GenZedong

Russia can both oppose western imperialism and be imperialist itself is it too hard to comprehend?

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Imperialism

In certain circles, there have been attempts to paint the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as a war between two imperialist countries, the United States and Russia. Similarly to the above Chinese example, this is incorrect.

Unlike the western powers, Russia does not have any capital monopolies that control the world market or supply chains. Russia having Gazprom and an extraction industry doesn’t mean they are imperialist. The essence of imperialism is monopolistic on a global scale, which is precisely why Russia is not imperialist, not whether they have capital generally. A perfect example of monopolies that share the world amongst themselves is the West, specifically the United States in their control of the WEF, IMF, World Bank, and UN Security Council, allowing the western powers to enforce this dominance through jingoistic foreign policy, embargoes, and hindering the development of other countries. Neither Russia nor China has anywhere close to this level of global power through finance capital.

Russia lacks finance capital and division of the world's resources. It only has 4 of the top 100 corporations in the world and 6 of the top 500. 82% of Russian exports are raw materials, including 58% oil, 11% metal, and 6% food. In 2017, Russia imported $106.2 billion worth' of machine goods and only exported $12.8 billion. Russia does not have any of the top 100 corporations in terms of capital export, and most Russian capital export is capital flight to tax havens. Russia only controls 0.7% of the world's wealth and has much less wealth per adult than the United States ($8,843 vs $336,528). Russia has intervened militarily in other countries such as Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, but not to seize natural resources like imperialist countries do.[8]

Note: This doesn't mean Russia is run by anti-capitalists. It just means they are not acting in an imperialist way thus far. When people here talk of support for Russia, they usually say "critical support," i.e. something like: support them insofar as they act in an anti-imperialist manner, but don't take the rest of it for granted as being on the side of the working class.

As far as I'm aware, much of the burgeoning multipolar world is not explicitly anti-capitalist. China is explicitly run by communists, but even it is not trying to scold other countries about their capitalism, so to speak, as far as I know. This makes a kind of sense if you consider it from the standpoint that China and others are shifting the balance of power largely via trade relationships. If AES states were to all say "capitalist bad" and refuse to deal with them, they would cede power over trade and become easily isolated and encircled.

The shift away from western hegemony is not clean and simple, but it is necessary to support sovereignty and self determination in countries that would otherwise face "regime change" and subsequent hollowing out from the west. So far, Russia seems pretty consistent on supporting sovereignty against that brutality, in spite of being run by capitalists, given its ties with AES states and others who just want self determination in the face of the western empire. Given their capitalist leadership, I suppose one could ask if this some kind of long game opportunism, so that they can turn it into their own predatory relationship down the road? But that's speculative reaching next to the realities of what is going on right now and those countries they are dealing with are plenty capable of analyzing the relationship as they go and keeping an eye out for malign evolutions in it.