Once Stalin abandoned even the pretense of Lenin-style international socialism, socialism has been confined mostly to national movements.
We need more international socialist movements.
Why does Russian imperialism suddenly mean "when Russia invades a neighboring country"? We have yet to see what a Russia-aligned Ukraine looks like (well, it sucked before the 2014 coup I guess). Imperialism is resource extraction and domination, not necessarily any time a country invades another. I can see calling it imperialism, but when we talk about "American imperialism", we aren't just talking about the US invading Afghanistan or whatever. We're talking about the US controlling Afghanistan and profiting off exploitation of Afghans, and invading for that purpose.
Be careful legitimizing the idea that there's a "Russian imperialism" and "Chinese imperialism" and so on, because it's clearly been used in bad faith as a minimization of American imperialism. Of course it can lose its meaning in the other direction as well, but that's a lot less likely. It should always be tied to the idea of resource extraction or subjugation, not just militarism or war (although in most cases they are the same thing, because war is waged for a purpose).
Lastly, "such and such imperialism" implies that it's a constant phenomenon. But Russia has only gone to war in a couple small regions neighboring Russia, and hasn't really used military or coercive power any where else around the world. That doesn't strike me as a "Russian imperialism", unless you can show Russia's activities worsening people's conditions. On the contrary, they've been an important ally to Veneuzela, Cuba, and other countries.
Anecdotal, but i've seen the term "imperialism" explode in non-ml spaces over the past year or so. It is not at all beyond the reach of my imagination that perhaps an effort has been made to muddy the waters on the term, and dull it's edge.
Out of all the words and movements the CIA would benefit from co-opting, anti-imperialism has to be among the top.
You can call what Russia is doing aggressive, warmongering, hell, call it evil - but call it imperialist and you are insulting the millions who suffered under true Western imperialism for over a century.
Limiting our understanding of imperialism to "only what the US does abroad" is ignoring the definition of imperialism.
I never said the US, I said Western, (UK, France, NL, etc.)
And only the West has met the definition of imperialism. Maybe you could say Imperial Russia did, I don't know enough about the Russian Empire to say, but the Soviet Union and post-soviet Russia have been the victims of imperialism. Invading your neighbours doesn't make you imperialist, even if it's bad.
only the West has met the definition of imperialism
Again, this is ignoring the definition of imperialism. Lenin's five basic characteristics of imperialism:
- 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;
- the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ‘finance capital’, of a financial oligarchy;
- the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
- the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
- the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.
Being the victim of imperialism doesn't mean it's impossible to become imperialist, especially after the forced liberalizations of the Russian economy. The post-USSR state of Russia was gutted by the west and much of the wealth and capital moved into the hands of the new Russian bourgeoisie.
Maybe you could say Imperial Russia did
It's kinda in the name...
Well by that definition you would be right, though points 4 and 5 are kind of flimsy. Russia is not established and entrenched in it's imperialism like the west is, it is not sharing its plunder around like they do, nor is it able to carve up the world as it sees fit as they did in the 20th century.
You have a good point though. I suppose they are "imperialist" as all developed capitalist nations are. But in the context of this war, and the hysteria and hypocrisy we are seeing in the media, I still feel like it muddies the water and lends to an anti-anti-imperialist narrative.
You can call what Russia is doing aggressive, warmongering, hell, call it evil - but call it imperialist and you are insulting the millions who suffered under true Western imperialism for over a century.
You also need to understand the history of Russia as an empire, and its ambitions and politics. And that Russia was a part of western imperialism and has similar ambitions now, even if driven by russian capital..
Russian imperialism has been around before the US was a country. The USSR was a drop in its history and a brief interruption at most. Russia absolutely has imperial ambitions and has material interests in both Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe, that it considers in its "sphere of influence". Subjugation and extraction is absolutely their goal. Russia has only gone to war in a couple of small regions because that is its current capacity. It has been working heavily on the propaganda front in Eastern Europe for decades, and is incredibly influential in governments and organized crime there. And any kind of war is by definition worsening peoples conditions.
You can have multiple empires viying for power and influence, and Russia absolutely is one of them.
The USSR was a drop in its history and a brief interruption at most.
80 years? I'd hardly call that a drop. Three generations jam packed with industrial, social, and geopolitical change in a region running the length of the world's largest continent. And this, right next door to another global superstate going through a similar metamorphosis.
You can complain that the Russians have backpeddled a bit from their 1950s/60s heyday. But we're long past the point of return for the nation. Suggesting this is a "brief interruption" is on par with claiming the USA represents a temporary spat interrupting the millenia-long reign of the continent's native peoples, rather than an inflection point in the continent's history.
Unfortunately, due to the way history works, we tend to forget or ignore the amount of changes in previous eras. And the weight of history does create its momentum. The USSR was a radical change from everything before, but unfortunately it failed and now we are seeing a lot of tendencies from the past reeemerge and somehow adapt to the new conditions.
The settler colonizers have been around here for several centuries now, so it is definitely not on par.
These are Lenin's five basic features of imperialism for you to read and reflect on whether the current capitalist, fascist, state of Russia militarily invading another country to topple its government is an imperialist action or not.
- 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;
- the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ‘finance capital’, of a financial oligarchy;
- the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
- the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
- the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.
Its like some people interpret revolutionary defeatism as "I must support my government's enemy". Its a sort of reactive thinking that accepts the liberals framing of "support Zelensky or you support Putin". Likewise, anyone who points out that Putin is a capitalist dictator who is pulling a George Bush style invasion gets associated with defending Ukrainian Nazis.
Many international communist parties are able to thread the "both are bad" line. Even the DSA was capable of doing it. But the atomized online left keeps getting lost.
The only thing I think is that anyone saying that Russia did this unprovoked and out of the blue, or uses this as a reason to "critically support" NATO is a fuckin op.
We're witnessing imperialism spilling over into war. We're witnessing the machinery of global capitalism functioning as intended. We're seeing the expenditure of human life in the pursuit of consuming enough military hardware to justify the military economies of NATO and Russia.
There is no good ending to this. There are no good sides on this. All you can hope for is that Ukraine enters negotiations soon and NATO doesn't escalate, but that's seeming more and more unlikely by the day.
It's the scale of the invasion that's surprised even the most ardent NATO critics.
Surprised is one thing, but it's still not unexpected or insane like some people are saying. This is just the consequences of trying to destabilize a region, it tends to get unstable.
Oh the scale is absolutely one sided, but Russia is also driven pretty heavily by military production. I'm not talking about both being equal, but economic drivers of the domestic bourgeoisie of both countries are similar.
Revolutionary defeatism as a concept is murky at best, and there's a reason why Lenin abandoned it entirely in his later years. The issues you've laid out with parts of the left actively siding with Russia in this instance proves how confusing the term constantly becomes, especially when the geopolitical situation is hardly black and white, with no real socialist movement lurking to pounce.
"support Zelensky or you support Putin”
I think if anything, liberals prove how this is actually true. They see anyone not supporting Putin as supporting the US regime and its narratives. I'd rather side with "Putin" than reaffirm liberals belief that 7 billion people exist to make rich white people comfortable.
because liberals say I support Putin, I support Putin.
You're literally a case study of my point. Don't let the liberals define you. Do you think Lenin went around saying "fine, I guess I do really support the Kaiser".
Correct. Lenin would not understand this useless online definition of "support" which does not mean anything. Your takes mean nothing they are not action.
Yeah that's true. But a lot of the "neither side" stuff I've seen comes of as unprincipled waffling. Wars are often won by one side, so people want to know which side you want to win. And I think the far better outcome is if Russia wins and to state that, and the actual reasons why. Most of these people on twitter and elsewhere aren't looking to have a deep conversation, they're looking to do a character assassination bolster the position of NATO as a "necessary" peacekeeping" "defensive" organization.
You don't need to have an opinion on who should win the war. You don't even need to discus that if your concerned about internet discourse. If you want to take on NATO then discus NATO. Anytime talking about Putin is time not talking about NATO.
I hate how the talk of NATO expanding is something that happens on its own, like its a force of nature or some beast. It completely removes the agency of the people of the countries that want to join NATO and believe it to be a much better option that remaining out of it, because of the threat of Russia. These people do not see the atrocities NATO did in the Middle East, they see the big looming shadow of Russia and look to the nearest option for their own safety. Whether NATO would actually go to war with Russia over Lithuania or Bulgaria is another question, that these smaller members I think prefer not to think about.
Donbas is part of Ukraine and has significant oil reservoirs so Russia started an independence movement almost a decade ago
being supportive of Russia bombing Ukraine even to their stated goals is insane. Advocating for NATO to return to the 1997 lines (an impossibility) shows how this isn’t a war of defense
Even assuming the independence movements are legit (I don't know enough to say one way or another), it's still extremely cynical of Russia to weaponize the recognition of these countries as a prelude to starting a military conflict.
russia's economy is dependent on oil/nat gas, ukraine discovered massive natural gas deposits in 2013 in the Crimean sea and the eastern regions. Ukraine is more friendly to nato/EU and offers the west a way to hurt the russian economy by buying from Ukraine. Russia takes crimea and starts funding the eastern regions separatists
it is very straight forward tbh
This is an inter-imperialist conflict, Russia is a capitalist power attempting to do in the Ukraine precisely what we've seen the US do countless times, including in Eastern Europe.
It’s not even supporting Putin and Russia imperialism, there is plenty of room for the line that it is a super complicated geopolitical situation that goes back decades if not centuries. Obviously Russia is bad, and Ukraine is bad. Not trying to enlightened centrist it, just trying to say that it’s complex and hard to fully comprehend.
I don't think anyone here would claim those dudes are worth defending, pretty disingenuous dude.
That's not just a few dudes, it's Ukraine's National Guard. The whole thing is rotten.
Pretty sure that reactionary assholes in a military isn't equivalent to every civilian who will die from this but go off
Don't see what that has to do with it? Of course he's willing to have his own people die stupid preventable deaths, that's kinda what being in power is about.
The Wagner Group is basically integrated into the Russian military now. And there are more Nazis in the Russian military then Ukrainianif we go by that internal polling . It’s hard to have Nazi support be the damning piece of evidence when both do it.
Who says anyone here is defending Ukraine at all? You just don't have to also support Russia.
I don't really trust Putin to take care of those guys, Russia has it's own issues with far right psychos in their military. Regardless this whole fucking thing is going to get a lot of Ukrainians and Russians killed and probably embolden ethno-nationalism on both sides.
In putins best case scenario those sickos are going to be in complete control of a Ukrainian rump state.
where in the post, explicit or implicit, is OP defending any part of Ukraine
Everyone in this thread that hasn't read Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism: you should totes read it, especially before using the term imperialism. It's a very easy read, too! Lenin was a very good writer imo.
This is in my stack of theory to read, I'm excited to get to it after State and Rev.
Given the state of these comments I think even some of the people that say they already have should give it another go
It really is September 12th, 2001 all over again. I bet Glenn Beck is looking down on this country from heaven and smiling.
I honestly don't know who is referring to who here. If we're gonna do infighting, can we at least be somewhat specific?
