I will clarify as it is either a translation error or I did not say it clearly enough: Putin is no communist or socialist, and his Tsarist sympathies are certainly not the reason for aligning with the anti-imperialist camp; he aligns with the anti-imperialist camp because of multiple failed attempts at joining the western imperialist order and it is the only way for Russia to survive against Western belligerence.

Having said that, Russia are head and shoulders above European countries, and Russia certainly has more sovereignity over their land than the Europeans have with theirs.

There are many occurences in history of capitalist countries aligning with the anti-imperialist block; eg India following independence of the formal British colonisation.

We are not supporting Russia for their capitalism (and India is an excellent example of why being anti-Western imperialism is not enough, you still need a dictatorship against capital) - we are giving critical support to Russia for their role in anti-imperialism and standing up meaningfully against Western Hegemony.

We must never equate Russia to the West here because if we do we are then (1) minimising the violence of the West with this false equivalence (2) we are minimising the ethnic cleansing of eastern Ukrainians by western proxies for which the only real material support for them was with Russian intervention (otherwise we should have to offer a concrete alternative not abstract idealism. We cannot simply say Russia should not engage in war, as dialectical materialists we have to say what realistic alternative there was in stopping the ethnic cleansing).

Hope that helped!

I would consider the fascist nation as one whose external colonies are insufficient so to maintain its Herrenvolk Democracy so it turns the tools of imperialism inwards to then kickstart the engine of being able to colonise further land, resources and peoples outside of its nominal borders.

However, by the time of the 21st century the “fascist nation” is redundant - liberal democracies have got so good at using the tools of fascism within their frameworks that the distinction between fascism and liberalism outside of nominal electoralism largely only matters whether is one is a beneficiery of such a Herrenvolk Democracy or its victim.

I am not a fan of pigeonholing proleterian=good non-proleterian=bad because it obfuscates one of the profound discoveries of marxism and devolves it into workerism, which can be reactionary and easy class calloborator with petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie fascists. One of the profound discovery of marxism is this: under capitalism the labour is already socialised but it is the surplus value that is privatised, as Stalin put it there is a mismatch between the forces of production and relations of production and a socialist state helps accelerate the correction of that mismatch.

Plekhanov was right to a degree about stagism but Lenin superceded him because the latter correctly understood that Plekhanov’s paradigm was too mechanistic and passive in its approach; a dictatorship against capital would help accelerate the timeline towards communism.

Circling back to Russia, I therefore have no use for the proleterian-nation-theory that was mentioned to explain imperialism; it strips anything meaningful to be understood and then actioned in the concrete world. We don’t need to force a triangle to fit in a square hole.

Russia, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, tried its hardest to join the Western imperialist order and was roundly rejected - there is no more of the world that the US and its vassal statez are happy to share - they want Russia for themselves. Putin, with his Tsarist sympathies, stumbled into aligning with anti-imperialist block because there was no other mode of survival for Russia as a nation. The autodynamism that produced this sovereignity was because of the legacy holdover from the Soviet Union, backed by the socialist fortress that is China.

(By the way, I have not tried even a little bit to simplify what I am saying for translation as I figured AI translation has got good enough that it should be fine. But if anything I said needs clarifying then please let me know. Thanks for sticking with me so far!)

I meant in the sense as: the indigenous americans or the descendants of slaves in the US could be considered nations of peoples within the US. As a marxist, I would centre nations of peoples in class dynamics so for example the above would be in the context of US settler colonialism.

Nations and races are social constructs so deconstructing them can be useful in understanding concrete property relations.

For example, the settler nation of the US allows some people of colour to join and share in its loot actively suppressing both indigenous peoples (some reservation areas have a life expectancy of 40yo) and the plurality of black folks (the world’s largest incarceration system ever is primarily designed to lock up black folks to (1) remove labour competition from the settler nation (2) provide a rural jobs programme in terms of priaon guard labour (3) stifle the revolutionary threat against the capital order.

“种族清洗真的发生过吗？历史上是否存在“生存空间”的先例？北约是否曾有效地延续过这一理念？是什么减缓/阻止了种族清洗的发生？俄罗斯是否像美国和欧洲一样，有着丰富的“颜色革命”和政权更迭历史？如果没有，为何要否定他们的说法？”

俄罗斯当然有颠覆政权的历史，格鲁吉亚、克里米亚、德左。而如果你首先要考虑民族而不是资产阶级性质，那么这就完全是一个站队的问题，取决于你相信谁的说法。

如果站在这些被颠覆政权民族的一边，那么就是他们在“自由”的基于民族意愿加入北约，是俄罗斯在种族清洗；如果站在俄罗斯的一边，就是对北约扩张的防御性攻击、以及保护俄罗斯族的免受这些国家的种族主义迫害。

中国则是另一个很好的对照组，西方对中国新疆的质控完全是基于口供的阴谋论式闭环，一个涉及百万人的事件没有任何图像证据足以证明其指控的荒诞，中国从来没有以“防御性进攻”为理由进攻任何一个国家，哪怕像印尼真的爆发了血腥的种族屠杀

There are those who claim to be pro-palestinian and then say the israeli proleteriat and the gazan proleteriat should get together overthrow their bourgoisie together. They say in doing so they are centring class dynamics over ethnic lines.

The above paradigm is a load of nonsense. In doing the above they are not centring class dynamics but flattening them instead. The israeli proleteriat collaborate with the bourgoisie against palestinians of various classes; the class dynamics and relations of settler colonialism shouldn’t be erased in favour of some idealised form of class. This serves noone except the genocidaires.

Another example of this was noted by Marx and Lenin on how the English proleteriat has been “bourgeoisified”. Remember, class is primarily a relation to property. It is explored further in Lenin’s labour aristocracy and we have a century of marxist science thereafter examining imperialism and nations as classes.

Western proleteriat are effectively a class of labour aristicrats in relation to the global south and it is partly why true international solaridity has been difficult to develop in the west - western proleteriat benefit from a slice of imperialist profit superexploited from the global south.

If one then flattens this difference between Western and Global South proleteriat we then erase the class dynamics of imperialism! Imperialism is not just the relations between elite bourgoisie but all the cogs in the system that make it happen.

When we zoom out we understand the primary global contradiction is imperialism of which the height of capital control sits in the US. Every example you gave has western involvement in destablisation, why would we equalise Russia and US here?

Marxism is not workerism. The proleterian are considered the most revolutionary because they were considered propertyless but as dialectics teaches us a group’s characteristics are not immutable, we have to understand any given group’s relations to property in the concrete form not just an abstract generalised way.

Going back to Russia, the Western bourgoisie want to balkanise and extract superprofits in labour and resources from Russia - it is an extension of Hitler’s Lebensraum, which itself was directly inspired from the US Manifest Destiny. It is in that context the west is funding, arming and giving political cover for Ukrainian Nazis against Russia. When one chastises Russia in this context then one needs to give a concrete alternative on how the ethnic cleansing in East Ukraine was to be stopped. Remember the West broke two Minsk agreements before the war broke out.

现在这个世界上所有帝国主义干涉都会说说自己在抵抗种族清洗，你的标准是什么

Did the ethnic cleansing happen? Is there a historical precedent of Lebensraum? Has that been effectively attempted to be continued with NATO? What slowed /stop the ethnic cleansing from happening? Does Russia like the US and Europe here have an extensive history of colour revolutions and regime change? If not, why flatten their claims?

Authorship of those making the claims, whether the claims are happening and historical precedent can hell guage what’s happening. It makes the abstract more concrete.

(Furthermore, as marxists when considering nations we should consider nations of peoples rather than just the bourgoisie border that encloses them. The US, for example, has nations of peoples within their borders.)

“谁主张谁举证”，你不如先回答我这个世界上有多少资本主义国家，是以“阻止种族清洗”为根本目的才主动或参加对外发动战争的。

Don’t move the goalpost. Furthermore, it is your own claim that is being tested.

Even with pesumption of something has never been done before does not mean it can’t; such a presumption is metaphysical, ahistorical and anti-scientific, and certainly not dialectical materialist.

There are various times in history the bourgoisie has collaborated with their domestic proleteriat in order to kick out an imperialist power to prevent ethnic cleansing of its proleteriat - pretty much the story of nearly every country that ended formal colonisation, especially those that did not have a socialist revolution following that ie remained capitalist. You already know this which is why you the qualifier “foreign”.

Just answer the question mate, if you can.

这种二极管式结论除了你在暗示我和他在支持种族灭绝、美帝国主义之外，我完全想不到任何理由。

我在最初与其他人的回复已经明确提到过了，他对帝国主义的判断是基于当前国家的金融资本、垄断资本比例，对待本国资本主义政府抵抗入侵应该是利用，而不是支持。就像是日本帝国入侵中国时，利用国民党，支持中国共产党一样。

Rather than presume you could instead answer the question. You could, for example, explain how a capitalist country could engage in warfare to prevent ethnic cleansing without it being considered imperialism.

You don’t get to shut down like that. You have made serious allegations so you have to back them up. If you back down at the first chance of breaking down your internal logic then it does not really look like your here to explore marxism here but make your impositions known to us. You can answer these questions, you may find your answers enlighten us.

If you don’t answer these questions then you will give the impression you are trolling here.

Is it not the more challenging questions that help us explore truly further? Is that not the Lacanist consideration?

Would that mean a country must first become socialist before it can engage in warfare in another country to prevent ethnic cleansing otherwise it has engaged in imperialism?

What does he think about the Odessa Massacre, the attempts at ethnic cleansing of Russian speakers and minorities in Ukraine and the glorification of Ukrainian Nazis? Would these factors constitute a defensive struggle against Russia? If this is considered a defensive struggle then would he apply the same logic to ETIM terrorists in west china?

It’s a tool to shorten research time with the result potentially having a margin of error. It means you need some sort of capable mechanism of error checking, which often means either being a specialist in thing you are developing/investigating or having some kind of external reference that act as that for you.

Consider India vs China; if China is capitalist then it is the greatest economic model to exist. If they are both considered capitalist then there is no explanation of India’s poverty that does not end up leading to “Indians are genetically inferior”, and since the latter is clearly wrong then it maybe worthwhile reading:

Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism (2017), 60 min - https://redsails.org/losurdo-on-china/

I would also strongly recommend Why the World Needs China by Kyle Ferrano, and the rest of Losurdo’s works starting with:

• Flight from History
• Class Struggle
• Liberalism.

Best of luck

I can’t believe I completely forgot this in addition to my previous comment - the awesome Dr Taimur Rahman and his excellent lectures:

https://www.youtube.com/@TaimurRahman-English/playlists

You may find the Marxism and Political Islam playlists particularly useful.

Roland Boer - Criticism of Earth: On Marx, Engels and Theology

archive(.)org has a pdf copy (use a search engine), or use Annas Archive.

(I had a way more detailed answer but then deleted it. I think it’s better coming from a religious communist rather than coming from an athiest, albeit ex-religious, perspective. If you want to make your analysis razor sharp then I would answer: to what end? The conditions to be part of a western-tainted in-club vs the self-learning to better yourself as a social scientist in order to develop a vanguard to emancipate your peoples will take different journeys.)

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9961907/7400808

Dialectical materialism: our ideas are our social material conditions reflected imperfectly in our brain

Religious folks implementing the above: god set the above matter in motion

A sensible communist would understand that religions themselves reflect the political economy (eg UAE salafist islam with their concentrations of captial and imperialist comprador class is significantly different to the Islam of Hamas and their revolutionary anti-imperialism despite both being Sunni. One could make a similar argument for say the Catholicism of cuba vs catholicism found in USA), and athiesm does not make you an anti-imperialist let alone having a scientific understanding of capital.

And to hit it really on its head: consider all these Western Marxists refusing to support those on the ground fighting imperialists; they are essentially liberals cosplaying with a sickle and a hammer.

Marxism is a science, and this includes the science of how capital works and how to build socialism from it (“from” in a dialectical materialist sense). If a person practising a religion can also be a scientist then the same coul be said for a social scientist.

Develop the vanguard that will help the peoples you want to emancipate scientifically, everyone else is just wasting your time.

(My background: I am an athiest but my ancestor’s homeland would not have ended formal western colonisation without revolutionary socialist muslims. Period.)

Thank you for the recommendation. I’ll check it out.

(The discussions about PSL on the other threads have been dissapointing. I think I may take some time off from Lemmygrad. Over the past couple of years I have been increasingly disillusioned with westerners and it is becoming more apparent we won’t learn as a class till material conditions forced by the Global South on us changes our perspectives. I hope I am really wrong about PSL going forward if that’s the best the US has to offer.)

Thank you! (Writing a mini essay on that other thread of yours on the PSL)

Yeah I am coming to realise I missed out here. Any particular videos you recommend?

(Added: no worries, Saymaz has posted a nice list)

Oh damn! Any particular recommendations?