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this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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With the litte difference that russia is a brutal dictatorship who invaded a sovereign country and Iran is a brutal dictatorship too.
But I guess it's the same anyway, right?
So you agree that the US should not invade Afghanistan and Russia should not invade Ukraine.
Whatever happened to that there Afghanistan? Surely the Evil US Pseudo-Democracy turned them into a territory of lower class to do hard labor for USA benefit, right? What's that? Multiple nations across the world sent troops who destroyed the ruling Taliban authoritarian regime, created an independent republic government, and built hospitals and schools while raising the average life expectancy by ten years until the USA completely withdrew?
Oh, maybe Russia just wants to fix up Ukraine a little bit and then leave, too? Just like they are doing with Crimea. /s
The situation in Ukraine is an inevitable escalation in the war that started in 2014 with the US-backed fascist coup in Ukraine that goes against the interests and wishes of Eastern Ukrainians
and the subsequent killings of ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, like Donbas, DPR, and LPR, by the coup gov for resisting.
To be clear, I don't support the invasion per se. In fact, its goal of suppressing fascism in western Ukraine seems to have kinda backfired from this after all, with the Ukraine gov using this as an excuse to suppress the left.
But the point is, what else could've they done? The US had meticulously blocked off all other options over the years. Russia had already tried to join NATO multiple times from even before the USSR’s overthrow and have been denied (since it's an imperialist org whose entire purpose is to suppress socialism globally, and particularly supress Russia) and they already had the Minsk agreements which the US sidelined through the coup. Not doing something about it would lead to the continued killing of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by the coup gov, and NATO getting even closer to Russia since the post-2014 US puppet gov doesn’t abide by the Minsk agreements.
Can you share sources about how the coup was US-backed, how it was fascist, and on the ethnic cleansing of eastern Ukrainians? Ideally from human rights groups or independent news outlets like The Intercept if you can. Thanks.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/09/ukraine-must-stop-ongoing-abuses-and-war-crimes-pro-ukrainian-volunteer-forces/
i asked duckduckgo
this was just the first result
edit: here's the search
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amnesty+international+azov+battalion
Thanks, I'll look into the Amnesty reports.
Certainly no justification for Russia enacting war and doing a multitude of war crimes. Putin's intentions are certainly imperialist and not humanitarian.
I absolutely agree with this. I don't know the full context of the conflict in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, but no human rights abuses should be ignored and the people responsible need to be held accountable.
i don't think anyone is defending putin here.
I haven't ever seen that
I’ve never seen it either, but everyone’s seen Lyndon’s jonhson.
How is The Intercept independent? They're bound by USA laws, they're party to the war.
https://theintercept.com/privacy-policy/
You are telling a bullshit.
Feel free to point out what you disagree with.
The invasion was never about suppressing fascism. Russia is as bad an actor as the United States has been generally, worse realistically. (Annexing many many countries at gunpoint post world war II. Slaughtering many in gulags for simple dissent. Invading, Afghanistan etc etc etc etc etc etc etc. ) Neither one is good. And we should not be justifying either one.
In this one situation, however. While the United States isn't strictly the good guy. They are more in the right than Russia is.
The US and Russia aren't equivalent at all.
The USSR directly funded and supported national liberation movements against the US all over the world. Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, Bangladesh, Palestinian resistance organizations like the PFLP, etc; even directly supplied wars against "israel" for that last one. Afganistan is about the only one where the US and USSR funding opposite sides turned it into a warzone instead.
Russia's interests are still broadly aligned with most of the world against Imperial core countries. While they're not socialist anymore and have thus stopped funding Vietnam, PFLP etc because it's not profitable for the capitalists that are now in power since the USSR's overthrow, they continue to support the sovereignty of Global South countries like Syria, Venezuela, etc, and are a core part of BRICS.
There's a reason sentiment like this is common in third world countries.
Despite being a country relatively fleshly out of a revolution and a civil war, and bearing the brunt of the nazis and the largest war in recent history, the USSR had less prisoners by both percentage and raw numbers than capitalist countries like the US.
The socialist government met workers' needs far better than capitalist countries, or the post-Soviet capitalist countries, and made great strides in advancing women's rights. Cuba, which uses essentially the same political system as the USSR, currently has better LGBT rights than the neighboring USA despite the brutal sanctions and embargoes put on it, and its likely what those rights would be like in the USSR now if it wasn't overthrown.
No wonder then that 78% of its population voted to stay in the USSR right before it was illegally dissolved. (Page 1647)
Alot of this social and economic progress has since been undone with the USSR's overthrow, with forced privatization under capitalist rule and the unmitigated rise of the christfascist church.
Human Rights in the Soviet Union: Including Comparisons with the U.S.A. by Albert Szymanski
How Capitalism Destroyed Russia
In the right for backing a fascist coup, the killing of Eastern Ukrainians for resisting, and meticulously blocking off all options other than a proxy war?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
the USSR's overthrow
sentiment like this
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Didn't Russia invade Afghanistan first which caused Osama to go there in the first place? Then after the Taliban beat Russia with American support, America invaded Afghanistan themselves.
Afghanistan is the pinnacle of getting screwed over by imperialism from superpowers.
That's a long list of strawmen. Whataboutism is no defense. And that's all you got. Whether or not the US jails more people. Doesn't excuse the brutally and abuses of ML countries and the fascist states they evolve into more often than not. I'm sure you honestly forgot 2 weeks ago. Where the modern Russia you enable and defend. Killed a political prisoner after repeated assassination attempts. Again, this is not a defense of the US. Just pointing out your blatant hypocrisy.
It's also quaint that you think a fascist like Putin was somehow benevolently concerned about other fascists. It was a bullshit excuse from the day he made it.
If you honestly think the USSR were liberators. I suggest you go talk to actual former Soviet block countries who lived under it. And finally got liberated from it. There's a reason they tore down all those monuments and statues erected by the murderous autocratic politburo.
The US is constantly and historically the ones propping up dictators all over the world. AND we have done it while people of those nations have either legitimately voted for the opposite, and/or were fighting for their freedom from colonial powers/dictators. We actively fund and create false narratives inside nations that we don't like to start color revolutions. We force other nations into backing brutal sanctions if they don't want us to go after them and to be allowed to trade with us. Our military is literally installed all over the globe, but we claim nations like China are somehow being "aggressive" for even patrolling their own areas. We create and groom evil and gaslight the world that we are somehow just allowed to police the globe. Fuck yourself.
So genocide is okay if committed by a democracy?
BURGUERMIND
The USA is a brutal dictatorship who invaded a sovereign country. What's the difference exactly? The USA has invaded someone more recently than Russia has, and they do it a lot more often. They're also more dictatorial and more brutal. The fact that the USA is mad at Iran for supporting their enemy is completely understandable. They're not being hypocrites, it's just mafia tactics and they're not ashamed of it. What's not understandable is you or anyone saying USA sending weapons to Ukraine and Iran sending weapons to Russia are somehow not equivalent.
To be clear, I am not at all justifying or forgiving the use of sanctions, it's a barbaric form of warfare that explicitly targets non-combatants, the USA should be ashamed and their leadership jailed.
All liberal "democracies" are brutal capitalist dictatorships.
At least Iran and Russia's interests are aligned with most of the world against imperial core countries.
Wtf did I just read? Have you ever been to Russia or any of the post-soviet block republic? Or are you just fantasizing from other side of the world?
I'm at Russia right now, I've been to Ukraine more than dozen times including twice to Crimea (Ukrainian at time of visit) and numerous times to Donbass (as Donetsk is literally hometown of my father). What's next? Have you ever been to one of the listed places yourself or are you just fantasizing from other side of the world?
Which part of my comment do you disagree with?
That second paragraph. It's just so mind boggling for me.
Are their foreign interests not aligned with Global South countries against imperial core ones?
Russia has consistently supported the sovereignty of Global South countries like Syria and Venezuela against the US, host Palestinian meetings, and are a core part of BRICS. While Iran supports and funds Yemen, Palestine etc. There's a reason sentiment like this is common in third world countries.
This. I count myself like one of the most of the world part and I definitely DO NOT aligh with any interests Russia had in past 100 years.
If you were to divide the world into two camps, one with 1 milliard people and another with 7 milliard, and they wanted opposite things, would the 7 milliard group not represent most of the world? Now, I don't want you to dox yourself, but I ask rhetorically which camp the country you're from falls in. Here's a map in case you're genuinely unsure. !alwaysthesamemap@lemmygrad.ml
Do you think Russia does what it does for the greater good of these people? Isn't Russia doing basically what every other imperial power did since long time ago? Conquer or at least control, because they want to be imperial power too?
Sure, US ain't no saint, EU neither, nobody is basically. But for me personally Russia represent something worse than those mentioned before. Not regular russian people, I even have some in my family, but people in power. Those who turn one of the richest country (in terms of natural resources) into powerty to build their billion dollar mansions, yachts and other luxury, while regular people can count themself lucky if they have flushing toilet and asphalt road in their street.
If you want to know a bit of my background, I live in a country that was 40 years under USSR "occupation", so I'm obviously not a big fan...
I'm ok with downvotes, that's what free speech is for. At least I don't have to avoid passing around windows or drinking tea.
No. It does not matter why they do something, they're doing it, and it benefits the 7 milliard people.
What they're doing in Ukraine isn't imperialism, it's self defense. (Self defense doesn't automatically mean it's justified. As with all things there's appropriate response and degrees). Would they partake in imperialism if given an opportunity? Absolutely, it's a capitalist dictatorship, they don't have morals.
What do they represent? "Those who (exploit) rich countries () to build their billion dollar mansions ()" is the enemy of the global majority. Carefully consider the USA and the EU nations' track-record. Russia by contrast has only existed since the 90s.
And has your country improved? Is employment more dignified and abundant, are more people educated, class differences smaller, is infrastructure and housing being built more rapidly?
You would if you cast yourself in with the yanks. https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/
Edit: Removed hostile language directed at other users.
It's not an inactive thread, it was posted day ago and it's literally listed close to the top in the "active" list. Also edit out your boorish insults, like anyone need to elaborate every single time when downvoting a bootlicker like that for spewing anticommunist comprador lies about "USSR occupation".
The nested thread is inactive. kurcatovium wasn't doing bootlicking, they're being faced with a big accusation that goes against their experienced reality. "The majority of the world disagrees with you", and given that I think they have been respectful in interacting with me and more on the point, they didn't justify imperial actions.
Okay.
Yes, you're right. But it's what they were taught and they have no reason to investigate if no one gives them one.
The fuck man? Why would I lie about it? You're acting like you're some kind of superior being believing in communism. But I tell you one thing. On paper it is wonderful idea (it truly is), but people are people, so it will never work as history proved multiple times.
EDIT: Just checked your username. If it's not just funny made up thing, you should know a thing or two about it already.
Does it really? I believe it does, to certain degree, but only until Russia exploit those countries the same (or worse) than others did before.
I do not agree on this one. I just believe it started as Putin's wish to reunite USSR to its former glory. His words years ago: "The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century."
Yes, vastly improved in most regards. Employment is more meaningful nowadays (for people that are willing to work) and general standard of living improved unbelievably. Not sure if it was my country specific, but being unemployed was illegal back then. So it led to existence of jobs that were complete fake (existed just on paper, mostly jobs for friend-of-a-friend among elites) or jobs that were absolutely meaningless (like moving stuff from one place to another and then back) and time and will wasting (e.g night time security of empty warehouse). Simply put "jobs" just for the sake of not being unemployed. This stopped, because nobody would waste money on these jobs now. Some people miss them though, because they used to get paid for nothing.
Education is another example. Back then state had "assessment" on everyone and e.g. when parents were not members of communist party it was almost impossible to get to university (sometimes even high school). Now it's on everyone's abilities, universities are free (of both charge and prejudice) and if one is able enough, there's nothing stopping him.
Class differences is tough question. This one did not really improve, it more like side-stepped. Nowadays there's this kind of a few extremely rich people, followed by society divided by a bit wider scissors, but... There are options now to get better life, be it education, hard work, or even traveling abroad for work. Back then there weren't (to my knowledge) this extremely wealthy people, but there still was quite large amount of "elites" that were way way way above everyone else. Most people were more or less forced to live just above poverty line (state controlled everything, including job transfers). Imagine waiting months to years to be able to buy stuff like fridge or washing machine (either due to lack of money or being too far in waiting list). These rules were set in stone and chance of getting oneself even one bracket above was minimal in legal manners (thus bribing thrived). Is it ideal now? Definitely not, but I wouldn't go back.
Infrastructure and housing. Well, again it's somewhere in between. I'd say in terms of housing it used to be "quantity above quality" back then and this one switched now. New houses (even old renovated ones) are far superior to what was standard back then. It ain't cheap though. If you lowered your standards to previous era levels, you can still get your own house/flat pretty cheap - surprisingly nobody wants to do that, because people want fancy things. In terms of infrastructure, we're seeing dark side of capitalism (or peoples dumbness). It's often like this: There's going to be new road, but city/state doesn't really care and pick cheapest contractor. The road obviously sucks and needs to be repaired almost immediately. But the road already cost a lot, so what happens? Cheapest contractor is selected so the repair is botched too... Who doesn't swear on roads in his country, though? Luckily other parts of infrastructure are not that bad.
Okay, but they can't exploit them worse. The west still exists and unless their rule becomes completely dominant (Giving them room to punish and set examples), they'll continue to give countries the same terms they're giving them now at the minimum. I'm now talking about countries that don't have to fear immediate invasion by Russia or the USA. Countries with some amount of sovereignty, but not enough to be able to afford making an enemy of the west.
Russia, India, China, whoever (China has caveats but it's not important for this point) need to show any nations willing step outside Empire's umbrella that the terms are better. Maybe if the west collapsed, and all of Russia's rivals collapsed, Russia could enact worse imperialism and colonialism than what's there now. But for many many decades to come, the west's relative power will be very high.
More powerful sovereign economies gives all small economies more choices in how to deal and enrich themselves. What I mean with sovereign economies is economies that are resilient to manipulation by the USA e.g. sanctions and invasion. If being sanctioned by the USA would completely destroy your economy, you would never risk disobeying them. If the BRICS countries are completely immune, both to sanctions and to invasion, that means that as a third country your risk is less when doing business with BRICS. If the USA sanctions you, you'll still have a powerful ally and trading partner. It's not risk-free, and having two poles isn't hugely different from having a hegemon. But multipolarity, which is the real effect Russia winning this war is having, is good for everyone but the hegemon.
It was a geopolitical tragedy, because it created a hegemon. Putin's words would have some meaning if he had any power to make that happen, but he doesn't. Him wishing The Soviet Union existed doesn't mean any of the post-soviet countries wish they were Russia. The Soviet Union could offer a system that was attractive to people from those countries. What can Russia offer? Practically nothing. The Ukrainian areas that Russia has incorporated were all areas with strong Russian support, for one reason or another. Invading and annexing hostile areas is much harder. Beyond their ability, surely.
Say Russia didn't invade Ukraine. What would happen? NATO has been expanding, that isn't disputable, Russia has set red lines (you can think these red lines are bullshit), and those red lines have been crossed. Whether the red line is reasonable or not, the fact is Russia used to have to power to have their red lines respected, they would've lost that power without the invasion of Ukraine, and they now again have that power. By invading Ukraine, Russia has stopped itself from rapidly losing power. Some people might consider this already self-defence. I don't think you should. But by being surrounded by NATO, by many of the post-Soviet countries and EU countries adopting strong anti-Russia sentiments (before the invasion), by the USA having targetted them as a target to destroy, it's realistic for Russia to fear attack. If someone wants to attack you, they are an enemy, and denying enemy attack vectors would then be self-defence.
To be precise, under international law, pre-emptive strikes don't qualify. You could call any action a pre-emptive strike if it did. But I'm not looking to clear them of wrong-doing, I'm trying to find their real motivation. I believe this is their real motivation. This is consistent with Russian insistence on security guarantees, them giving multiple chances, and them pulling out of Kyiv, and them attending the peace talks in Türkiye in the first half of the war.
There's a lot of in-depth information available on this site and others if you aren't convinced but feel this line of thinking is worth exploring.
__
And now I will reply to the meat of the comment in the topic of your country's development. Thank you for replying in good faith. I'm glad you feel your country is improving, and meritocratic.
You believe living conditions have improved dramatically: (I don't use the word 'believe' to discredit it, but I'm addressing your subjective opinion at the moment): I must then challenge you on if the improvements have outpaced your country's (or region, if it was part of the USSR)'s wealth, and the advance in technology. I must also challenge you on if your perception of the Soviet Union is a fair one or one formed by influence from propaganda. You can't answer these questions, but you should consider them as analytically as you can.
For example you say people get paid to do nothing, and that's bad. But it's not bad for the worker. It's bad for the nation. If the nation is losing money on that worker doing nothing, it's in the nation's best interest to find contributive work for that worker. We can safely assume that the nation makes choices in its best interest and will find contributive work for that person eventually. Meanwhile they're getting a salary. People are also left outside the job market under liberalism, but they'll be on unemployment or homeless. From just that example, while both scenarios are a failing of the system, the USSR system is better for the worker.
You then talk about a low standard in terms of everyone's wealth and access to goods, leisure, housing etc. But consider the USSRs economic realities. It transformed very poor nations into middle income nations in a very short amount of time, all while suffering a devastating war. The priority was giving everyone something, and quality could come gradually when no one was destitute.
Again, I'm grateful that you decided to reply in good faith and value your opinions on the state of your government and country, even if I don't agree with your conclusion regarding the USSR-local SSR relationship and the USSR as a whole.
I think we can agree that we disagree in most core parts. I could argue with you and point out that your logic can be twisted ("influence from propaganda" etc.) but I choose not to. It's not that I sweep your comment of the table. There's definitely some points I agree with you (not everything needs to be US/west centric), but at the same time I believe simple "falling under different hegemon's sphere" won't change much for the better. Part of why I came to this conclusion was studying history of my own country.
The USSR directly funded and supported emancipatory movements against the US all over the world, like Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, Bangladesh, Palestinian resistance organizations like the PFLP, etc; even directly supplied wars against "israel" for that last one. Afganistan is about the only one where the US and USSR funding opposite sides turned it into a warzone instead.
Russia's foreign interests, even after the USSR's overthrow, have remained broadly aligned with Global South countries as I explained in my previous comment.
I do too, and hence critically support Russia and Iran's role in geopolitics.
The second paragraph is accurate