Honestly hilarious imo
"What a spiteful little bitch you are Putin." - Ritaredditonce +2900
"I'm starting to think this Putin guy might be a bit of a twat." - RudigherJones +413
😂
EDIT - Also I'd like to thank y'all for the amazing thread we've got going here. Real mix of comedy and quality discourse on the material situation
Dude was one of the vvultures. He stole like 100 million as advisor to a mayor right after the fall and Russia only kinda recovered cus new source of oil was needed during Iraq war. He's just a really competent yes man cus soviet education is fire
Lmao. The dude was twerking at the west and tried to join NATO. He only wake up when the west intention is to subjugated his country and want to turn it into another Poland. Satellite state without nuclear weapons
“The colonized nation only became anti-imperialist when it started getting colonized”
No shit, cut the moralism and look at outcomes
Not moralism to expect all countries to be anti-imperialist.
I don’t expect imperialist nations to be anti-imperialist. I expect them to be destroyed by anti-imperialists and from their own contradictions.
Likewise, saying Russia is bad because their anti-imperialism isn’t pure or ideological, merely out of necessity, fails to grasp the entire concept of materialist analysis. There’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” using this specific lens on geopolitics and class struggle and the direction of imperialism. Russia is not the “bad” sub-type of anti-imperialism because their intentions are impure. They are just anti-imperialist because they oppose the imperialists, regardless of the reason for doing so
Lotta' words to say nothing of value.
I’m deeply sorry you cannot grasp materialism and are stuck in idealism and moralism as a framework
Moralism is when good and bad exist.
Yes.
A Marxist lens does not require any morality whatsoever, and the injection of it vulgarizes its analysis. You start thinking in utopian judgments, such as your earlier comment imagining that all nations could be anti-imperialist in a world system of imperialist capitalism. This is not possible and is a utopian dream.
Imperialism isn’t defeated by the imperialists deciding to knock it off after they have been scolded for being naughty and have a change of heart. It’s ended by the movement of history and violent struggle by the forces and interests opposed to it, and by its own contradictions.
At this current point in time, the Russian federation is one of the most powerful forces opposed to the empire and is therefore by definition de facto anti-imperialist. No mind reading, ideology or anything else required just brute facts and interests
To say that he was always antagonistic to the west is so contrary to the evolution of Russia under Putin. He was effectively privatizing industries and liberalizing the economy, painted as the savior that would heal the relationships between Russia and the West on Time, and whatever prestige shit rag being published in the west at the time.
It's only after he discovered the West will always be xenophobic against Russia and see it as a hostile power that he changed his tune and nationalized some of the same industries he helped tear apart.
Putin mostly led nationalizing efforts after Yeltsin privatized everything. Please stop talking about Russian politics if you are just going off of vibes
I'm talking about the early 00's, not the 90s.
Let’s take a look at the timeline of Gazprom ownership as an example that is indicative of the bigger picture:
1943: Gas production was centralized under the Soviet state
1989: Established as the first state run corporate entity
1992: Privatized by Yeltsin. Sold off as shares to connected cronies. Given tax exemption loopholes and deregulated. Asset stripping started.
2000: Putin comes to power and re-nationalizes Gazprom. Fires the corrupt chairman crony running it and installed his own clique of loyal bureaucrats. Stops asset stripping and orders other companies to return what was stolen. Private entities were regulated and forbidden from exporting gas, only Gazprom and the state held the option. Protectionist tariffs were used and state subsidies to build up capacity
It’s not socialism, but calling Putin’s politics “oligarchy” and “neoliberal” is simply incorrect and conflates him with those forces within Russia that he is opposed to. It would be more accurate to label Putin a protectionist nationalist and anti-imperialist, most similar analogue I can think of would be Gaddafi or Lukashenko. There’s a reason why people preferred Libya under Gaddafi over the neoliberal market anarchy of today, and why Belarus has a better standard of living than the rest of Eastern Europe & why Russia reversed economic course under Putin and differed drastically from Yeltsin’s market anarchy.
If he’s just a competent western comprador vulture like the rest then why is he so uniquely reviled by the west? He’s clearly not the lapdog traitor the others were because he nationalized industry and recovered the Russian economy
He did tried to join the west circle once. Let’s not forget that, it’s when the west reject him and want to subjugate his nation, that when he wake up
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Sure but he didn’t. Why are people here so obsessed with mind reading and moralizing intentions?
All that matters is outcome, and at the end of the day Putin stands in opposition to the neoliberal imperialists and the “oligarchs” in his own nation have a complicated and adversarial relationship with his government. That’s a fact.
It doesn’t matter if a man fights off the imperialist invader for principled anti-imperialist reasons or just to regain control over his home. He’s still fighting them.
Yes but he also browbeat the national bourgeoisie incredibly hard and brought them all into line. It is inarguable that the conditions of the average Russian has been improved by him in doing so, partially why it hasn't fallen apart yet.