the title

    • StalinForTime [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Most people in the global south (the working classes of the world in general tbh) are too fucking poor, exhausted, overworked, concerned with more pressing material issues to be able to willing to give a fuck. Yes, many people outside the west are making constant jokes about it, but this is not the same thing as having a developed theoretical opinion that Russia is a positive influence in the world or should win.

        • StalinForTime [comrade/them]
          hexagon
          ·
          1 year ago

          At no point did I imply that they cannot or do not. That's not at all the point. Their political opinions matter more immediately that americans lemme tell ya. But if you haven't had the opportunity to be educated on the topic because you're too poor and overworked, if you are too exhausted to keep up to date on info on a distant geopolitical conflict, then alot of people are simply not going to have the point of view that westerners on this website do developing their geopolitical theories from the leisure of their bedrooms, in particular the majority they don't sit around talking in technical leninst terms about imperialism and multipolarity. That has nothing to do with their capacities, but with other material conditions that restrain that or make it not a priority. If anything friends and fam around me have been joking about how little they give a fuck.

            • StalinForTime [comrade/them]
              hexagon
              ·
              1 year ago

              But again, as in my previous comment, at no point do I suggest that "working class people do not have the capacity to form their own theoretical and political opinions to emancipate themselves". They obviously do. But material conditions and their effects on our education on certain issues, or our time and energy to dedicate to it, don't magically disappear for most people because ideally we would like them to, and pointing out that fact is not negating people's capacities, it's pointing out that capitalism and imperialism rob us of our opportunities to actualise this potential. Like my mum is sharp as a whip. But she doesnt know shit about geopolitics because she doesnt have the time or energy, and her situation is common.

              The only reason I am relatively well-informed on the geopolitical history of Russia and Ukraine is because I was lucky enough to do well in public education and get funding to support it further instead of working full-time.

              On the point regarding Chinese academics, you're obviously correct, but the simple fact that there are Chinese scholars who support Russia's invasion is not much of an argument outside of what their actual arguments are. Some have better analyses imo, others worse. It also depends on whether or not their analyses are from a socialist or nationalist perspective.

              Westerners obviously masters are lecturing the rest of the world on every topic under the sun. We all hopefully know this. But westerners are doing this all the time on this site and people only get in uproar when they dont agree with the take. At the end of the day what matters is whether or not that view is correct. Like I dont give a fuck whether a country's majority are anti-LGBT or think black people have souls, I'm still gonna say it's fucking wack, and honestly anything else is cowardice.

              Brave of u assume i must be from the west.

      • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        That didn't stop the poor, exhausted, overworked, concerned with more pressing material issues workers of Haiti, the Central African Republic, Mali, and Ethiopia from waving Russian flags. The Global South doesn't need to have big-brained analysis of pampered Westerners to decide that yes, Russia is the lesser evil to the point of not being all that evil. They are tired of the West's bullshit and want the West to gtfo by any means necessary. That's why Mali told the Danish and the French to gtfo while inviting the Russians in. Even the most uneducated members of those countries recognize this simple truth. If anything, it's the petty bourgeois NGO-brained members of their society who's mentally colonized and think the West can show them neocolonial mercy.

        • StalinForTime [comrade/them]
          hexagon
          ·
          1 year ago

          You're obviously 100% correct if everything you've said regarding revolution. People make their revolutions, not the ruling classes or the middle classes, petit-boug, or bougies who claim to represent them. If I didn't think that to my bones I wouldn't be a communist. I'm not disagreeing. But on the point of explicit support you're actually mainly referring to the states of those countries. The average urban or rural worker is not following the geopolitical minutiae of this conflict closely. Ofc, there are far more comrades outside the West than inside of it, and their opinions and analyses are in general more concrete and interesting of those western comrades. But we are still a political minority outside the West and have a range of reactionary domestic forces to compete with.

          Yes people outside the west are generally far more more aware of the fact that the West and recently especially the US has been structurally ruining their lives for centuries and are contemptuous of Western liberal obliviousness this. That's why they don't give a fuck if the US/Ukraine loses, and I get and have the same immediate emotional reaction to people talking about it. But that's different to a colder, consequentialist geopolitical analysis where I think it the positive consequences for the global working class would outweigh the negative in the long run. Most people in the world are not radicalized and therefore not theoretically developed to the point of taking that view. The rest of the world still struggles with reactionary ideology, much as a direct resort of the imperialism and exploitation they have suffered at the West's hands.

          Again, I don't even disagree that if I were forced to answer the question, I'd probably say with a decent amount of confidence that I think the overall consequences would be better if Russian got the edge rather than the West. What makes me uncomfortable is that how that seems to easily to slide into a kind of nihilistic gloating and tbh explicitly positive championing of Russian interests, whereas the fact that we want US hegemony to collapse does not imply that I have to want Russian nationalist imperialist interests to spread across Eastern Europe on the historical pattern which anyone who actually follows and studies the politics of the region is fully aware that Russia would like to do given its geopolitical status. Like do people here actually think that the Wagner company in Africa are doing good, humanitarian work? Evidently they've never met mercenaries.