that militia is fighting together with hungarian fash who get paid fortunes to go there.
Look up Essence of Time
deleted by creator
As a foreigner, I get the sense that Russia is in a really strange place right now ideologically. Polling indicates that people who were alive at the time preferred the USSR over the Federation, however Stalin seems remembered more as a nationalist symbol than a revolutionary one. The 100th anniversary of 1917 passed four years ago with little fanfare (at least according to English language reporting), and the nominally Communist parties in Russia seem about as coherent and developed as the plonkers in England.
Personally, I think they need more time to untangle their shit and develop among themselves before I'm willing to direct support towards any particular organization as an outsider. Shock therapy really fucked them up badly.
As an Eastern European person living in the region and closer to the sources, this is close. Communists in Moldova and Russia are more about anti-Western conservatism, based in cold-war nationalism.
Common talking points: Russia VS the removed West. We won't give up our country to the US, to the LGBT EU propaganda, we protect our Christian values, we need a strict dictator, like Stalin(Putin will do) , to keep the order. World War 2 was a crowning achievement of our military might. We want to have our status as a global military power back.
That is like the conservative wing of the Putin supporters. The only thing that leftists have in common with them is being against a neoliberal takeover from foreign corporations. There are actual leftist organizations, including marxist-leninist ones, that will never support either Putin or the western-backed liberal opposition.
Reduction of consent manufacturing power, something that has probably been critical in failures of nato to make advances. Belarus could have been MUCH more aggressively taken if people around the world were not opposing the media narratives being presented to them. The imperialists want narratives they can control, both in real-time and in the historical record. Take Gaddafi for example, almost nobody would call him left wing, and we failed terribly to oppose the consent manufacturing machine that wanted to invade. Had we been stronger back then we may have been able to spin more left-wing narratives about Gaddafi and make the imperialists question whether they would hold control of the historical record on him.
It is important for them to maintain the air of illusion that they are the good guys, as soon as their citizens lose that illusion they lose the ability to control them.
Venezuela is another country that leftists online have probably up to this point in time managed to cause enough support for to prevent the US from just believing they can go in heavy-handedly. Other parts of Latam too. They will try less heavy methods because they can not manufacture stories that will hold up due to opposition they will receive from the left.
News media used by the ruling class to manufacture consent is just the same as the information we spread around online. Online social media is just a digital newspaper where the users are choosing the articles of the day, we are strong enough now to hurt their consent manufacturing. And the biggest issue it causes the ruling class is that every time they go too far without enough consent -- it grows the left. Every time the ruling class must take an action without enough consent manufacturing having occurred they must make a calculation on whether it is worth it or not. Our goal in both the online and offline space is to make it not worth or to set ourselves up to gain from it by having been vocally right all along.
Do you really think that we're the kingmakers, that we exercise any measurable sort of damper on imperialist policies, with less than a percent of the population voicing their public opinion?
Putin has been in power for 20 years. I don't think he's come close to losing it even once. So I don't believe that there is "a delicate balance of power", or that aggregate decisions of Western leftists (or even leftists in Russia) to critically support or reject him would have any bearing on whether he stays in power or not.
We're not kingmakers but anti-imperialist efforts are not worthless.
Silly stuff. You saw how much the US could be destabilised in just 5 years of Trump by the opposition party actually trying to do destabilisation. The communists are completely capable of doing this, the choose not to because it is a very inopportune time and Putin gives communists enough of what we want in regards to anti-imperialism, china and support for anti-imperialist efforts elsewhere in the world in order to keep things balanced.
In Russia I suspect you might be onto something. I'm not very knowledgeable about Russia though.
In Anglo countries I think any impression of this is us just overstating our relevance. I can only think of one instance in the past 50 years when any Anglo country had its government subverted. Plus their institutions are some of the longest-standing and strongest in the world; this is connected to how they've been so dominant for so long.
Australia had one of its prime ministers get couped by the CIA and another one literally disappeared, just straight up vanished. Greece was couped by the CIA too.
You're right though though it is very difficult to destabilise anglo countries. It requires massive effort and resources, something socialists don't have in most places. The American destabilisation wasn't led by socialists, it was led by liberals, the liberal media, the liberal apparatus all working in one unified way.
The only place where socialists have similar strength is France, Spain and perhaps Greece. All three have successfully destabilised thanks to the efforts of the left.
Gough Whitlam was exactly who I was talking about. And even then, it's the great power subjugating a lesser power, so I'd say it's a different category from popular pressure that overturns a government's policy.
The other guy was dummy thicc and got nommed by some wildlife.
I know this isn't your primary point, but this is not at stake. Barring international nuclear holocaust, China isn't really at risk.
rambling to explain where I'm coming from
Militaries have never mattered less than they do now. The United States was in Afghanistan for two decades and failed at curbing the Taliban, and the runaway costs of asymmetric warfare could not possibly compare to the ludicrous expenses of fighting anyone with even marginally greater technology.
The only mistake China could make is to charge full steam ahead in militarizing and sacrifice every material gain on the altar of maintaining parity with NATO, and that won't happen. They don't need parity, and they know that. China has around 250-350 nukes, compared to over 5,000 that the United States has, and the difference doesn't matter. They have enough. They don't try to have more, they don't overextend, they don't pick fights. They've been sitting on their thumbs for decades in regards to capturing Taiwan. Russia and the US could take some notes.
Add in complications with the West divorcing economies from China, and we're probably talking another two decades before anyone bothers to turn up heat. With the current course of development and the comparative decay of the United States, the only major fear is the desperation of a dying empire. There's not much question about who would be ahead.
A NATO-friendly Russia would be devastating for China
This probably sounds a lot bitchier than I mean it to, but isn't that what's already happening? And been happening since the collapse?
Holy shit y'all will actually simp Orbán in a few years.