From my understanding, the premise of revolutionary defeatism involves supporting the defeat of your own bourgeois government. I am an American. I am perfectly fine with that when it comes to things like US military actions in the Middle East. However, there has been one enemy the United States has had that is definitely quite different, Nazi Germany. It's pretty much universally believed among the left that Nazi Germany was bad and should never be supported (and that's for a GOOD reason).
But how does revolutionary defeatism square in with something like that?
Revolutionary defeatism is not scripture, it's not to be followed at all times. Lenin did not create holy sacraments to be venerated, he was a man who forged strategies for the time he lived. During WWI revolutionary defeatism was the "correct" stance. During WWII it probably wouldn't have been. Just like how communists supported the Union in the American Civil War because it was destroying slavery, even though the Union was a capitalist settler colony nation-state, we have to be flexible and respond to the present conditions we're in.
Yeah US communists did support the USA in helping the soviets against the germans. My go to example would be Woody Guthrie.
I need to read more to talk authoritatively on the issue, but I'm pretty sure this is the exact kind of thing Mao was getting into when he spoke about primary and secondary contradictions. Even though the ultimate goal is to dismantle capitalism, driving out Imperial Japan was a higher priority in the short term than defeating China's domestic bourgeoisie. So yeah, there are counterexamples to Lenin's line during the Bolshevik revolution.
One point all these theorists hammer on is the need for practice to reflect the conditions. We can't just reenact 1917 like a cargo cult.
It’s about hierarchy of needs and planning.
Defeatism is only a good idea if the winner would push things forward towards goals.
facts. Marxism is a method of analysis and planning first and a doctrine second.