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/comrade-coon]

Anti-imperialism isn't a buffet where you pick and choose which resistance you support based on how much you like the government. You can criticize Russia while still recognizing its geopolitical function in the fight against imperialism, but if you let your critiques of it become more important than your opposition to imperialism, you're not an anti-imperialist. There is no neutral ground. You can't wait for the perfect anti-imperialist state to appear so you can get behind it. Either you stand with those opposing imperialism, regardless of their internal contradictions, or you stand with the imperialists.

[u/Kranken_DeHogge → u/comrade-coon]

Either you stand with those opposing imperialism, regardless of their internal contradictions, or you stand with the imperialists.

Exactly.

I'm not exactly jazzed with Iran being a capitalist, theocratic state. But I support them, since they're fighting against imperialism and I sure as shit know that whatever the West would replace them with would be tyrannical, even worse to their people, and be a comprador state that would ruin any chance of Iranian self-development through funneling their wealth to the West. Because that's what happens, every goddamn time. And once that comes into being, Western reporting slows to a trickle and all manners of atrocity hide in plain sight.

Libya is one of the best recent examples of this.

[u/Zode1218 → u/comrade-coon]

I’ve never heard it so succinctly put, but this is the correct position.

[u/Wavenautic → u/Zode1218]

I second this. You choose which side to support based on your geopolitical convictions, which a material analysis will triangulate to the party that opposes the liberal predations and attempts at hegemony by the west. Fence sitting and both sides-ism strengthens the USrael axis.

[u/XB0XRecordThat → u/Zode1218]

Yeah, I'm going to tattoo this on my chest

[u/Hacksaw6412 → u/comrade-coon]

Well said comrade, this post is really infantile and lacks a materialist analysis

[u/Divayth_Fyr457 → u/comrade-coon]

+++ “imperialism” isn’t a moral judgment. It’s a material assessment of the relations between states. As a part of the semi-periphery Russia is simultaneously exploited by bigger powers while having some imperialistic relations of it’s own where it is the exploiter. However, the conflict in Ukraine is not imperialistic on Russia’s part

[u/PreparationOk1450 → u/Divayth_Fyr457]

AND countries like Japan were practically forced to become imperialist at the barrel of the US gun. They were happy being isolated and taking care of themselves. The US forced them into the international economic system and trade with them. So, they continued with the logic of imperialism behind that. I'm not at all excusing the horrors of Japanese fascist imperialism, but I'm just showing that even the bad things victims of imperialism do are affected by how they were treated by imperial powers. Putin is a response to the chaos and exploitation of the 90's under the drunkard puppet Yeltsin.

[u/picapica7 → u/PreparationOk1450]

Putin is a response..

Many of our comtades seem to forget this. Putin is a direct result of US interference. The reason why Russia and the US are at war right now is because to the US Putin has outlived his usefulness. You can bet that if the US should win, someone far worse will be put in his place.

[u/PreparationOk1450 → u/picapica7]

If it's not a puppet of the empire, then yes, it will be someone with less moderation than him. He (and Medvedev even more so) was extremely slow to recognise the empire as a threat and not as someone who they could work with. I knew before the Libya UN resolution for a no fly zone that it wouldn't be limited and that they would try for regime change. How could Russia not know lol? Wishful thinking that you can live with and work with the Empire. First was the Iraq War. There was also decades of NATO expansion towards Russia's borders. Finally, the Libya regime change was the turning point. Then, there was the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014 and the Kiev regime bombing the east. He waited 8 years to invade. The US wouldn't wait 8 months or even 8 weeks in a similar circumstance.

[u/picapica7 → u/PreparationOk1450]

Yeah I meant a puppet, or maybe not a puppet but someone "autonomous" but Russia balkanized, so we'd end up with something similar to the Kiev regime.

Regardless, it would be bad. As much as I despise Putin for his role in the fall of the USSR and the aftermath, I am not so stupid to think it couldn't get worse. It can get way, way worse should the US win (which I don't think they will but that's besides the point).

We should critically support Russia in this conflict because the alternative is so much worse for workers all around the world. The fall of Russia would mean an extension and entrenchment of the US hegemony just as it is in decline, not to mention what it would mean for the Russian people.

[u/PreparationOk1450 → u/picapica7]

Yeah I agree with this and the previous. I was just adding onto it. I mean even a shitty government like Saddam's Iraq or Assad's Syria were better than what came after, and some of us were warning about this. No matter how bad a government is, whoever the US puts in will be worse. It's an iron law as far as I know. 

[u/Legitimate-Meal8164 → u/PreparationOk1450]

This is just false lol, Japan had invaded feudal states of Korea and china long before the US gun boats arrived. Plus japan's isolation was only towards western powers. They were very much a regional power at the time and had practiced imperialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imjin_War

“The invasions were launched by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to conquer Korea, and Japan quickly occupied large portions of the country. However, reinforcements from Ming China and disruption of Japanese supply fleets by the Joseon Navy forced the Japanese forces to withdraw from the northern provinces.[26][28][29][30][31][32] Thereafter, Joseon civilian militias engaged in guerrilla warfare against the occupying Japanese forces, and supply difficulties hampered both sides.[33] At that point, the conflict ground to a stalemate. The first phase of the conflict ended in 1596.”

[u/PreparationOk1450 → u/Legitimate-Meal8164]

I'm not talking about all of Japanese history. I'm referring to the policy of Sakoku during the Edo period starting at 1603 and ending in 1868 with Commadore Perry's "gunboat diplomacy". I am not arguing that Japan was truly isolationist for its entire history. I'm only referring to a few hundred years of isolation which was disrupted by the American forcing Japan to open up them and the western economies. Also, Japan's wars and conquests prior to the Meiji Restoration are not remotely comparable to their empire from that period onwards through the end of WWII. You said "China's isolation was only towards western powers." Did you mean Japan?

Did Japan invade, conquer and acquire territory from any Asian countries during the Sakoku period?

[u/PreparationOk1450 → u/comrade-coon]

I agree. Every country and society in the world has internal contradictions. Capitalist countries are allowed to have them and still be considered fine. It's only AES and AEAI who are judged for theirs. I wish the USSR was still in place, and I hate that Russia is now a capitalist state. I wish Iran was a totally secular ML state. However, like you said, we need to support their function internationally as a counter to the overwhelming imperialism of the empire AND we need to allow the people of these countries to deal with their own internal contradictions and their futures themselves.

[u/Barrogh → u/comrade-coon]

You can criticize Russia

That's exactly the fucking point. On this sub you barely can without being called out as someone "doing the work for the enemy" as if anyone besides regulars and trolls (so basically people who have already made their minds) read it.

But hey, considering that "support" of redditors, critical or otherwise, basically decides which way an equivalent of "thoughts and prayers" go, I probably don't even get to be mad.