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Hate to say it but, wtf does this mean anyway? Does the left have anything to offer to Russia, China, etc? What does it mean for us to support them, or to withdraw our support?
My honest and most realistic appraisal is that our support means nothing, we have nothing to offer, and any engagement in discourse about the moral or political value of the projects of the Russian state or the Chinese state is basically fruitless when the discussion among those in the halls of power is so far removed from our discussion that the difference between the most fervently critical Anarchist comrade and the most ridiculously pro-SMO ML is completely irrelevant. It’s not exactly arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but functionally it’s just as useless of a discussion. If we all agree that we have to show up at protests resisting the MIC, calling for peace, supporting leftist local politicians, and doing everything we can to raise union membership, what difference does it make that I ‘stan China’ but you ‘critically support Putin despite Duginist elements in the Russian government’? Is it not just as fruitless as political compass memes? Because from where I’m looking it literally is just PCM for people that have read the manifesto. The only value of the argument is to intellectually deduce the truth, a project that’s completely separate to actually achieving political power.
And yes, where you land in the spectrum of supporting Russia and China can influence which political party in your area to support, but practically the only material difference a minority party will make is whether it’s going to support sanctions and tariffs against Russia and China, or it won’t. However, not to No True Scotsman, but no true leftist party is going to jump on such a blatantly neoliberal and imperialist position as to economically punish 2 of the largest populations on Earth while knowing how little effect those sanctions will have on the ruling classes of the target states. So we’re back to square 1, regardless of your position, the actions you can take regarding Russia and China are the same.
Just to finish off the rant, here’s a comment from 72T that I found really insightful. TL;DR the question isn’t, “should we support a multipolar world,” because we have no power to change that reality, whether it’s going to arrive or not is entirely out of our hands. The question is “what is to be done about the incoming multipolar world,” especially locally, with regards to how it affects our approach to building power.
No shade on JT though, as far as the question exists in a vacuum that’s a good answer.
No, it’s important to, as Mao said, properly delineate who’s our friends and who’s our enemies. Otherwise, your org will do cringey shit like the DSA delegation snubbing the Cuban president and talking to a bunch of traitors working for the CIA instead.
Unless you want your org to be completely isolated from the international community and abandon internationalism, it has to connect and break bread with other orgs throughout the world and perhaps even anti-imperialist governments. While the DSA shit the bed with regards to Cuba, I think the DSA also send a delegation to Venezuela where they met Maduro. Obviously, Maduro isn’t going to meet with a bunch of dipshits who shittalk him by calling him an authoritarian dictator, but by personally meeting with Maduro, they have tacitly (and rightfully) support Maduro and uphold the Bolivarian Revolution.
Synthesis: The answer to this question,
Does the left have anything to offer to Russia, China, etc? What does it mean for us to support them, or to withdraw our support?
is that it is inconsequential what an individual leftist believes, but it matters a great deal for national leftist organizations to connect and build solidarity with international leftist organizations. What the American left (for example) has to offer China is quite simply a counterpart in America which can participate in the broader socialist movement, which is mutually beneficial. If/when shit does hit the fan, the left has to be ready both theoretically and organizationally.
I really agree with this but I’ll add a little more. A lot of the theory written by people like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao occurred in the context of historical upheaval during which theory was absolutely necessary to chart a path forward for an actually existing political movement. So those writings should be understood first as practical and only second as abstractly philosophical.
Theoretical development is still worth doing in order to prepare, but there is way too much emphasis on abstract correctness over real successes.
Theory is science. It has to keep up with the evolving nature of capitalism.
While fascism was invented to defeat communism in response to the Bolshevik Revolution, the fact is that left wing theory until this day still has no definite answer to fascism - the most vicious form of capitalism.
Lenin saw the rise of fascism late in his life but did not live long enough to observe the true destructive force of fascism. Stalin spent the rest of his life rebuilding a country where tens of millions were sacrificed in the fight against fascism. Same with Mao having to deal with the Japanese and the KMT fascists, where millions and millions were killed in the process.
The post-war European left turned their backs on the Soviet Union and chose class collaborationism with capital in the form of social democracy, which directly caused the rise of far right nationalism in the present day, to which they have no answer for.
The post-war US perfected the brutality of fascism in the form of Jakarta Method, which was then enacted across the Third World where tens of millions were murdered and tortured in the name of anti-communism. The destructive nature of fascism lingers to this very day in many places across the Global South.
More than one hundred years since fascists first took power in Italy, the left still has no answer for it. How to defeat it without getting millions of people killed in the process. That should tell you the state of left wing theoretical development we are in today, and how much work needs to be done while time is about to run out.
Completely agree about the need for theory to evolve with material changes.
Science needs to advance, but does it follow that every individual leftist needs to be preoccupied with theory, with becoming a scientist? For every Lenin there were millions of average people trusting in the party line that he and the Bolsheviks produced. Most Russian revolutionaries, of whom only a fraction were serious party members, likely did not have a strong grasp of theory outside of their own experience.
Western leftists (myself included) have to combat their latent liberalism, one form of which is a belief in the “marketplace of ideas.” This belief is the basis of electoralism, which as most lefitsts understand theoretically, is ineffectual in practice. Yet with so much emphasis on perfecting science, one has to wonder if the Western left has actually internalized the truth that the best idea does not inevitably win, that progress doesn’t follow inevitably from worsening material conditions.
We could have a perfect theoretical understanding of capitalism and it would not matter until the left has politically organized in such a way as to put that theory into practice. There are enough theorizers/philosophers/“scientists” on the left and not enough direct action and organizing.
Reading the abstract theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao — it is too easy to forget the context in which those writings happen. Many believe that Marx invented communism, but his actual result was consolidating an otherwise disorganized proletarian movement under a single theoretical basis.
The manifesto itself was written intentionally watered down on some points so as to receive buy-in from various socialist factions. The intellectual disagreements between the factions worked themselves out because the correctness of this or that idea was demonstrated in practice. Engels wrote in his 1888 preface to the manifesto,
Marx, who drew up this programme to the satisfaction of all parties, entirely trusted to the intellectual development of the working class, which was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. The very events and vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the victories, could not help bringing home to men’ s minds the insufficiency of their various favorite nostrums, and preparing the way for a more complete insight into the true conditions for working-class emancipation. And Marx was right. The International, on its breaking in 1874, left the workers quite different men from what it found them in 1864. Proudhonism in France, Lassalleanism in Germany, were dying out, and even the conservative English trade unions, though most of them had long since severed their connection with the International, were gradually advancing towards that point at which, last year at Swansea, their president [W. Bevan] could say in their name: “Continental socialism has lost its terror for us.” In fact, the principles of the Manifesto had made considerable headway among the working men of all countries.
Leftist theory does need to advance, but not through contemplation alone. It needs to be tested in practice. And I think that is what JT is saying here, that theoretical correctness is secondary to direct action.
What you need is called praxis - practice guided by theory.
The scientific nature of Marxism necessarily implies that its theory will be carried out and tested in the real world. However, without a theoretical foundation, practice is as good as shooting in the dark. It’s like wanting to build a plane but never bothering to pick up a physics textbook to study the foundational principles in the first place. Yes, you can try to re-invent the wheel that took several centuries of collective effort, but it’s going to take a very long time before you even get close to a starting point.
It is no coincidence that all socialist governments that have succeeded in their revolutions and survived the ensuing counter-revolutions are all Marxist-Leninist.
good comment
great comment, even
great comment theory of history
Make a c/greatposting and chuck this in it.
Wasn’t that what best of hexbear was for?
If you stand back and be silent when “enemy” countries get slandered, you are legitimizing imperalism and help cultural imperalism do its work. This applies on a micro & marco-level.
I think it was Xi who personally said the digital space was an important ideological battleground of the 21st century. Posting is praxis people.
Foreign policy is not democratized. The range of acceptable discourse inside imperialist countries never spans past the point where you turn around and actually oppose imperialism, the opposition actually lands so far away that any speech against empire is thoroughly delegitimized and often holds negative power to change the reality of imperialism, because by holding that position you become the boogeyman for the moderates to rally against. Not that we shouldn’t be anti-imperialists, but thinking that you will just change reality by having the correct ideas, with no concrete plan as to how you’ll enact those ideas into material reality is ahistorical and antimaterialist. Note that when it comes to organizing in favor of Palestine the situation is entirely different because we do have things we can do to improve the situation for Palestinians, but the same can’t be said for Russia and Ukraine, or anything related to China. The only thing you have to offer is discourse, which the ruling class has the power to invert in their favor. No amount of 500 follower hammer and sickle accounts on Twitter dunking on White House press releases is going to stop aid to Ukraine, you’re probably getting Twitter to get even more reactionary if anything.
So that ties back into my point, we have no organization broad enough or strong enough to actually change reality w.r.t. foreign policy, especially towards the main enemies of empire. We’re just a part of the culture, part of the superstructure that maintains the base but has little power to materially change it until we can have enough workers willing to withhold their labor politically conscious and organized. Once we’re at that point then those questions do become important and we have a broader international left to fit into.
Being aware of what is good and bad, and spreading awareness of those distinctions, must surely be useful. Discussing and working out what sucks and what is cool is a big part of how we as commies organise in the first place to then get said power. If you don’t ask these questions before you have power, you’ll find yourself in bed with unsavory types.
You failed to consider thoughts and prayers.
You’ve posed a very pertinent question. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is the dilemma that encapsulates the entire project of “Western Marxism” in general and it’s a fair question that deserves more than ridicule or dismissal.
We are long past the era of Eugene Debbs where the Western left had a sliver of actionable material power, so even beyond the question of what the Western left can do for AES states, what is the point to being a Marxist at all? In practical terms, if you consider the things you can materially accomplish in the midst of the imperial core, is there really a point to being a ML and not simply submitting yourself to the Democrats or Labour or the SPD where you can at least organize to defend those few select social progressive interests permissible in this bourgeoisie system?
When you’re powerless, fragmented, isolated and sociopolitically ostracized, what’s the point to all of this, holding all those “geopolitics understander” positions and these “principally correct” Marxist stances at all if you can’t achieve anything real with them and, to most people looking at you from the outside, based on your accomplishable praxis inside the heartlands of anticommunism, you just look like a weird but generic liberal anyways?
Is the Western leftist doomed to be that soyjak meme, standing alone in the corner of a party, with that thought bubble thinking “Heh, they don’t know that Stalin = actually good.” Does it come down to that eternal philosophical question of “If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound at all?”
Marx lived during the apogee of imperialism, the cruelty of the American slave state and a bleak era where that meager revolutionary flicker within 1848 was subverted by the bourgeoisie and where the only successful proletariat uprising, the Paris Commune, was brutally squashed with ease. And yet, he persevered in his writings, which, of course, became the bedrock of what we stand for today. His writings where he railed against the hypocrisy of the Second Opium War against China and the British tyranny over India was meaningless in his own time, this was the height of European colonial despotism, after all, and the tirades of one lone individual was to scream against the void. Was there no point to his opposition towards imperialism and his solidarity, against his own class, with the oppressed then?
For someone in that time, in the midst of all the chauvinism and racism societally designed to socialize and induce the European individual to become a cheerleader for the imperialist cause, for him to reject all those narratives and to see things clear eyed for what they are, now means everything. That was an utterly hopeless time, yet he perserved in spite of it and gave so much to the cause of socialism in retrospect. This is the same with the likes of Michael Parenti, during the nihilism of the 1990s, where socialism was subverted everywhere and even the surviving socialist states like China, Vietnam and Cuba were eyed with paranoia. People like Parenti and Losurdo could have sold out like the rest of western “Marxism,” got a cushy tenure and professorship chair at Oxbridge or the Ivys, but they continued to defend the legacies and memory of Stalin and Mao.
This is not to say that your average Hexbear user will become the next Parenti or that the sequel to Das Kapital will be penned by a News Megathread regular, but to emphasize the important point that those Marxist figures understood. They understood that the imperialist West is a culture obsessed with discourse control and narrative purity. To stand in front of its propaganda and to say “no” in its face is a powerful thing, in of itself. This is why the liberals get so upset when they encounter MLs, why there was two Red Scare campaigns, why Communist Parties in many countries are outright banned, why they’ve legislated criminal charges against those who support designated enemy nations. If it’s all meaningless, the adversaries of the genuine Western left would have never put in so much effort to counter genuine leftist voices. If it’s all pointless, they would not be so livid at seeing ML counter-argumentation and have banned communities like r/genzedong such that the Western left is ostracized to isolated places like Hexbear and Lemmygrad.
As such, yes, the Western left does not have the capacity for its own liberation, but upholding internationalist solidarity and maintaining principled Marxist-Leninist lines has meaning. It’s true that this meaning is not as materially valuable as being the one who fired the October shot on the Aurora, or striding into the Chinese countryside to manage New China’s land reform and this can be demoralizing to many who want more actionable and material gains.
Over the past century, many people on the Western left, not just ultra chauvinists or Trots or sellouts but well meaning people, have allowed themselves to suppress their own socialist beliefs in order to join liberal ranks and push for “change from within” or to achieve acceptable goals within the confines of the imperial core because the capabilities of the Western left, reduced to just providing internationalist solidarity, are such intangible things. This is understandable but one point that must be emphasized is that while the things the Western left can achieve are principally ideological rather than material, however, does not mean those things are meaningless.
Though it understandably can be demoralizing that this is the crux of what we can contribute, principled Western Marxist-Leninists who have a clear eye of how things are represent a slap in the face to the West and its self-image of whitewash and apologia, its modern narrative of LARPing moral sainthood while kicking its 500 years of imperialism under the bed, which I’ve talked about in a previous post. At this point in time, they earnestly believe they’ve gotten away with it and an ML’s principled stance, refusing to play along, threatens that. There’s a reason why Hitler personally ordered the execution of Ernst Thälmann, despite the latter having been imprisoned for eleven years, during the collapse of the fascist reich in 1944 while those like SPD collaborationists were left unscathed. Though western Marxism has almost always been utterly impotent, they nonetheless have a genuine fear of what we stand for.
Above all, our principled stance, though it might seem “immaterial” and feckless, is the continuation of the memory of those comrades of the past, those who built the planks in the house of western Marxism, ramshackle shack though it may be. Those like Thälmann were never able to achieve anything material either, does that mean he should have disbanded the KPD, joining the SPD in hopes of “changing things from within” or that his existence and martyrdom was meaningless? If that was true, then fascist written popular media has a better sense of duty to their predecessors than us western Marxists do.
Ultimately, I think there’s a dialectical dialogue in Disco Elysium, of all things, that encapsulates all of the understandable nihilism inherent to western Marxism quite poignantly.
Rhetoric: The question you mean to ask is both very complicated and incredibly simple…
Endurance: Take a deep breath. Best to go one piece at a time.
You: If communism keeps failing every time we try it…
Steban: (he waits patiently for you to finish)
You: …And the rest of the world keep killing us for our beliefs…
Steban: Yes?
Volition: Say it.
You: …What’s the point?
Steban: (he considers your words for a minute)
Composure: You’re witnessing his ironic armour melt before you. This is his true self you’re seeing now.
Empathy: He’s thinking about someone…
You: Wait, who is he thinking about?
Empathy: Hard to say. Someone dear to him.
Visual Calculus: Track his gaze. He’s looking out past the broken wall, toward the opposite side of the Bay…
You: Toward the skyscrapers of La Delta.
Visual Calculus: They rise like electric obelisks in the night.
Steban: The theorists Puncher and Wattmann — not infra-materialists, but theorists nonetheless — say that communism is a secular version of Perikarnassian theology, that it replaces faith in the divine with faith in humanity’s future… I have to say, I’ve never entirely understood what they mean, but I think maybe the answer is in there, somewhere.
You: Wait, you’re saying communism is some kind of religion?
Steban: Only in this very specific sense. Communism doesn’t dangle any promises of eternal bliss or reward. The only promise it offers is that the future can be better than the past, if we’re willing to work and fight and die for it.
You: But what if humanity keeps letting us down?
Steban: Nobody said fulfilling the proletariat’s historic role would be easy. (he smiles a tight smile) It demands great faith with no promise of tangible reward. But that doesn’t mean we can simply give up.
You: Even when they ignore us?
Steban: Even then.
Ulixes: Mazov says it’s the arrogance of capital that will be its ultimate undoing. It does not believe it can fail, which is why it must fail.
Volition: So young. So unbearably young…
Half Light: Why do you see the two of them with their backs against a bullet-pocked wall, all of a sudden?
Inland Empire: Their faces, blurred yet frozen as though in ambrotype. You were never that young, were you?
Steban: I guess you could say we believe it because it’s impossible. (he looks at the scattered matchboxes on the ground) It’s our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain… like this…
Great comment, you’re right, the discussion does have value for future communists.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I def get schadenfreude from Russia being a pain in the ass for the US empire. It’s fun to watch state department ghouls run around with their hair on fire trying to figure out Russia’s next moves, which is often just rational capitalist moves given their circumstances. My fever dream is the PRC continuing to undermine US hegemony and court/guide Russia back into an era of a new USSR, finally driving the rest of the global south into revolution and choking off the great Satan.
Sadly China has not been interested in actively building international socialism in a long time. Maybe that will change one day, but not yet.
Support them when they do good things, criticize when they do bad things. It goes for any country. Feels like its 2022 again and people are relearning what “critical support” means.
It’s the standard Western leftist take that we have seen regurgitated so many times over the years.
It is no different that asking: why is Iran so conservative? why is Afghanistan so conservative? why are so many countries in the Global South so conservative? Why don’t they elect a left wing government that we can support?
Hint: read up the history of left wing movements from those countries, what happened to them and especially the role of US/Western imperialists behind it.
Again, it is sad we continue to see this kind of ahistorical and non-materialist takes from the Western left. It provides no explanatory power to the material conditions of our current world, nor does it have any prescriptive power to guide left wing movements toward defeating capitalism.
It ends up with a “good guy” vs “bad guy” delineation with a bit more nuance but really not so much different from your standard liberal take.
Argentina is one of the best real world examples on why voting for left always end up on the right. Again, with this kind of discourse you cannot explain how someone like Milei could get elected and so you end up blaming the Argentinian people for being stupid for electing a right wing libertarian to destroy their own country.
There is very little room for left wing movements in the Global South to survive until Western imperialism has been completely and thoroughly defeated.
Yeah when we look at the narrative around Putin. Its unironic great man theory as if he is behind all the reactionary and conservative aspects. The worst part being the liberal fetish for color revolutions. The idea there is some liberal hero being oppressed and would be ready to replace him if only we support them. They tried that shit with Navalny even though nobody anywhere even knows him and not realizing he was just as racist and a nazi shit as everyone else.
Putin would be coup by the kind of people that think the war is embarrassing and would be ready to do a full mobilization(an additional 1 million or so) and actualy start bombing and destroying Ukraine indiscriminately.
This whole idea of a slow paced war of a attrition is not without its shaky moments(the Moskva,Kherson retreat, the Moscow attack etc). Nobody pretends the war is without cost, but Russia is managing this cost because they’re being very conscious and smart about e.g building the military industry, making sure to transfer more wealth to workers even if just government subsidies etc.
Of course none of this is to say Putin deserves any praise but he was willing to admit to his previous mistake of being naive and willing to bring Russia closer to the west. His replacement in a coup would be someone even more resentful not less, someone even more agressive towards Ukraine not less.
The mythical “western values” loving Russian? That was quite literaly Putin 25 years ago lol.
There is very little room for left wing movements in the Global South to survive until Western imperialism has been completely and thoroughly defeated
I posted about this a while back. I think (and hope) that the path forward is along these lines but it will of course happen over a long time period. Practically this will take the shape of slackening control of western imperialism enabling political alternatives to be tried. There will be failures, false starts, and even fully wrong solutions (Milei is a good example of the latter) but precisely because people will be able to try things without the CIA or capital bringing down the boot we have a chance to see some critical successes.
But you don’t support Ukraine, so that means you want all Ukrainians fed into a woodchipper and Putin to rule all of Eurasia forever
Liberals really mock conservatives for having no nuance, then turn around and proceed to show they have none either
The leaders of the counter-hegemonic pole are Russia, China, and Iran, and no amount of coping or malding about the real and imagined inadequacies of these three will change this simple fact.
There is a reason we say “critical support”
If I were a Iranian I would have major issues with my national government. If I were Russian I would have major issues with my elected leaders. If I were Cuban, Vietnamese, or Chinese, I’m sure I would find something to complain about.
From my current position, in the imperial core, I refuse to speak ill of the countries working to dismantle American hegemony.
Analysis I don’t agree with = coping and malding?
Russia also has a lot of influence in the global south that China lacks. You can give me all the history lessons you want as to why that is but at the end of the day it’s the Russian flag you see rebels waving and not the Chinese one.
Russia has a much better track record in Africa than China going way back to Tsar Nicholas II. It says a lot that even when Russia was at its most imperialist and reactionary, it still played a progressive role in Africa. Because if it wasn’t for Tsarist Russia under Tsar Nicholas II, Ethiopia wouldn’t have done so well in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, perhaps even be colonized by the Italians. At the height of European colonization of Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country that held onto its sovereignty (Liberia doesn’t count since Liberia was a de facto US colony), and much of it was thanks to Tsarist Russia.
Russia’s hands are almost completely clean when it comes to Africa. More Africans died from being tossed overboard in a single slave ship headed to the Americas than however many Africans Wagner or any other Russian-affiliated group has killed. As long as the current Russia leader isn’t as bad as some inbred anti-Semitic chump who got owned by communists, Russia will most likely continue to play a progressive role in Africa.
Another factor that people often neglect is that Russia has been canceling debt across the Global South owed to both the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. From 1991 to 2018, Russia has canceled over $140 billion debt in the Global South countries. Just last year, Russia canceled another $23 billion debt in Africa.
Russia is a very weak economy but even Putin understands that these African countries cannot possibly repay their debt. Russia could have used the debt to push for privatization in Africa and take over their assets to further exploitation as a colonial power, like what Western imperialists are doing through IMF.
Russia doesn’t do that. It is fundamentally not the same as a Western imperialist power no matter how much people try to equate Russia to the US empire.
Look at how the French furthered its colonialist ambitions in Africa through CFA franc and treat those countries and you’d instantly understand why people from Burkina Faso like Russia so much.
On the other hand, and unfortunately, China still has some issues with their image across the Global South (and I say this as a Chinese myself). Many countries are still quite suspicious of China’s intentions and there is an impression that China is only interested in doing business where profit matters.
The Chinese geopolitical strategy since Mao’s time has been to maximize benefit to its internal development even at the expense of other countries of the developing world, which is fundamentally different from the Soviet Union where foreign aid was dished out to arm anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles. As a result, even Russia as a capitalist country today continues to benefit from the good will the Soviet Union had sown over the years.
This is why I always say that if China is serious about leading the anti-imperialist movement against the global hegemon, it can start by using its vast amount of foreign reserves to pay back the Global South debt. This will improve China’s image in the eyes of many Global South countries.
This is why I always say that if China is serious about leading the anti-imperialist movement against the global hegemon, it can start by using its vast amount of foreign reserves to pay back the Global South debt. This will improve China’s image in the eyes of many Global South countries.
isnt china already doing this?
On the other hand, and unfortunately, China still has some issues with their image across the Global South (and I say this as a Chinese myself). Many countries are still quite suspicious of China’s intentions and there is an impression that China is only interested in doing business where profit matters.
is there some truth to his or is it another fabrication from western media?
isnt china already doing this?
China has canceled and restructured some debt, but not paying back Africa’s debt with their dollar reserves yet. From 2000-2019, China has canceled $3.4 billion of Africa’s debt. China has also waived 23 interest-free loans in 19 African countries in 2022. For reference, Russia canceled $23 billion of Africa’s debt in 2022 alone.
Ultimately, Africa’s debt problem does not stem from China, who only provides a small portion of its total debt (most of which are owed to Western countries), though China lending Africa in dollar is a problem because it further entrenches the need of these countries to earn dollars to pay back their creditors. China has restructured some debt through IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR), but that’s going through the IMF.
The total amount of Africa’s foreign debt is about $800 billion. China’s foreign reserve is also about $800 billion. China can do a lot to save and relieve those countries if it really wants to.
is there some truth to his or is it another fabrication from western media?
The impression came from the countries who dealt with China themselves. It depends on the Chinese banks who made the loans. There is a lot of exaggeration from Western propaganda, like China is setting a debt trap in Africa, which is false. If anything, China lending those countries with its dollars actually help entrench Western debt trap, not China’s!
What we want to see is instead of lending out its foreign reserves as loans to Africa, China should use those reserves to pay back Africa’s dollar debt, then lend out its infrastructure loans in yuan (or BRICS currency or whatever, as long as it’s not dollars) to fund clean energy and development projects.
The problem for China is that they don’t know what to do with all the dollars they have accumulated from exporting their goods to the US, since they are practically junk papers, so instead of buying US treasury bonds, they lend them out to developing countries via Belt and Road to help develop those countries. But it also entrenches those countries to further debt bondage, not to China, but to the US since these countries now have to earn dollars to repay these loans. Restructuring those loans into yuan and then canceling the debt altogether is the only way to go.
The US dollar is so evil, its fascinating how everything US made is harmful to this world lol.
I love that there is such a stark contrast between the Western left and the Global South left when it comes to Russia.
It is telling how well the propaganda works when people are equating Russia with the US.
From the Tucker Carlson interview. Putin compares Russia with the US. Putin says “We are bourgeois now as you are. We are a market economy and there is no communist party with power.”
Putin is not the left.
He probably has a pretty good idea about where Russia stands on leftism, though.
Was that not him speaking about Russia in the 90s?
Tucker asks the question. “Why does the US fear a strong Russia by not a strong China?” Putin says that in 1991 Russia expected to be welcomed into “the brotherhood of civilized nations”. Then Putin talks about NATO expansion. Putin says that the US lied because they had promised not to expand eastward after 1991. Then he said that there were 5 waves of NATO expansion after 1991. Putin says that at each wave of expansion, Russia tried to persuade NATO to stop expanding by saying that Russia is a “bourgeois” country with a “free market” and “no communist party with power”.
The first NATO expansion after 1991 was in March 1999, then again in 2004, 2009, 2017, 2020, 2023, and 2024. It is my understanding that Putin was referring to the period from 1999 to present day.
Maybe maybe not, but it’s as true today as it was in the 90’s so that distinction doesn’t really matter.
I thought Putin was popular because of his resistance to the shock doctrine. Russia doesn’t seem imperial and has a ton of productive capacity. With that many prols and the their history with the USSR certainly they’re not actually as bourgeois as the us now. Do you have any information? Most I’ve read is Kathleen Tyson and she describes it as some sort of proto China.
He absolutely was and no I don’t believe Russia is imperial, but it is on the same spectrum as the United States still. I explain this more in a different comment below if you want to see my reasoning.
I read it and once again I don’t have a great understanding of how Russia is organized and would love some good sources.
Regarding the new deal. It would only be a step towards communism if the capital class was being subjugated in order to redistribute the wealth and if that wealth was not bc of super profits. Since the new deal didn’t disempower capital the reforms were unwound. Since China has made capital sub to the prols in many ways it can make headway to communism and it continues to do so. How and what Russia has done is not something I have knowledge of but since the us has started a war with them I can make the reasonable assumption that Russia’s wealth is not being made available to western oligarchs. Who is it being made available to? I don’t know. But as i said before Tyson says that its going to the prols. If that is the case and if it is the case that the redistribution is because of capital subjugation then Russia is going commie. Another thing I think is interesting is that it seems like there is no large movement forcing the redistributive efforts ala the new deal. So I’ll continue to keep and open mind towards rus
Russia’s wealth is not being made available to western oligarchs.
You are correct, the United States sanctioned Russia as well as the oligarchs. The west basically shot themselves in the foot because without the oligarchs Putin can do whatever within reason.
Who is it being made available to?
This is the part that we will not truly know until the war is over and in my opinion it is going to be the thing that there will inevitably be a struggle session about. It is the reason I brought up the comparison to the new deal because IMHO redistribution in this fashion is not what makes communism. Ive supported Russias position in the war for years now, but I don’t want to say they’re going commie until I see it with my own eyes and a post war new dealish economy, aint gonna cut it personally. Putin has been a straight shooter so far, which is nice when he’s combating western propaganda, but that also means we should probably take him at his word when he says he is the leader of a western inspired bougie economy. Could be wrong obviously, but I’m not holding my breath.
Another thing I think is interesting is that it seems like there is no large movement forcing the redistributive efforts ala the new deal.
This is true, but from what I understand Russia has made pretty good efforts in making the various minority communities feel included in the larger Russia society but also respecting their various cultures. America is just too sexist, racist, xenophobic etc to do that.
The Russian economy today is equally free market to the 90s? Do we have evidence or just vibes
If the United States decided today that it would bring back a new deal economy and millions of people were given well paying jobs and a comfortable standard of living, would you see that as a step towards communism? Obviously Russias wealth comes from its abundant resources, and I believe the average Russian today sees more of their labor in their pocket than before, but it’s still an economy based on the exploitation of its people. It is miles better than the US new deal economy because that economy was based on the exploitation of its people and also the imperial exploitation abroad, but it’s still on the same spectrum. I think Putin’s correct when he says they are similar to the west.
Folow up question: Would Russia be such a deranged right-wing oligarchy if it wasn’t for the constant US/EU meddling and shitfuckery?
Depends, would they still have tried to out-pizza the Hut?
You’re DELICIOUS!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
If not for the constant US/EU meddling and shitfuckery, there wouldn’t be a Russian Federation nor a war in Ukraine, because there would be a USSR
When the empire is targeting a designated enemy that undermines the empire, it will deploy constant propaganda against that target.
Those who want to see the end of the empire will then need to take time to explain why the target is not uniquely bad, the criticisms are largely false, etc etc. Otherwise you’re just helping manufacture consent for the targeting of that country.
This is the kind of “support” socialists should provide. Push back on Russophobia, collective punishment, the US war machine, support for NATO, and false histories of what’s happened in Ukraine and Syria.
This is kinda what I was explaining to a lib friend the other day: I was a lot more ambivalent about the SMO before NATO got involved. I didn’t really have a pro/anti position, I just pointed out that this was the natural consequence of the events from 2014 onward.
I’m confused by this comment because NATO was involved the entire time.
ever so slightly less dogshit than his dogshit party
Russia is literally the only reason why countries like Cuba or DPRK are still standing- I do not think China would ever put up the slag in that regard. So the preserverance of russian independence is one of the major ways the global south can be helped.
Russia is literally the only reason why countries like Cuba or DPRK are still standing
This is an overstatement. These places are standing because they literally fought and WON against the US. Give them the credit they deserve.
I don’t think it’s taking away from their revolutionary achievements to say that they would have been crushed without the Soviet Union!
But there’s also a serious difference between those two things. USSR =/= Russia.
True, I interpreted op as referring to both the ussr and Russia. If they are exclusively referring to the last 30 years, yes they’re incorrect. Regardless they would have perished on their own
Sure, but it is on the same level as claims that the USSR only defeated the Nazis because of the lend lease act. Material doesn’t fight on its own, and wars aren’t won without labor. You need both to be successful.
Disappointed it’s not Justin Timberlake
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Yeah, those are all developing countries with little to no ability to project power beyond their borders.
Vietnam has such a large population that it is regionally significant, but yeah, definitely not a world power. The only real world powers are the US, Russia, China, and sometimes a messy block of the biggest EU countries. India might get there someday by virtue of size but economic development there is very bad. Countries like Iran, Brazil, the UK, Japan, and Mexico are globally significant but their power projection is a shadow of what the big three can do.
Cuba and the DPRK project power by just existing.
Do you know what power projection means? Because being an isola against global capital is praiseworthy, but definitely not projecting a thing
The DPRK specifically has artillery pointed at South Korea going on 70 years now. Why do you think they haven’t been invaded? The same with Cuba, they defeated the CIA in the bay of pigs. By routing the United States they defacto project power by existing. It’s the same reason Russia was able to park right up next to Cuba (they might still be there idk) obviously Russia is the larger power, but Cuba at the same time is able to say “if you don’t normalize relations, this will be a reoccurring event”
Critical support to Russia for it’s campaign against
Nazis. That includes the Nazi cope org that is 
