The implications of the RESTRICT act, the law banning use of numerous foreign technologies, are ones that vaguely but steadily shift the country closer towards a thorough crackdown on anti-imperialist sentiments. The act doesn’t outright ban speech that challenges Atlanticist, anti-China, pro-NATO narratives, it only provides the legal framework for a scenario where the state starts banning such ideas in practice. This cultivation of the conditions for an anti-democratic purge has a deeper motive, a motive which comes from fear.
I agree with what's been posted elsewhere that he has a good analysis of the state but a pretty bad analysis of those orgs and a bad understanding of Marxism. The question of whether or not Russia is imperialist is linked but separate from the question of how the war in Ukraine is reconfiguring global markets and how that affects prospects for struggle in different places. Likewise the question of who has published intentionally non-NATO takes on Ukraine and who the state might be currently aiming at is separate from who is going to effectively lead the revolution. Insisting we join with these groups through social media polemics, instead of showing they have found a practice worth emulating and joining through actual deep, wide mobilization, is not going to build them into revolutionary organizations.
Most western leftists with a decent understanding of what's going on in the world still seem to think that we can just sit back and continue using our old failed tactics and strategy and these worsening conditions will somehow make reformist practice correct. Setting aside some truly awful takes and the fact that these orgs do not actually practice democratic centralism, most of them have no program of political education at all or their program is stale and alienating because it reflects their laziness and orientation towards social media.
I agree with what's been posted elsewhere that he has a good analysis of the state but a pretty bad analysis of those orgs and a bad understanding of Marxism. The question of whether or not Russia is imperialist is linked but separate from the question of how the war in Ukraine is reconfiguring global markets and how that affects prospects for struggle in different places. Likewise the question of who has published intentionally non-NATO takes on Ukraine and who the state might be currently aiming at is separate from who is going to effectively lead the revolution. Insisting we join with these groups through social media polemics, instead of showing they have found a practice worth emulating and joining through actual deep, wide mobilization, is not going to build them into revolutionary organizations.
Most western leftists with a decent understanding of what's going on in the world still seem to think that we can just sit back and continue using our old failed tactics and strategy and these worsening conditions will somehow make reformist practice correct. Setting aside some truly awful takes and the fact that these orgs do not actually practice democratic centralism, most of them have no program of political education at all or their program is stale and alienating because it reflects their laziness and orientation towards social media.