EDIT: I'm very proud of this community. All the posts are making me think and solidly criticizing from an anti-imperialist perspective. Thanks, hexbear
EDIT: I'm very proud of this community. All the posts are making me think and solidly criticizing from an anti-imperialist perspective. Thanks, hexbear
That would still fall under taking advantage of the conflict when an opportunity arises, not supporting the other side, no? Lenin took the train ride, not dedicated the rest of his career to singing the praises of Kaiser Wilhelm II's anti-imperialism lol
The Fanon example is also out of place. If you claim people should unflinchingly support the opposite side in a capitalist war, shouldn't Fanon be on the German side?
Edit:
This line is also sussy, what difference would it make which side of the war you're on? Is Russian Kautskyism excused?
I don’t believe Russia is imperialist or that this is an inter-imperialist war, so I don’t think that Russian socialists should use the tactic of revolutionary defeatism here - just like Libyan socialists under Gaddafi should not have exercised revolutionary defeatism while imperialists were invading and destroying the nation.
Revolutionary Defeatism is the duty of socialists in an imperialist nation. Not the duty of socialists in a non-imperialist capitalist nation under attack from imperialists.
"Neither 1914 nor 1940" by Mike Macnair
Good post, thank you very much
very interesting essay, thank you for sharing.
Even if we're gonna ignore Russia's resource extraction and super-profits in Central Asia, the reason Russia is not part of the big boy imperialists is because they've been denied a seat at the big boy table at every turn. It's not as if they didn't try to join NATO or cozy up to the US, the fact that they're currently aligned against them is less out of Russia's goodwill and more the consequence of decades of US foreign policy blunders and hostility toward Russia. The only way Russia can be imperialist in a world already conquered by the US is to go through them and try to secure a foothold, which is what this war is about. Once again your example is weird, Libya was attacked not the one attacking like in this case. Are you saying Ukrainians should not exercise revolutionary defeatism?
Russia did not start this or “attack”. NATO threw a fascist coup in 2014, started a civil war and just before the current crisis they prepared invasion of Donbas and did massive artillery strikes in breach of ceasefire. Russia is the victim of imperialism here, of imperialist sanctions and encroachment and encirclement
Ukrainian army is fascist arm of imperialism so Ukrainians should absolutely exercise revolutionary defeatism.
If they cared at all about 2014, they wouldn't have taken 8 years to do anything about it. The reason Russia was not accepted into the big boys club is because they're a little too big to leave the US unilateral control over the imperialist bloc, which is why they've tried to contain them as much as possible, that much is true, but it really doesn't make a difference when it comes to their intentions. Why do you think Russia would care about being excluded and ostracized from global imperialist system if they didn't want you to participate in it? What exactly do you think Russia's long term goals are here, and what do you think they'd be doing had the US not been around? Imperialism is not just something the bad countries do, it's an economic inevitability. Russia's problem is that their imperialism is limited to their former backyard of Central Asia at the moment, and to fix that they gotta do like capitalist countries do, and expand. I have no fucking clue how people keep falling for capitalist countries' cynical justification for their actions both on the NATOid and Russian side
The fact that you can pick and choose which countries should do revolutionary defeatism and even imply there is such a thing as a good capitalist war just tells me there's nothing of worth left discussing here lol
I suppose you don’t support Palestine then, they are capitalist and conservative. Israel-Palestine conflict is just an inter-capitalist war
I’m not going to bother responding to this load of moralizing ultra drivel
Small oppressed nation fighting against settlers and colonizers vs former empire upset that they've been denied their share of imperialist spoils so they decide to secure a place in the sun on their own :thinking-about-it:
You know someone's not mad when the snarl words come out lmao, eat my ass Kautskyite
Ukraine is a "small oppressed" nation? Just a smol bean fascist NATO base. "fighting against settlers and colonizers" is that really what you think Azov was doing in Donbas? Your lack of material analysis is a disgrace to your name
I was referring to Palestine :brainworms:
Got it, thought you were framing the Ukrainian conflict this way.
Your arguments are that of an anarcho-bidenist and you refuse revolutionary defeatism, not sure how that makes me the kautskyite. I attack my own country, that's not what kautsky did
Your arguments are that of a duginist multipolarista. See? I, too, can say a bunch of garbage instead of actually engaging with your post
The anarcho-bidenists are the ones doing lesser evil-ism and praising NATO's mutual military aid and whatever the fuck, you're doing the same thing but for the opposite side lol. Or rather, you're making the same mistake as them by even think there are two sides when it's just bougies fighting eachother with proles stuck in the middle getting slaughtered. I ask again, should Russians also do revolutionary defeatism and fight back against their own government? If your answer is no, then you've given up on revolutionary defeatism by admitting there is such a thing as a good side in a capitalist war. At that point, stop hiding behind revolutionary defeatism and just call yourself pro-Russia outright
You conveniently skipped over Marx and Engels raising funds for the Ottomans
Marx also supported reformists and succdems in England, doesn't mean I'm gonna do it :lenin-laugh:
You conveniently skipped like half of my comments so I don't think there's anything more to discuss