Neither the Russian Federation nor USSR are examples of imperialism. Neither is dominated by financial capital, nor do either expropriate vast sums of wealth from the global south through unequal exchange and export of capital. Europe does, though, and this is why they are imperialist while BRICS is not. NATO is also responsible for many of those wars, such as the Russo-Ukrainian war, by installing far-right Banderites that began ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine, resulting in Donetsk and Luhansk seceding and requesting Russian assistance.
while i agree with your first statement, your point about “far-right banderites” and ethic cleansing are loughable.
Rise of nationalistic ideologies in Ukraine is quite consiqential. It’s a reaction to Russian attempts at gaining political control via puppet figures. Russia reacted to that reaction, Ukraine then reacted to that, and now we have the mess we have. Absolutely moronic, yet here we are.
And ethnic cleansing, seriously? “Ukrainian” and “Russian” are not athnicities. Even cultures don’t differ that much. The only notable difference is the language, except even there it’s not that simple. The more to the east of Ukraine you got, the more russian-speaking people there you’d meet, which is fairly normal, but you’d still meet those even on the western half. I’m not even talking about cities like Odessa where the majority always was and still is speaking Russian. Nobody seem to ever attempt to “ethnically clense” Odessa. I wonder why…
Some aquaintances of mine from eastern Ukraine would also be quite surprised to know that they apparently were “ethnically cleansed”.
The rise in nationalism was empowered by the west to serve their interests. Russian and Ukrainian are indeed unique ethnic groups, and the 13,000 civilians killed by Kiev over the last decade before 2022 is evidence of the oppression of ethnic Russians by Kiev.
Groups like Azov have been folded in officially. The Kiev regime upholds Stepan Bandera and uses likeness for propaganda. Nazis infest Ukrainian leadership:
The east supported Yanukovych, and that’s why the far-right Banderites couping him kicked off the war.
i’m not saying it wasn’t influenced by the west. It wouldn’t have been successful without the context i mentioned tho. You know, where Russia tried to influence Ukraine and failed.
Also, it’s not like Russia ever tried to de-escalate this, on the contrary, since the Ukrainian revolution against Yanukovich regime, russian outlets haven’t missed any opportunity to portray Ukraine as some kind of a nazi state. It’s kinda natural of people to unite against a bigger enemy, so no wonder that the more Russia screamed about how nationalistic Ukraine is, the more nationalistic it became, with it’s peak at the start of the war.
It’s really a shame, and so fucking embarassing that political forces of the historical regions of Ukraine and Russia never got along.
The fact that modern ukrainian nationalists use ww2 related symbols only proves that, and nothing else. To call them nazis is the same as to call Russian regime a nazi one, as they too use symbolics of nazi collaborationists. What’s really funny is that they use it as a symbol of victory in ww2.
Just for the clarification sake, i don’t indulge nationalism. More over, i hate the very concept of nationality, as it has little to do with reality, and only serves propagandist purposes. And what you’re doing here is defending one group of nationalists by attacking the other.
I refuse to delve into why the so called anti-terroristic operation had started, because we both have no evidence about the actual reasons, just what the news outlets of either side wanted their people to believe. I’ll just say that given that “the west” managed to influence the western Ukraine, it’s entirely not off the table that Russia had their people on the east itself. Especially considering that there’s no linguistic, cultural, nor ethnic barriers to blend in, and the fact that the border between the two coutries was quite easily passable before the shit went south.
edit:
Your reasoning for it also doesn’t check out, considering the creation of internal displacement programs Ukraine had created, and humanitarian aid it provided, that is, if by “the war” you mean the territorial conflicts that lasted for eight years, before the official war started.
Yanukovych took the Russian loan because the IMF loan required austerity measures and the Russian loan didn’t. It wasn’t because of “Russian meddling,” but because the west put literal Nazis in power. The Russian state is run by nationalists, but not Nazis.
I defend nationalism in the context of anti-imperialism, the standard Marxist position. Fanon’s a great read on this. Russia was not and is not ethnically cleansing Ukrainians like Ukraine is towards Russians.
Authoritarian militaristic regime controlling the state? Check. In the soviet union and Russia, there is only one central power, there is no freedom or real democracy. If someone wants to change it, state will use all the power and military to stop it (like in Belarus - victim of a russian imperialism, or in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and so on).
In the Soviet Union, the working class was in control of the state, and brought with it genuine democracy (see Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan). The state indeed, wielded by the working classes, suppressed bourgeois and fascist counter-revolution. Belarus is not a “victim of Russian imperialism.”
The modern Russian Federation is indeed run by right-wing nationalists, but Russia itself has a platry sum of finance capital, no colonies nor neocolonies, and is largely run on its own industrial production and export of energy and fuel.
None of this has anything to do with imperialism thus far.
Territorial expansion - Soviet union - of course, i.e. Ribbentrop Molotov pact, or the fact that Russia started the war in the Ukraine, attacking independent country to gain more power and rebuild soviet imperium.
Territorial expansion itself is not imperialism. In the case of the Soviet Union, territorial expansion was in the form of a multinational federation of socialist states. In Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk requested support from Russia and voted to join the Russian Federation in response to the far-right Banderite regime in Kiev ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Neither of these are examples of imperialism thus far.
Economic exploitation - i.e. Holodomor. Or how soviet union exploited other east block countries.
An unintentional famine is not “economic exploitation,” nor did the soviet union “exploit other eastern bloc countries.” The RSFSR was the most developed in the USSR, but it did not do so via underdeveloping the other eastern bloc countries.
None of this is imperialism thus far.
Superiority ideology - you can see it on many propaganda posts, in the soviet times it was way better, bot nowadays russia also trying to convince people, that Russia is not a right wing authoritarian regime. In the same time Russia is attacking sexual minorities, and the west.
Marxism-Leninism is indeed correct, so spreading it was a good thing. Modern day Russia is more socially reactionary and indeed is run by right-wing nationalists, but this alone is not imperialism.
None of this is imperialism thus far.
Brics is as much imperialistic as NATO.
No it is not. BRICS is made up of global south countries breaking free of imperialism, NATO is made up of the world’s imperialist powers and uses its hard power to maintain their plunder.
Dude, ask someone who lived in a east block. Countries, including soviet union, were controlled by a small group of a ruling class authoritarian idiots. That’s why soviet union failed. At the beginning, after the revolution, a lot of working class representatives were in charge, but after so many decades, new class emerged, ruling class. This was a big problem in the east block.
I have spoken to people that lived in the USSR, and they paint a very different picture. The picture they paint agrees with the sources I gave you already, that the soviet union was run by the working classes. There was no “new class” that emerged, but instead a buildup of state power to protect the gains of socialism against imperialism and sabateurs.
Also not true. How about Belarus, and other Russian satellites. Remember when during democratic election authoritarian Łukashenka regime almost lost, so they used russian army to rape and beat up protests?
Belarus is not a colony just because they trade with Russia. You need to provide evidence for your claims.
Especially when it comes to the countries that never wanted to be a part of soviet empire, like Poland? XD
There was no empire, for starters, and further the Polish People’s Republic was progressive for its time, its fall a tragedy.
And once again, do you remember Ribentrop Molotov pact? Do you remember what was the goal?
I do, likely better than you.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
“Unintentional” XD
Correct. Quotations and an emoji aren’t a point.
I don’t know how much do you know about east block, but you should know that countries like Poland, or Czech Republic and so on had give a lot of stuff for free to Soviet empire.
There was no empire. Trade existed, as did a socialist economy characterized by central planning, which also meant Poland and the Czech Republic, etc got a lot of “free stuff” in return.
And why are you skipping critical parts of my comments, that are proof of what I’m saying? Like Czechoslovaki 1968, if east block countries were part of the empire, and wanted to be there, why if country wanted to escape soviet empire, soviets would send army?
I’m not skipping any of it, but if you must have more information, Prague in 1968 was a fascist uprising. There were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about “democracy” or “freedom” is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.
Yup, and skipping the part about how russia is attacking other countries like Georgia and Ukraine. XD
War is not inherently imperialism, like how Russia is currently responding to requests for aid from Donetsk and Luhansk, and isn’t trying to colonize Ukraine.
So, you big part of my comment, you didn’t give us any arguments. What’s wrong?
I ignored nothing. I suspect that you feel that because I didn’t often name exactly that which I was responding to that it means that I ignored it, but in fact it’s all there. It’s you who is selectively ignoring what I say to further your anti-communist agenda.
Neither the Russian Federation nor USSR are examples of imperialism. Neither is dominated by financial capital, nor do either expropriate vast sums of wealth from the global south through unequal exchange and export of capital. Europe does, though, and this is why they are imperialist while BRICS is not. NATO is also responsible for many of those wars, such as the Russo-Ukrainian war, by installing far-right Banderites that began ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine, resulting in Donetsk and Luhansk seceding and requesting Russian assistance.
while i agree with your first statement, your point about “far-right banderites” and ethic cleansing are loughable.
Rise of nationalistic ideologies in Ukraine is quite consiqential. It’s a reaction to Russian attempts at gaining political control via puppet figures. Russia reacted to that reaction, Ukraine then reacted to that, and now we have the mess we have. Absolutely moronic, yet here we are.
And ethnic cleansing, seriously? “Ukrainian” and “Russian” are not athnicities. Even cultures don’t differ that much. The only notable difference is the language, except even there it’s not that simple. The more to the east of Ukraine you got, the more russian-speaking people there you’d meet, which is fairly normal, but you’d still meet those even on the western half. I’m not even talking about cities like Odessa where the majority always was and still is speaking Russian. Nobody seem to ever attempt to “ethnically clense” Odessa. I wonder why…
Some aquaintances of mine from eastern Ukraine would also be quite surprised to know that they apparently were “ethnically cleansed”.
The rise in nationalism was empowered by the west to serve their interests. Russian and Ukrainian are indeed unique ethnic groups, and the 13,000 civilians killed by Kiev over the last decade before 2022 is evidence of the oppression of ethnic Russians by Kiev.
From davel’s compilation, again:
Groups like Azov have been folded in officially. The Kiev regime upholds Stepan Bandera and uses likeness for propaganda. Nazis infest Ukrainian leadership:
The east supported Yanukovych, and that’s why the far-right Banderites couping him kicked off the war.
i’m not saying it wasn’t influenced by the west. It wouldn’t have been successful without the context i mentioned tho. You know, where Russia tried to influence Ukraine and failed.
Also, it’s not like Russia ever tried to de-escalate this, on the contrary, since the Ukrainian revolution against Yanukovich regime, russian outlets haven’t missed any opportunity to portray Ukraine as some kind of a nazi state. It’s kinda natural of people to unite against a bigger enemy, so no wonder that the more Russia screamed about how nationalistic Ukraine is, the more nationalistic it became, with it’s peak at the start of the war.
It’s really a shame, and so fucking embarassing that political forces of the historical regions of Ukraine and Russia never got along.
The fact that modern ukrainian nationalists use ww2 related symbols only proves that, and nothing else. To call them nazis is the same as to call Russian regime a nazi one, as they too use symbolics of nazi collaborationists. What’s really funny is that they use it as a symbol of victory in ww2.
Just for the clarification sake, i don’t indulge nationalism. More over, i hate the very concept of nationality, as it has little to do with reality, and only serves propagandist purposes. And what you’re doing here is defending one group of nationalists by attacking the other.
I refuse to delve into why the so called anti-terroristic operation had started, because we both have no evidence about the actual reasons, just what the news outlets of either side wanted their people to believe. I’ll just say that given that “the west” managed to influence the western Ukraine, it’s entirely not off the table that Russia had their people on the east itself. Especially considering that there’s no linguistic, cultural, nor ethnic barriers to blend in, and the fact that the border between the two coutries was quite easily passable before the shit went south.
edit: Your reasoning for it also doesn’t check out, considering the creation of internal displacement programs Ukraine had created, and humanitarian aid it provided, that is, if by “the war” you mean the territorial conflicts that lasted for eight years, before the official war started.
And if you’re talking about the current conflict, i’m afraid, “the banderites” weren’t the ones who had started it. Belarus wouldn’t have been boasting about the so called “preemptive strike” that Russia landed on “Ukrainian positions” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_now_I_will_show_you_where_the_attack_on_Belarus_was_prepared_from)
Yanukovych took the Russian loan because the IMF loan required austerity measures and the Russian loan didn’t. It wasn’t because of “Russian meddling,” but because the west put literal Nazis in power. The Russian state is run by nationalists, but not Nazis.
I defend nationalism in the context of anti-imperialism, the standard Marxist position. Fanon’s a great read on this. Russia was not and is not ethnically cleansing Ukrainians like Ukraine is towards Russians.
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Incorrect.
In the Soviet Union, the working class was in control of the state, and brought with it genuine democracy (see Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan). The state indeed, wielded by the working classes, suppressed bourgeois and fascist counter-revolution. Belarus is not a “victim of Russian imperialism.”
The modern Russian Federation is indeed run by right-wing nationalists, but Russia itself has a platry sum of finance capital, no colonies nor neocolonies, and is largely run on its own industrial production and export of energy and fuel.
None of this has anything to do with imperialism thus far.
Territorial expansion itself is not imperialism. In the case of the Soviet Union, territorial expansion was in the form of a multinational federation of socialist states. In Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk requested support from Russia and voted to join the Russian Federation in response to the far-right Banderite regime in Kiev ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Neither of these are examples of imperialism thus far.
An unintentional famine is not “economic exploitation,” nor did the soviet union “exploit other eastern bloc countries.” The RSFSR was the most developed in the USSR, but it did not do so via underdeveloping the other eastern bloc countries.
None of this is imperialism thus far.
Marxism-Leninism is indeed correct, so spreading it was a good thing. Modern day Russia is more socially reactionary and indeed is run by right-wing nationalists, but this alone is not imperialism.
None of this is imperialism thus far.
No it is not. BRICS is made up of global south countries breaking free of imperialism, NATO is made up of the world’s imperialist powers and uses its hard power to maintain their plunder.
This is nothing.
Removed by mod
I have spoken to people that lived in the USSR, and they paint a very different picture. The picture they paint agrees with the sources I gave you already, that the soviet union was run by the working classes. There was no “new class” that emerged, but instead a buildup of state power to protect the gains of socialism against imperialism and sabateurs.
Belarus is not a colony just because they trade with Russia. You need to provide evidence for your claims.
There was no empire, for starters, and further the Polish People’s Republic was progressive for its time, its fall a tragedy.
I do, likely better than you.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Correct. Quotations and an emoji aren’t a point.
There was no empire. Trade existed, as did a socialist economy characterized by central planning, which also meant Poland and the Czech Republic, etc got a lot of “free stuff” in return.
I’m not skipping any of it, but if you must have more information, Prague in 1968 was a fascist uprising. There were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about “democracy” or “freedom” is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.
War is not inherently imperialism, like how Russia is currently responding to requests for aid from Donetsk and Luhansk, and isn’t trying to colonize Ukraine.
I ignored nothing. I suspect that you feel that because I didn’t often name exactly that which I was responding to that it means that I ignored it, but in fact it’s all there. It’s you who is selectively ignoring what I say to further your anti-communist agenda.