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.

Did you actually read anything of what was said in the thread i just linked? Have you read the resources that were provided there, such as: https://mronline.org/2019/01/02/is-russia-imperialist/ ? Seems like you didn't. You continue to argue based on a false premise.

Did you listen to the video in this post? Have you actually taken the time to understand what this conflict is about? Here are some more resources you can use to educate yourself: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9212334

@yogthos@lemmy.ml

Russia did indeed nearly make a deal with Ukraine in Istanbul before the west told Ukraine that they wouldn't get security guarantees if that happened. From that point on it became an actual war that Russia is currently winning. The fact that you think the war is about territory shows that you have absolutely no clue regarding the subject you're opining on.

Meanwhile, Russia successfully reorienting its economy away from the west shows just how irrelevant the west has become now. Russia's economy is now growing faster than any western economy. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68823399

The World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-country-classifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025

я не из калининграда@lemmy.ml (not a native english speaker, I believe)

i do not support the current administrations internal actions, as capitalism has brought nothing but injustice, suffering, poverty, crime and corruption. but i absolutely do support its foreign policy, especially regarding the ukrainian question. the putin government has evolved to become one of the most effective anti-imperialist forces on the planet and even if you ignore the terrible nature of the terrorist zelensky-regime one has to be grateful to our military for fighting the biggest enemy of mankind, america.

so lets detail the happenings that led to the current situation:

(it may be important to note that the current russian administration pushes a slightly different narrative due to sadly being a right wing state)

banderite collaborators parading in front of nazi officers the banderites (see picture), members of the fascist “organization of ukrainian nationalists” led by stepan andreyevich bandera were a gang of rapists and murderers who collaborated with the invading german hordes and assisted them by conducting acts of terror against civilians. It is important to note that popular support for them was close to zero. after the victory of the heroic red army, the majority of those parasites fled to the west, predominantly to canada. they received funding from american and british intelligence agencies, which were more than happy to welcome “former” nazis into their own anti-communist ranks. another subset of the banderites remained in the ukrainian ssr and conducted a campaign of terror and sabotage against the civilian population. their bloody deeds were supported by the cia and its european puppet agencies through the so called “operation aerodynamic”.

spoiler

referendum on the preservation of the ussr. its results were ignored by the anti-communists

After the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the ussr, the leaders of those fascist gangs were glorified by the ukrainian far-right, with support from the cia. efforts to further their “rehabilitation” were primarily directed by nazi expatriates in canada. outlets such as voice of america portrayed them as “heroes”. (aerodynamic, some of these were manufactured in the U.S under Operation Mockingbird like a lot of U.S state dept. bullshit)

election before cia intervention. this division between neonazi northwest and pro-russian southeast is visible to this day

in 2004, the west sabotaged the ukrainian presidential elections and installed their puppet, viktor andreyevich yushchenko, through a color revolution. he was a terrible leader, not only dismantling the remaining aspects of the ukrainian economy and managing to make life even more miserable than it already was, but also granting “hero of ukraine” status to banderite leaders and holocaust perpetrators stepan bandera and roman iosifovich shukhevich.

(not adding picture of 2014 ukrainian nazis since you have already said you believe in that)

in 2014, america and the west orchestrated another coup, this time not even bothering to hide the involvement of neo-nazis. the new regime perpetrated unspeakable atrocities against the russian population, whom it consideres “subhuman,” as well as against ukrainian anti-fascists. in odessa alone, 39 people were burned alive in the local trade union building.

those developments led to the revolution in the predominantly russian populated donbass-area and the creation off the donetsk and lugansk peoples republics, as well as the referendum in crimea that led to the peninsula finally rejoining russia. from 2014 till 2022 the majority of humanitarian aid to the donbass republics came from the cprf.

the reason for the smo is the ukrainian western-aligned nazi regime violating the minsk accords by refusing to demilitarize, trying to join the fascist nato-block and murdering russian civilians for years on end. the russian government showed itself extremely lenient, to lenient even, as any sensible politician would have staged a military intervention much earlier. if you need further proof for the tyrannical nature of the kievan regime just look at the fact that zelenskiy has banned all opposition parties in his country, refuses to hold elections and effectively rules as a military dictator. furthermore he has outlawed the russian language, made any negotiation with the russian state illegal and is currently selling whatever is left of his country to the highest bidder. combine all this with the fact that the west and its puppets need to always be opposed due to them being a cancer of humanity and you’ll get a pretty good picture of why to support the russian military.

[Query: Do communists have to support Russia?]

from @davel@lemmygrad.ml

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.

• Robert Parry, 2015: The Mess that Nuland Made
• Jeffery Sachs, 2023: The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace

Also, Ukraine really does have a fascism problem and has for a long time, and the coup government has materially supported it.

• BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
• Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
• The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
• The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video
• WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
• Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
• The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
• openDemocracy, 2019: Why Ukraine’s new language law will have long-term consequences
• Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
• Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
• Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
• History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

from [@muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml] https://mronline.org/2019/01/02/is-russia-imperialist/