Eat shit & die Russia!
:hitler-detector: :PIGPOOPBALLS:
beep beep beepwhat are you on about? one can be anti-russia and anti-nazi and I’d go as far as to say that that’s a fairly common position
one can be anti-russia and anti-nazi
that’s a fairly common position
A radlib is called that because they are radical liberals
one can be anti-russia
Or just don’t. Stop taking sides in the rich man’s wars.
that’s a fairly common position
Americans and being pro-war. Its more likely than you think.
taking sides in the rich man’s wars
It’s not like I (or most people) want the war to continue and people to die, we just don’t want Russia to be able to just invade countries and take land as they please. If an end can be brought to the war that ensures that Ukraine maintains their own territory then obviously that is the ideal scenario
I suppose you may be inclined to point out the hypocrisy of an anti-imperial stance from someone from a Western country but I wouldn’t support my own country if they were invading a nation for personal gain as in this case
If an end can be brought to the war that ensures that Ukraine maintains their own territory then obviously that is the ideal scenario
Emphasis on “ideal”
Why did Obama and his shriveled sentient fleshlight Biden overthrow Yakunovich a decade ago?
Ukraine would still have Crimea and the Donbass. There would be no civil war. Ethnic Russians would continue to live in Ukraine as normal without a gun to their back, as would the rest of Ukrainian people. There would be no Azov or Bandera worship. No ceasefire violations or Minsk treaties being broken. Most importantly, Russia wouldn’t be at war with Ukraine and millions not needing to flee. No aspiration for Ukraine to join NATO. No SMO. But :amerikkka:.
:PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS:
Death to America
What I want to know is why Russia has been obsessed with Ukraine. It seems to be more than just “NATO moving closer”, or “there are neo-nazis there”. Dugin’s book states:
“Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness…”
It argues further that Ukraine should not be allowed independent status or right to exist. Why? Is it because of anti-Russian sentiment from famine, Chernobyl, etc? Is it something else? Was Dugin spurned by a ukrainian? Did a ukrainian art school reject his application? Most of the other ideas make sense from the point of view of one who’s goal is russo-centric global hegemony. But, it seems like a pretty deep-set anti-Ukrainian mindset in Moscow.
Dugin isn’t the leader of Russia. Stop trying to learn about Russia from western youtube videos and media conglomerates
Dugin almost sounds like he’s quoting Luxemburg here, though I bet he’s not willing to follow her to her conclusions.
The donbass region is an important industrial region, eastern ukraine is were most of the black soil is, sevastapol is one of the only 2 warm water ports of russia, and ukraine has high population with prewar amount of 50 million
Its a rich country, dugin is just a fascist that sees all non russians as inferiors aka an idiot
Tbh there is a huge belt of chernozem going into Russia and there’s no way they’re utilizing all of it effectively due to how much there is
The donbass region is an important industrial region, eastern ukraine is were most of the black soil is, sevastapol is one of the only 2 warm water ports of russia, and ukraine has high population with prewar amount of 50 million
Not trying to start any fights but, if that’s the major set of motivations, wouldn’t that just be imperialism, as much as the West routinely practices? IE, Group X has ownership of resource Y, Group E wants it, so, they invade to take it through force.
(Not JAQing, even with the original question, just honestly trying to understand if there’s something that I’m not getting here.)
Yes it would be. A very strong argument can be made that Russia fits to a T the 5 conditions to be imperialist as set by Lenin. To note also that imperialism is NOT a policy decision, it’s an objective stage of capitalist development, any advanced or semi advanced state with its material base being capitalist will express variations of imperialist tendencies.
I would argue that while the thesis “the war in Ukraine is a provoked (by the west) interimperialist confrontation”, holds a lot of merit, it does fail to account sufficiently for the extent this war was provoked, for the remaining fact the western imperialist alliances and particularly the US, remain hegemonic af, and for the more minute analysis of the Russian economy. That being said, if Russia isn’t an imperialist state, it is at the very least an aspiring-imperialist one (and in certain regions very much already acts as one).
Regardless these two variations of analysis are FAR more accurate than those which aim to posit Russia as ANTI imperialist somehow, that one is just caricatural campist nonsense that isn’t rooten in an honest materialist analysis, and which echo a lot the (erroneous) thesis of “super-imperialism” that Kautsky put forward.
In all the above this doesn’t change the role of communists in the west tho: revolutionary defeatism, fight our own imperialists. It does raise question about those who go further and give concrete support towards Russia (an IMO very damaging position that harms anti-imperialist organizing here), and it does change the attitude for say, Russian and Ukrainian communists ought to have with regards to the war ( attitude being a choice between revolutionary defeatism or critical support).
To note also that imperialism is NOT a policy decision, it’s an objective stage of capitalist development, any advanced or semi advanced state with its material base being capitalist will express variations of imperialist tendencies.
Can you point me to a reference on this definition, by chance? I’m wondering if it may be deceptively scoped as imperialism predates capitalism by a significant margin (capitalism being an 18th century invention).
I am referring to the Marxist-Leninist definition of the term, see these two texts: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ and https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/s-w/index.htm
To be clear its not some cooky ideologically driven fantasy, the marxist analysis of imperialism and subsequent impacts on geopolitical and international political analysis is a well recognized analytical and theoretical model in IR theory.
From that perspective “imperialism” does not predate capitalism. It does not refer to “empires” in the vague sense of “Roman Empire, French empire, etc”. The mechanics are vastly different. Aggressive expansion of feudal states in europe and their colonial expansion around the world (funnily enough that second one directly fueling feudalism’s demise, serving as the “primitive accumulation of capital” that allowed the emergent bourgeois class to gain gradual economic hegemony, and eventual state hegemony) is not the same as the form of imperialism that emerges out of the most “advanced” expression of capitalism). It’s understood as the monopoly stage of capital wherein bank and industrial capital merge, forming large scale monopolies, seeking new markets, and leading the state to engage in imperial plunder of less economically advanced states, and direct confrontation with other imperialist entities.
Furthermore, capitalism is positively not an “invention” nor is it dated to the 18th century ! Capitalism emerged organically from class struggle in the feudal period, with capitalistic elements emerging from within feudal society as early as the 15th century. It established itself as a dominant mode of production well into the 17th century in various areas of the world, but yes only fully superseded the feudal state structure and took control of the state as a whole in the 18th century. If anything was invented, it was the “word” for it, referring to what is an objectively observable scientific fact of human development (again, from the POV of marxist analysis, and its thesis of historical-materialism).
Thank you, very much. I really appreciate the willingness to share references and explanations both from yourself and other Hexbears. It’s been roughly 20 years (didn’t seem that long ago! - I really need to see if I can find my hardcopies) since I directly studied Marx’s writing so, it’s very helpful.
Ensuring a good grasp of the nomenclature in the conversation is absolutely vital to productive conversation, supposing good faith. A good example of where this has been handled poorly by “mainstream leftists” (likely mainly liberals or those interested in “scoring points” on others) is racism - rather specifically, phrases like “black people can’t be racist”. The phrase is absolutely correct, if everyone understands that the definition of racism used is from a sociological standpoint where it is used to refer to systems of oppression targeting racial minorities, whereas those without that understanding take the definition of racism as a synonym for racial discrimination, which frequently leads to the mistaken conclusion that anyone not “white” is absolved of any guilt related to discriminatory behavior. Or, closer to on-topic, when a working class person says that they are a capitalist, meaning that they support capitalism as an economic structure, while those thinking more about the economic theory side will take it to mean “someone of the capitalist/bourgeoise class”.
Furthermore, capitalism is positively not an “invention” nor is it dated to the 18th century ! Capitalism emerged organically from class struggle in the feudal period, with capitalistic elements emerging from within feudal society as early as the 15th century. It established itself as a dominant mode of production well into the 17th century in various areas of the world, but yes only fully superseded the feudal state structure and took control of the state as a whole in the 18th century. If anything was invented, it was the “word” for it, referring to what is an objectively observable scientific fact of human development (again, from the POV of marxist analysis, and its thesis of historical-materialism).
Absolutely. I wasn’t really happy with the term “invented” when I wrote it but left it for simplicity. Most economic system classification has been in hindsight. Smith and other similar influential writers were mainly attempting to codify what they thought the system was from their observations and trying, in a similar vein to Marx, to reason through pitfalls and problems with long-term systemic sustainability.
The major failures of their analysis and writing, in my opinion, is their attempts to frame economics in a “vacuum” with objective realities, and humans as rational actors. Humans are not consistently rational or irrational actors, however, which breaks a lot of the theory. Externalizing sociological, historical, medical, and other factors also breaks things even more.
Thanks again and sorry for the ramble - ADHD is acting up a bit today.
No worries at all, it’s really my pleasure. As you said, establishing nonemclature within its theoretical and academic context really goes a long way, otherwise it’s super easy to find oneself in a “dialogue amongst deafs`” (idk if it makes sense, it’s a saying in my first language), and everyone speaks past each other while assuming the worst from one another.
Really happy to hear that other hexbear users were patient too, and I hope you get to brush up on your Marx notes (and include the Lenin texts I linked you, being serious they are very important, Marx only ever alluded to what Lenin ended up theorizing about !)
dugin is a liar or an idiot if that’s what he’s writing. warm water port in crimea is pretty geopolitically relevant. its got a massive land border along the populated side of russia, so obviously strategically relevant if it is filled with NATO missiles pointed at Moscow also. ‘just NATO moving closer’ is blowing off a lot of stuff.
‘just NATO moving closer’ is blowing off a lot of stuff.
Good point.
dugin is a liar or an idiot
Probably mostly the former, is my assumption, but I can’t rule out the latter. Would make sense to perceive his book (Foundations of Geopolitics) as a mix of doctrine and russo-centrist propaganda, and his statements like that as an approach to manufacturing consent for future (at the time) invasion of Ukraine.
Hasn’t his importance in Russia been exaggerated by western media? My understanding is he’s a relatively fringe figure without much influence.
Hasn’t his importance in Russia been exaggerated by western media?
I have no idea, myself, being that his writing was purportedly used for academy curriculum, which may or may not be a partial or complete fabrication.
Absolutely, Western media has to shine spotlights and magnify nut cases like Dugin because the Russian government is pretty competent and generally correct in their statements when it comes to geopolitics
for anyone screenshotting, the ‘when it comes to geopolitics’ is doing the heavy lifting here
Don’t have to like Putin to agree you need to listen when he speaks, as he delivers threats and warnings that he often is serious about and follows through with. His red lines were extremely explicit and clear, and were flagrantly crossed at many points - and he eventually pushed back as he warned he would. He is competent and makes rational moves, and he just iced the dude who tried to coup him 2 months to the day after he said he would.
Good to know.
I love how they’ve been peddling the “warm water port” thing since the cold war. Soviets were somehow always expanding in order to get that holy land of a “warm water port” and if they got it they would take over the world.
Now it turn out that the port was in ukraine the whole time! Dummy Soviets, you should have looked in your own country!
Dw all of north Russia will soon be filled with warm water ports
Which communist party is this? The only one I really follow at all is Left Front, who are opposed to the war.
Seems to be KPRF, the revisionist parliamentary party that supports the war
The KPRF was the only party that never stopped supporting and materially aid the people and the militias of Donbass over the years. Reminder that Putin wanted to return Donbass to Ukraine to make amends with Europe, and is now only being forced to take the matter into his own hands because he was denied from joining the fascist club of Europe.
Do you have a source for Putin saying he wanted to return donbass to Ukraine? I can’t find it on Google.
That’s what the Minsk agreements were all about.
In the 12-point protocol included the adoption of the “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts” that was passed in Ukraine’s parliament in September 2014. It would grant increased autonomy to the local governments in Donbass. And as you will note, this was a bill from the Ukrainian parliament - meaning that Donbass will be returned to Ukraine but with the conditions of having more local autonomy.
To elaborate further, the protests against the Maidan coup government stemmed from the fact that the very first act of the new regime was repealing the Kolesnycheno-Kivalov Language Law that was approved in 2012, which granted the regional language status to Russian and other languages. The Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine obviously saw it as an infringement on their language rights, and started to protest, which eventually devolved into a separatist movement and then a full-fledged civil war (most significantly fueled by the the Odessa Trade Union House massacre by the fascists).
So, an important resolution to the conflict in Ukraine would be for the Donbass regions with Russian-speaking majority population to have autonomy when it comes to protecting their cultural identities, such that someone in Kyiv cannot simply impose a nationwide ban on certain languages without regards for the local population in the regions.
Ukraine refused to implement Minsk.
