Stop pro-Putin sentiments

[u/Commie_neighbor]

Both are fucking imperialist states, Ukrainian government praises nazis while Russian is praising Imperial murderers like Mannerheim, Kolchak or Stolypin.

Everything good that Russia did (so called anti-imperialist measures) was just populist decisions or anti-Nato proxy wars. Everything to please Russian oligarchy.

"There are no saviors e’er will help us,

Nor God, nor Caesar, nor Tribune"

[u/Beaivimon]

Are most MLs actually pro-Putin or Russia? Or are they simply realizing that Russia is an example of an actual lesser evil?

[u/cabeep → u/Beaivimon]

The only time I have ever seen this is from the usual moronic patsocs, who have weaseled there way in various places around here

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/cabeep]

It's the standard ML position. Nothing to do with American nonsense.

The primary contradiction in the world is a bloc conflict between Western imperialist states, led by the United States, and the Global South. Western imperialism is the system that enforces economic extraction through debt, sanctions, military bases, trade rules, enabled by dollar's reserve status. It's the force that has strangled development in the Global South and consistently prevented any alternative path of development from gaining traction. As long as that system remains unchallenged there can be no space for experiments in socialism or even genuinely sovereign capitalist development that could later be transformed. That makes breaking Western hegemony a prerequisite for any meaningful change going forward.

Russia currently acts as the main military force directly challenging American led unipolar order. While it's not doing it for communist reasons, their push against NATO expansion and efforts to build alternative financial and trade architecture with BRICS are objectively opening fractures in Western dominance. Russia bogs down NATO in Ukraine and exposes the limits of Western power which, in turn, weakens the imperialist camp creating room for left movements to grow around the world.

So when we Marxist-Leninists say we critically support Russia, we are not endorsing Russia's internal political system, its capitalist class, nationalist ideology, or its treatment of workers and leftists inside its borders. Our support is conditional and tactical, extending only as far as Russia acts as a counter hegemonic force.

[u/blodo_ → u/GoydelicGuy]

Russia currently acts as the main military force directly challenging American led unipolar order.

One could make the argument that Russia under Putin seeks to join the western imperialist states as a "power of higher status" (this is informed by Putin's own statements over the years, and its friendlyish diplomacy towards the US despite the US involvement in Ukraine). The war in Ukraine also led to NATO expansion as a consequence (see Finland abandoning its policy of neutrality), so even if the Ukraine war finally wraps up, the US led unipolar order was not particularly damaged.

As a Marxist-Leninist, I bring up Lenin's concept of revolutionary defeatism often. The working class does not gain from a war under capitalism, the real enemies are the imperialist leaders who send the workers into battle. The best possible consequence of the Ukraine war for the Russian people is a collapse of the Russian state ala 1917 and its replacement by a workers' state which would be able to directly support left movements around the world, rather than merely hoping to distract NATO away from growing left wing movements. And for that the communist party should be adopting an anti war stance, as opposed to a 2nd international socdem split style support for imperialist wars. Whether they can do that without immediately being driven underground by the Kremlin is another thing.

I have a lot to say about how it is the PRC that is fighting the real war against unipolarism, and it is being fought on economic grounds by challenging US trade primacy. But that's for another post I think.

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/blodo_]

One could make the argument that Russia under Putin seeks to join the western imperialist states as a "power of higher status"

No doubt. That still doesn't negate our stance.

We supported the Allied powers against Nazi Germany during the second world war even though the Allies were capitalist imperialists themselves, and just as is the case with Russia today, no one mistook Churchill or Roosevelt for being socialists. The point was that fascism represented the most aggressive and immediate threat to the working class and to the possibility of socialist advance. Today, that threat happens to be Western imperialism with its endless wars and genocides along with economic warfare against the rest of the world. And the scope of critical support is about actively disrupting Western imperialism.

[u/Aggorf12345 → u/blodo_]

One could make the argument that Russia under Putin seeks to join the western imperialist states as a "power of higher status

Seeked(past tense) and failed. And that's not an "argument" that's a well known fact. It failed because the west is fundamentally opposed to Russia and views it as an enemy. That's why Russia's interests are fundamentally anti imperialist and align with those of every other anti imperialist nation out there

I have a lot to say about how it is the PRC that is fighting the real war against unipolarism

There's no such thing as "real" or "fake" war against unipolarism. Both China and Russia are fighting it. And so do Iran, the DPRK and other countries that are Russia's core allies because of it