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OPINION: NATO sucks, but cheering for Russia is unsolidaric (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by WageSlave@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml

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Hey, comrades. I am new to lemmygrad and find it odd that there are so many marxist-leninist defending a war of agression started by an oligarch, possibly the richest man in the world. I get that you want to say that NATO is a source of evil on the global stage, but in this particular case you are defending Putin, a warlord, who has invaded many of his neighbouring countries and has stated plans to continue his campaign for megalomanial reasons.

No war but class war. Enabling an autocrat fascist oligarch does not do anything to counter the bad stuff done by NATO and the community should take a firm stand against the use of war for the sake of satisfying the dreams of a tyrant.

This is not a troll post or anything to that extent. Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I think it needed to be said.

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[–] WageSlave@lemmygrad.ml -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Putin was a bureaucrat first and then a career politician.

Yes, and since the premise is that Russia is not a socialist state and there are oligarchs with massive amounts of wealth and power, thinking the most successful career politician of the state not to be influenced by and using money as a means to political ends is weird. I do not conflate his person with the state, though after consolidating power they can sometimes be hard to distinguish. The wealth referenced is not what is owned by the state, which was in large part sold out as you said in the 90s, but what is held by him directly and solely.

There are a lot of wars started by Putin, which is why I call him a warlord. As I wrote in other comments, does the want for control over a sphere of influence justify attacking neighboring states to the extent done by Putin? If the states attacked were flawed, is it still something to cheer for given the state of Russia's political line today? When capitalist nations go to war, the young and the poor die.

A large number of Russian neonazis have gone over to the side of Ukraine and are now fighting against Russia.

Yes, but if a nazi agrees with anyone, does that make that person a nazi guilty by association? I think there are a lot of Ukranians lumped in unfairly as nazis by your statement. It is not a war against nazism, it is a war for power and control, like most are. Even though the US and UK said they went to war against nazism during WWII, they mostly did for power, control and necessity. Is there no due diligence to be taken when considering statements from Putin?

Russia is not in any qualitative or quantitative way more authoritarian or reactionary than the US, and in many ways it is less so.

And I think that just like we do not cheer for US invasions of other countries, we should not cheer for Russian invasions either.

Conflicts between nations do not start because one person felt like starting a war. They are the result of complex processes and contradictions, often having built up for a long time. (...) This conflict did not start in 2022, it started at least as far back as 2014. (...) the West, as has now been admitted, never had any intentions of negotiating in good faith and did everything it could to push Russia toward war (...) the UN article on collective self-defense, making their intervention legal by international law and defensive.

There is room for a lot more nuance I will admit, that does not mean that it is false that Putin has said that he wants to retake the original borders of the Soviet Union, not for the purpose of restoration of the socialist state, but for the purpose of imperial ambition only. This can not be discarded as a reason for the war. I never stated that the war started in 2022, it started way earlier as you have said. It still escalated to unfathomable proportions in 2022 as a full scale invasion. I do not think the EU was nor is very happy about the war given how damaging economically it is to them. The economic downfall of the EU, and its citizens, due to the war, is damaging them a lot on the global stage when they already had unresolved economical and political issues. If anything, it has been US gain at the expense of the EU, since they have now increased manufacturing costs and the US can import back industry to sovereign lands in an attempt to rival China. Lastly I do not think the war is internationally recognized as just and legal. International law is only the agreement of nations, mostly those of the security council, it does not represent a moral law, actual law and even so the war is not in accordance with it.

We support Russia’s anti-fascist intervention not only on moral and legal grounds but more importantly because it is a major blow against US imperialism itself, and we recognize it as a fact that US imperialist hegemony is the biggest obstacle to socialism and socialist states everywhere. A defeat for NATO in this proxy war is a victory for the global proletariat. Anti-imperialist, anti-fascist struggle IS class war. Like the first cold war, this new cold war of the US against Russia and China represents a global dimension of the class war.

I have issues with this point as well, mainly that advancing Russian imperialism is not going to stifle NATO and US imperialism by anything. Military, the only one that may compete for hegemony is China at this point, and that is still some time off. Calling anything related to this war a a victory for the proletariat makes me a little sick. The proletariat in Russia and Ukraine are dying right now and the west have issued massive investments in their military production. Across the whole of EU, with Germany at the forefront, we see plans to make their military capabilities an order of magnitude stronger. This will not bring peace, not an end to western military hegemony and not victory for the proletariat.

All this being said, I really do thank you for your response and giving the benefit of the doubt.