Honest question from a non-communist, based on your reply here. Does one need to support Putin to be a Marxist?
In a word, no. In a few more words, support for Russia (not Putin, as historical materialists don’t subscribe to great man theory) is only a partial, temporary, tactical one, in the context of imperialist liberation. Russia is still a capitalist state, though, so it’s a two stage strategy: first liberate colonized bourgeois states from colonizer states, and second revolution within those liberated bourgeois states.
Russia is an interesting case: it has already liberated itself from the post-Soviet “shock therapy” neocolonizers. This occurred during Putin’s administration, which is why he is especially hated by the US. So now the support for Russia is in the context of keeping the colonizers from recolonizing it, and supporting Russia to the extent that it helps other states liberate themselves. But Russia isn’t trying to “liberate” Ukraine, at least not all of Ukraine. It’s trying to resolve the genocidal attacks on the people of the Donbas, and it’s trying to resolve the imperialist military expansion at its border.
Consortium News, 2015: The Mess That Nuland MadeAssistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
Consortium News, 2023: The West’s Sabotage of Peace in UkraineFormer Israeli Prime Minister Bennett’s recent comments about getting his mediation efforts squashed in the early days of the war adds more to the growing pile of evidence that Western powers are intent on regime change in Russia.
George Washington Univ., 2017: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev HeardDeclassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
Marxists tend to critically support Russia over Ukraine here. Russia doesn’t want to “take over Ukraine,” it wants the 4 oblasts and Ukraine to be demillitarized. Donetsk and Luhansk both have been at war with Kiev since 2014 and voted to join the Russian Federation, and the far-right Banderites that siezed power in the 2014 Euromaidan coup have been heavily millitarizing and oppressing ethnic Russians. Ukraine serves a similar geopolitical purpose for the US Empire as Israel, it’s a heavily millitarized anti-communist country surroundrd by geopolitical adversaries.
You can’t say Russia doesn’t want to control Ukraine and reconcile that with the fact that Russia previously had puppets controlling Ukraine.
You can’t seriously believe that Russia holds fair elections.
ETA: if the conflict was just about protecting supposedly majority Russian areas on the Russian border, I would expect Russia to have intervened directly in those areas to “liberate” them, like we saw in Crimea (which is also dubiously majority Russian). But what we’re actually seeing is an imperialist cassis belli that’s contradicted by the fact that it’s mostly Ukrainians themselves fighting, even if armed by allies.
that’s contradicted by the fact that it’s mostly Ukrainians themselves fighting, even if armed by allies.
Which Ukrainians?
The oligarchs running the state?
The Banderite fascists?
The eastern & southern Ukrainians, who, after the Maidan coup, declared independence from an unelected government, and were subsequently terrorized by the Banderites for nearly a decade, with tacit and overt support from the Ukrainian and US governments?
The western Ukrainians who want the war to end?
The men being kidnapped off the streets and pushed to the front lines against their will?
For the world. Giant repressive capitalist dictatorships that are full of fascists and invade other countries aren’t good for anybody…even if some of the people they’re killing are also fascists.
Yanukovych was not a puppet. The IMF loan came with stipulations requiring austerity, the Russian loan did not. Secondly, Russia is intervening directly in the Donbass region. It isn’t dubious at all that Crimea and the Donbass are heavily Russian, they were added to Ukraine only a century ago.
Not a puppet? Spare me. Where is he right now? What a coincidence!
Did you intentionally misunderstand what I said? They could have just taken the territories they wanted that were supposedly majority Russian and left it at that…the west wouldn’t have done shit about it. But they didn’t, did they?
They are taking historically Russian areas like Donetsk and Luhansk. The west is doing what it wants because it’s using Ukraine as a proxy war to damage Russia, and is carving Ukraine out for resources. Yanukovych escaping the far-right Banderites that the west supported doesn’t mean he was a puppet either. You’re deeply confused here.
Are people here pro Russia taking over Ukraine here?
Previously:
Previously:
Previously:
No
Marxists tend to critically support Russia over Ukraine here. Russia doesn’t want to “take over Ukraine,” it wants the 4 oblasts and Ukraine to be demillitarized. Donetsk and Luhansk both have been at war with Kiev since 2014 and voted to join the Russian Federation, and the far-right Banderites that siezed power in the 2014 Euromaidan coup have been heavily millitarizing and oppressing ethnic Russians. Ukraine serves a similar geopolitical purpose for the US Empire as Israel, it’s a heavily millitarized anti-communist country surroundrd by geopolitical adversaries.
There’s a lot of problems with your reply.
You can’t say Russia doesn’t want to control Ukraine and reconcile that with the fact that Russia previously had puppets controlling Ukraine.
You can’t seriously believe that Russia holds fair elections.
ETA: if the conflict was just about protecting supposedly majority Russian areas on the Russian border, I would expect Russia to have intervened directly in those areas to “liberate” them, like we saw in Crimea (which is also dubiously majority Russian). But what we’re actually seeing is an imperialist cassis belli that’s contradicted by the fact that it’s mostly Ukrainians themselves fighting, even if armed by allies.
Which Ukrainians?
Previously: If not for the US/NATO, this war wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Can’t tell if you’re talking about the Russians or the Ukrainians.
My argument isn’t so much that Ukraine is good…it’s that Russia is worse.
Worse for whom?
For the world. Giant repressive capitalist dictatorships that are full of fascists and invade other countries aren’t good for anybody…even if some of the people they’re killing are also fascists.
If by the world you mean the imperial core, then yes.
You mean the United States?
I don’t think you understand fascism. Previously:
Your position is Russian isn’t imperial or fascist?
…or is it that because the USA or your so-called “imperial core” is more fascist and/or imperial that we should ignore Russia’s?
Yanukovych was not a puppet. The IMF loan came with stipulations requiring austerity, the Russian loan did not. Secondly, Russia is intervening directly in the Donbass region. It isn’t dubious at all that Crimea and the Donbass are heavily Russian, they were added to Ukraine only a century ago.
Not a puppet? Spare me. Where is he right now? What a coincidence!
Did you intentionally misunderstand what I said? They could have just taken the territories they wanted that were supposedly majority Russian and left it at that…the west wouldn’t have done shit about it. But they didn’t, did they?
Faith based politics
They are taking historically Russian areas like Donetsk and Luhansk. The west is doing what it wants because it’s using Ukraine as a proxy war to damage Russia, and is carving Ukraine out for resources. Yanukovych escaping the far-right Banderites that the west supported doesn’t mean he was a puppet either. You’re deeply confused here.
Imagine being so communist and/or anti-American that you can’t criticize a fascist capitalist state over a liberal capitalist state.
You’re too smart to make the argument that Russia’s actions are restricted to the areas they allege are majority Russian.
They’re right, cry about it