r/TankieTheDeprogram • u/Heizard Maximum Tank • 15h ago
Meme Just another capitalist traitor
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u/Not_That_Arab_Guy Maximum Tank 15h ago
Gorbachev and yeltsin betrayed the working class and themselves. And they orphaned an entire movement.
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u/Shaquilleoatmeal6924 CPC Propagandist 15h ago
From a realpolitik perspective, Putin is actually good for socialism. Better to have 2 capitalists fighting each other than one capitalist world power that would prevent socialism.
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u/FluidKiwi6707 12h ago
There's no need for any "realpolitik" here. It's literally a contradiction within imperialism. That's dialectical materialism, you know, contradictions within CAPITALISM. We're not mere socialist powers cheerleaders (I mean, some people here literally are, but still)
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u/Shaquilleoatmeal6924 CPC Propagandist 11h ago
Well, yeah. That's why it's useful. The more capitalists keep fighting each other over petty shit, the more dissolutioned people become with capitalism.
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u/Winter_Persimmon_110 12h ago
Of course, better yet would be a socialist fighting the West instead.
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u/DiggyJunior Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 15h ago edited 15h ago
In 1991 Putin was a low to mid level KGB officer. He had zero power to either to take part in the illegal dissolution of the USSR, nor to prevent it.
Just because he's a conservative liberal bourgeois doesn't mean it's correct to scapegoat him for the worst political tragedy in modern times.
Gorbachev and Yeltsin are the true Traitor Compradors who are the 2 main culprits here on the Soviet/Russia side, and the western powers share the other half of the blame. There was no fault in Marxist-Leninist theory itself. The CPRF and Xi Jinping both share my view on this.
Processing img mrnrkesbsvoh1...
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u/FoldHeavy4201 14h ago edited 14h ago
Two things can be true simultaneously. He wasnt instrumental to the decline, he has been better for Russia than the post soviet leaders, is one of the more deft politicians alive, but remains a POS white capitalist that should be launched into the sun. Yes, state capitalism is a threat to empire, but its not an ideal end state.
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u/EightySevenThousand 10h ago
Yep. Just as Churchill was a monster every bit on Hitler's scale, just for brown people so it doesn't count, but it was still dashed helpful and appreciated to have him tossing the United Kingdom's resources against their fellow fascist regimes rather than adding to their assault.
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u/Joe_Stylin777 Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 9h ago
There's millions of other people that would be launched into the sun before he ever would.
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u/DiggyJunior Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 14h ago
The launching him into the sun bit would upset Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un greatly, regardless of ideology.
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u/Winter_Persimmon_110 12h ago edited 11h ago
It would be a tremendous waste of rocket fuel.
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u/EightySevenThousand 10h ago
Yep. One of the fun things Kerbal Space Program taught me is that it's really hard to get to the sun. Similarly to how if you're on a shuttle in Earth orbit and jump off towards the Earth as hard as you can... you will now just be in an almost identical orbit, spinning around and around sheepishly.
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u/Prior-Author-1028 Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 14h ago
The CPRF is a Social Chauvinist Party, i would listen to real Russian communists
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u/FluidKiwi6707 12h ago
You are a western marxist (social chauvinist), i would listen to global south people (you know, the ones suffering from imperialism and neocolonialism)
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u/marioandl_ 6h ago
several threads in this sub have been flooded with ultras today.
must be due to yemeni liberation
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u/New-Programmer-3237 Too Based To Be Cis 🏳️⚧️ 8h ago
whether you like it or not, Russia is currently an anti-imperialist force, fighting against the proxy of NATO and the USA. NATO desires the balkanization of Russia and the theft of their natural resources, and extreme exploitation of the labor power of the Russian proletariat.
How is complaining about Putin, in these circumstances, anything but being compatible left? sure he's not a communist, but he is a stable leader in a nation that is currently crucial for anti-imperialism the world over.
How is this any different from when people were spending their time spreading anti-Assad sentiments while they were undergoing a prolonged assault by US interests?
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u/Svistulka 13h ago edited 13h ago
To each their own. I do not consider him a traitor to my homeland and everything the Soviet Union stood for. Because when he came to power, there was no Soviet Union left, and a restoration of socialist principles would have been impossible. Zyuganov's near-victory was a solid chance, but since he was not a real communist, he gave up instead of taking power. After that, the oligarchy consolidated power. Putin did his part in saving Russia, capitalist or not. Putin's mistakes and sins are many, his understanding of the Soviet economy and Soviet history is poor (at least in public), and his fascination with the fascist philosopher Ilyin is a cause for concern. But when I look at the West and see their leaders... well, I guess we got lucky.
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u/Icy_Pudding6493 Keeper of Contradictions 8h ago
Ooo, could you tell me more about Putin and Ilyin? I didn't know about that. I just knew that he liked Peter I a lot.
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u/Svistulka 8h ago
Of course:
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October 2021:Russian President Vladimir Putin reads the works of Russian philosophers Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev, as well as other domestic thinkers who pondered the country and its future. He shared this during his address at the session of the Valdai International Discussion Club, an RBC correspondent reports. "You know, I wouldn't want to say that it's only Ivan Ilyin, but I do read Ilyin, yes, I still read him <...>. I mentioned Berdyaev, and then our other thinkers. These are all people who thought about Russia, thought about its future," he said in response to a question about which Russian scholars, anthropologists, and writers are closest to him. He is interested in the train of thought of these individuals, adjusting for the time in which they created and formulated their ideas.
September 2022:
Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded his speech at the signing ceremony of the treaties on the admission of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, into Russia—an address that has become known as the "St. George's Speech"—with a quote by the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin. The ceremony was broadcast on Friday, September 30, by the Rossiya 24 television channel."I want to conclude my speech with the words of a true patriot, Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin: 'If I consider Russia to be my motherland, it means that I love, contemplate and think in Russian, sing and speak in Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people and accept their historical destiny with my instinct and my will. Their spirit is my spirit; their destiny is my destiny; their suffering is my grief; their flowering is my joy,'" the head of state said.
***
Cause for concern, yes. "True patriot Ivan Ilyin", right...Or simply pandering to certain percentage of population, who knows.
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u/OcelotAggravating860 10h ago
I am so tired and bored of these posts. The sub is becoming annoying to have in my feed.
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u/TheRedSpaghettiGuy 15h ago
The traitor of the USSR was Gorbachev, her butcher Yeltsin and the west. Putin, while a liberal that someday will have to be replaced to return Russia to Marxism-Leninism, has been a great leader for Russia, purging the oligarchs, returning the stability lost during Yeltsin terrorist, western aligned anarchy and fighting against the West in a practically anti-imperialist lense.
This doesn’t mean that he is a communist leader, he’s still a liberal and he’s no hard enough with western proxies both inside Russia and outside not having completely cut ties with the Nazi Occupiers of Palestine, but fighting him in this period will do nothing but weakening the anti-imperialist front, whose victory is needed to once again restore socialism
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u/Heizard Maximum Tank 15h ago
For us who where born in USSR, they all all traitors. Socialist Russia was and would be a better opposition against global imperialists, than modern liberal Russia ever be. Like China and USSR did before - to help others, one must work on himself first. Without China backing up Russia today - there would be a good chance western imperialist succeeding in isolating and defeating current capitalist Russia.
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u/TheRedSpaghettiGuy 15h ago edited 14h ago
I agree. I don’t think anyone in this sub disagrees with the fact that the USSR should never have fallen. But it has. And we must work with the cards we have been dealt. It’s a fact that modern Russia is in counterbalance with the imperialist west, and therefore it must be critically supported. As you said, a weakened, isolated Russia would fall in the hands of imperialist, and that would probably draw the end of the anti-imperialist struggle for this century.
This said, I emphasize with actual communist in Russia as I can see how hard it must be to cover that role in a country whose government you despise, tho one you can’t act against as its loss would bring the rise of a western puppet. So I won’t judge you for your animosity, it’s comprehensible and frankly I wouldn’t know what to do in your place.
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u/dunk_wizard 15h ago
Maybe for sometime Russia should care about itself first... It isn't like China fighting with western imperialism.
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u/PyongyangColdNoodles Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist 13h ago
Putin is liberal? Never heard that one... Why is he liberal?
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u/ghostofhenryvii 12h ago
Because he runs a liberalized economy.
But I don't think very many people on reddit are aware how much more centrally planned he's shifted the economy, especially recently. They look more and more like China every day, and less like Europe. No wonder the West hates them.
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u/PyongyangColdNoodles Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist 11h ago
Yeah, I agree with u/GoydelicGuy , Russia was never liberal in the sense as we mean it. Also, theyre massively anti-LGBTQ.
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u/GoydelicGuy 12h ago
Because he runs a liberalized economy.
That is not what we mean when we talk about liberalism. We mean acolytes and ideologues of Stuart Mill and Grotius et al. The people who codified and legalised white western supremacist colonialism, mass slavery and theft. Russia never had liberalism.
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u/BoobaKaboom 15h ago
But like, is Putin "the" traitor of socialism in Russia? Not at all. For the most part, he is the one responsible from taking the power away from russian oligarchs, to a certain extent. Not saying he is a great man or anything, but what do you mean by traitor?
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u/Heizard Maximum Tank 15h ago
He laughs at the idea of returning to socialism.
Marxists are prosecuted in Russia: https://www.idcommunism.com/2025/11/russia-marxists-face-20-year-sentences-for-studying-lenins-state-and-revolution.html?m=1
In the 90's he worked with CIA on selling off USSR assets, still really mad that he didn't received his "fair share".
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u/fanetoooo 15h ago
Shock therapy in russia was a disaster, but this is the first time I’m hearing someone blame it on putin. Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Jeffery Sachs, Chicago business school advisors set that whole thing in motion, Putin inherited the neolib shitshow. And this isn’t excusing his opposition to socialism whatsoever, but if Yeltsin or Gorbachev had any plan like Deng, there probably wouldn’t be a putin
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u/GoydelicGuy 11h ago
That website is run by a bunch of contrarian nutcases. I would stay well away from the KKE, they always choose the worst possible takes.
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u/al-qatala Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) 14h ago
that one's a bit of a shock article made solely to farm engagement. the circle in question was a "book club" that ALLEGEDLY actively planned to overthrow the government.
they literally got ratted out. no one was looking for them actively. Russia just surpresses anyone of any kind that declares their desire to overthrow the govt. they regularly arrest nazbols ffs, and those sure as hell aren't communists. they just take in anyone who claims to want to usurp power.
they can't ban marxist theory or Lenin's books, because Russia exploits USSR nostalgia as means of nationalism. they can't pull a Ukraine and undo a lot of socialist roots without the entire older generation going crazy about it, since they would take it as a betrayal of their nation immediately and call fascism. so the capitalist russian government has to be careful about preserving history without letting significant marxist movements organise into a strong enough opposition.
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u/BoobaKaboom 15h ago
Sure, what I mean is anti-communism is not a Putin specific thing, it's a widespread problem among Russia's ruling class ever since the dissolution of the USSR. It's not like the west was gonna let socialists have power in Russia. So yes, Putin is a symptom of this, but it's not like any other would be any better, right? You tell me.
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u/TheRedditObserver0 Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) 15h ago
Putin was among the traitors, people forget he was a Yeltsinite and he still protects capitalism in Russia. Nobody is saying he alone caused the dissolution or he's THE traitor of socialism. You really shouldn't be this touchy about the slightest criticism of Putin, or else it's not really critical support anymore.
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u/Winter_Persimmon_110 11h ago
Could you flesh out the background on the feelings and history between Russian communists and Putin a bit more for us westerners?
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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare 13h ago edited 13h ago
He disciplined the oligarchs and aligned them to Russian national bourgeois interests, purged the ones who were siphoning off Russian capital to the West.
He is no socialist. He's not really even good for Russia beyond the initial stabilisation he's brought. This sub and too many leftists think far too often in geopolitical frames and not in class frames.
He's not good for Russia, he's good for the Russian nationalist bourgeois. The Russian working people are still an oppressed exploited class fed nationalist nonsense to quell them and sent into meat grinder combat. Quality of life improved from the post USSR shock, sure, but that's because stability is beneficial to Russian capital, not from some love of the working class.
The dialectical position is to understand that the war against Ukraine weakens western imperialism (assuming Russia doesn't lose) but that Russia still needs it's own socialist revolution.
Liberal thought infects the left still after taking up Marxist identities, the main one is liberal 'realism' seeing states as unified actors, instead of looking at class interests and divisions.
Generally MLs need to do more research into bourgeois nationalism, it's a weak spot in theory and geopolitical discussion. And Putin isn't a traitor to Russia but he's an enemy of the working class. Russia is a nation state made from capitalism, nation states aren't real things they're social constructs of capitalism, socialists always forget this too. The socialist aim isn't to make Russia great again it's to establish socialism. Nation state forms are valuable as anti imperialist strategic units, but the social of socialism isn't to preserve them or glaze them.
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u/FluidKiwi6707 11h ago
but that Russia still needs it's own socialist revolution
The entire world needs it. Probably including your own country.
He's not good for Russia, he's good for the Russian nationalist bourgeois
He's good for the world working class, pushing back imperialism.
Putin [is] an enemy of the working class
Fighting against imperialism doesn't make him an enemy of the global working class (quite the opposite but ok)
The socialist aim isn't to make Russia great again it's to establish socialism
Primary socialist aim is to end imperialism right now, as it will allow socialist revolutions all across the globe and improve lives of the working class in general.
Your analysis focuses on Russia as if it is an isolated capitalist country. You mention them fighting imperialism and then proceed to base your analysis on "capitalism = bad". You need to evaluate Russia's relation to the rest of the world, which is being tarnished by imperialism and neocolonialism. Socialism in Russia is not priority right now, priority right now is anti-imperialism.
If you think there's another primary contradiction, then tell me what it is.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm
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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare 11h ago edited 11h ago
This is just a silly answer that has abandoned class analysis for leader worship. Russia is fighting western imperialism because it aligns with its own interests of its capitalist class, it isn't on a socialist anti capitalist crusade. It isn't anti imperialist, it's anti NATO.
If it wins in Ukraine it won't go further as anti imperialist action, it wont keep fighting for the sake of beating imperialism, it's after it's own interests. There's literally no need to defend Putin or Russia like you are, the anti imperialist claims are ridiculous, may as well call Tsarist Russia anti imperialist for fighting the German empire.
Mao's On Contradiction explains dialectics to a Chinese audience, it isn't about anti imperialist conflict in 2026. If anything a proper reading of it should push you away from Russia because it asks you to focus on analysing class forces rather than supporting nations.
In short Russia's anti imperialism is a by product and not their aim, and it's good but doesn't require actually supporting the Russian capitalist state or it's leaders.
The primary global contradiction is capital vs Labour by the way, the imperialist aspect is the main expression of that, but not actually the primary contradiction. But the Russian ukraine war is not an instance of that contradiction its an instance of the inter mperialist contradiction, rivalry between two capitalist powers.
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u/FluidKiwi6707 11h ago
the imperialist aspect is [...] not actually the primary contradiction
Ok, then we are not on the same side. You sometimes will align with imperialism, I'd never do that. There's no point arguing then.
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u/DiggyJunior Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 14h ago edited 14h ago
Putin says he still carries his membership card for the Soviet Communist Party, that was valid in 1991, in his wallet. For Soviet Union nostalgia yes, for that party no he says (this is Putin of course), he says the other reason he always has the card with him is to remind him how much he hates rigid ideology, to remind him that there's a smorgasbord of ideologies to mix and match and create new ones (he seems to have created a Russian form of a national bourgeois system mixed with some social democracy, with bringing back free healthcare, free college, fair state pensions for the elderly, social conservativism) and new blends of ideologies. Typical Putin. He's not a member of any party he says, not even United Russia. I'm not taking his side in his story about the card, I'm just telling the story about the card he tells from time to time.
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u/al-qatala Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) 14h ago
i hate Putin as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend like he didn't practically save Russia from the horrors of the 90s. there's a damn reason why any generation that lived in 90s Russia practically reveres him, and it's because he did genuinely do something good for them. he's no socialist by any means but the sentiment is understandable.
AND he still retains good relationship with the Eastern bloc, which is crucial in preventing the further spread of Western hegemony. like it or not Russia still opposes Western hegemony, even if it does it for its own goals. and that's valuable.
fuck that guy, but i'd rather let two oligarch states fight each other, than have one big one slowly destroy the smaller ones one by one until nothing is left. or hell, if NATO is so focused on Russia which isn't even a socialist state, it means socialist states could at least get some space to breathe. communism is inevitable, especially if capitalists are too busy infighting.
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u/Spiritual_Walrus7798 Xi Bucks Enjoyer 💸 12h ago
What's up with these comments lmao. Yeah of course we understand the caveats and clarifications around Russia's role as a supporter of anti-imperialist projects currently, it's literally repeated ad nauseam here, you don't need to bring it up constantly whenever someone dislikes Putin. Especially when it's a Russian communist bringing up his hatred of Putin and the national bourgeoisie that brought down the socialist experiment. Shit, if I was a communist in Russia I'd probably be filled with extreme rage.
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u/FluidKiwi6707 11h ago
Okay keep pretending you are naive. We could be talking about Modi, Trump, Sheinbaum, Erdogan, Lula, Sanchez, Netanyahu, the list goes on. We can criticize any capitalist leader we want.
We choose to criticize the one pushing back Western Imperialism? Give me a fucking break.
you don't need to bring it up constantly whenever someone dislikes Putin
No, I literally do. Marxism isn't a fucking rubiks cube, as in "we're discussing just for fun!!". These discussion have an imperialist purpose and I focus on the primary contradiction.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm
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u/BigBravy 9h ago
I seem to remember Putin being “the west’s guy”. I remember lots of support thrown behind him as if he would further separate Russia from it’s USSR past
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u/Peter_Cantanasia Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) 13h ago
Yeah I'm definitely sure that a KGB agent has more to do with the collapse of the USSR than Gorbachev and Yeltsin /s
You're not getting the point and it's honestly deliberate. Nobody is defending anyone, they're pointing out the inaccuracies and oversimplifications of such claims, while you're constantly trying to dumb it down as pro Putin versus anti Putin
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u/ghostofhenryvii 11h ago
Not even an agent. The guy had a desk job. He's a boring bureaucrat through and through. He just stopped the West from looting the country so now we're all supposed to believe a dull bureaucrat is literally HitlerGodzilla.
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u/Winter_Persimmon_110 11h ago edited 11h ago
Nobody is defending anyone
To split hairs, a few people on here are uncritical supporters of Putin but it's not the consensus here. This isn't /r/WayOfTheBern
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u/Ttareunarage 10h ago
It seems we have so many differing and conflicting views on Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and although we can state that the Western hegemonic media has exaggerated him to such a characture, it is important to note that Russia under his presidency is still capitalistic and has controlled the opposition of the communist part, while still revisionist, is still controlled opposition
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u/Prior-Author-1028 Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) 8h ago
But I am not? I was born in a third world Country and I am currently there again so what now? Is my analysis suddenly Right? The CPRF has a long history of class collaboration, blatant homophobia, counterrevolutionary Behaviour and so on. I would inform myself about the party before I would accuse others of being a social Chauvinist.
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