Here I am, asking pretty much the same question again, only a year later. I ask again because conditions have changed a lot even in as little as a year. BRICS is becoming more powerful, state enterprises are becoming stronger in Russia, the USSR remains a positive memory to the majority of Russians and Belarusians. What are your thoughts and predictions?
I'll try not to ask the same question again to prevent from annoying yall.
Putin was raised in Russia that was failing because Stalin failed to create a succession plan and the liberals took over. He was capitalist likely due to material conditions. When he was spurned by the West and forced to remain not even a junior partner, he became anti-imperialist. I don't think he's a rapid anti-communist, I think he's an incredibly talented nationalist. I could see him creating a succession plan that creates the path for communism if the imperial threat has been neutralized before he retires.
Why do you think he wants communism? It seems he’d be glad to be a reactionary force, but material conditions have forced him to fight the imperialist club that wouldn’t let him in.
I don't think he wants it, I think the analysis goes like this:
Its more likely that Russia becomes communist, IMO; because they will need to rely on the currently existing communist lead bloc (BRICS) after this war when they de-transition from a war ecomony back into a peace time one.
This will come with a lot of soft pressure from China.
BRICS is not communist and it's not a bloc. China has explicitly stated their position that the bloc strategy was a failed one. BRICS is an open, porous, non-restrictive economics-only trade consortium. China will not apply pressure to anyone to become communist, they will only apply soft pressure to decouple from the Western financial system. China has had a rather unfortunate history with chauvinism and it seems that offer the last several decades they have fixed this and don't intend to tell anyone what to do, letting the inevitability of history speak for itself while they do the work they need to do.
Chinese foreign policy has also been heavily reliant on nearby countries NOT having revolutions that would invite the USA to intervene and setup shop on their borders. I think it's likely this will continue until the empire's back is broken.
I understand its not considered a 'bloc' but in practice, it is a bloc of countries loosely alligned against american hegemony; the politicized nature of it by example of Argentina is evidence of this.
When I say soft pressure it was with the implication that China wont be expecting BRICS countries to have revolutions; instead it will just leverage monetary aid with socialist policies. The long strategy is that the citizens of these countries see the benefit of the socialist system through investment and move democratically towards socialist allignment through the progression of material conditions.
We can hope.