Putin is a Conservative leader like there are many, we (currently) veeeeery critically support his leadership because
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Zelensky is a nazi, and even if he isn’t his government and military is choke full of them.
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He is a counterweight to US hegemony, you know, the whole trade war against NATO and the west
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The whole Ukraine war thing, rainer shea did many articles about it
So we support him in his anti imperialism and fight against NATO, but we critique him in his being
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A capitalist (obviously, only children and republicans think he’s a commie, and I don’t know who’s less educated )
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A Conservative, he has problematic ideas on the LGBTQ community as well as other aspects.
In the end this is why dialectical materialism and the Marxist approach is of fundamental importance to understand current events, without it we may think this war is just a classic “both sides bad” affair.
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Honestly, Putin is a conservative dick; screw him. The only reasons that I don’t say that more often are A. we all already know that, B. we can easily read and hear that anywhere else, and C. I think that it would only end up drawing attention away from the Western ruling classes that provoked this conflict in the first place. It would be more‐or‐less analogous to repeatedly criticizing Haile Selassie during the reinvasion and occupation of Ethiopia: it wouldn’t exactly be wrong, but it would miss the point.
This. Let the Russian communists reckon with Putin and other conservatives like him when the time comes to sweep away Russia’s bourgeois regime. For now the priority of communists in the imperial core is to throw as many wrenches in the gears of the imperial hegemony and its war machine as possible. It is in the interest of the communist cause for Russia to prevail over NATO and its Nazi puppets in Ukraine. Us non-Russians criticizing Putin achieves absolutely nothing, it is not going to make Russia restore the Soviet Union and return to socialism any faster. It is empty virtue signaling, the lowest hanging fruit of all time, an insignificant drop in the bucket of demonization and hatred that the imperialists and the libs already hurl at him, not because they are against his reactionary social views but because they despise the anti-imperialist position that he has been forced by geopolitical circumstance (remember that Putin tried very hard to be integrated into the liberal western system and even NATO) into adopting. They recognize the existential threat that a Russia whose leaders are not Washington puppets and that protects its own interests poses to the imperial hegemony. That is why they have such a hate boner for Putin - almost as much as they do for Xi Jinping - despite Putin being otherwise a run of the mill economic liberal with reactionary positions on gender and sexuality not too different than your average right winger in the West (just way less racist).
We need to learn to pick our battles and identify primary and secondary contradictions. It is absolutely not a priority at the moment to pile on to the already ubiquitous anti-Putin rhetoric. If he were to be ousted tomorrow he would not be replaced by a communist, nor, as the imperialists hope, by a complacent liberal puppet. Rather another more hardline conservative would follow who would be no less socially reactionary and even more hostile toward the West and its “values”. For us this would just be a pointless destabilization of Russia at a time when it is engaged in an anti-fascist, anti-imperialist struggle.
When we start doing agitprop against a political figure it needs to serve a purpose, it needs to advance the revolutionary cause in some way or another, otherwise we are at best wasting our time. The correct people to be putting out polemics against Putin are the Russian communists who, imo, would be best advised to attack his liberalism and his economic policies, demanding better conditions for workers and that Russia adopt more economic planning and a more heavily nationalized economy, especially in light of the ongoing military conflict and the economic sanctions.
nope…he means the gays basically.
There’s a big chunk of the world that thinks LGBTQ+ is an “ideology” being spread from the west to the other parts of the world leading to “degradation” and “degeneration.” Follow any pro russia social media and you’ll see it.
Wtf
Was this from one of his recent speeches? If so I think he was talking about “trans ideology” when he said this….
Like Iran which we critically support against the west in any entanglements, Putin and Russia’s ruling class are quite reactionary and backwards.
Taken from Slava Z telegram page:
🇷🇺⚡Putin : family is the union of a man and a woman. So say the sacred books of all world religions. But the West is also trying to revise these sacred texts.
Oh great, now they are competing in superstitions too.
Orthodox Christianity is in many ways far more conservative and in much more insidious ways than other forms of christianity. Especially when it comes to Russian and Greek Orthodox conservatives, dogmatic religious fervour and nationalism are usually one and the same, to the point where the conflation between national/cultural identity and religious identity are one and the same. High-ranking priests can very often influence elections and public opinion, and they are usually the most fanatical anti-LGBTQ+ crazies you can find. Alex Jones pales in comparison to the batshit conspiracy theories regarding “the gays” these people openly peddle every chance they get. And a large part of the population listens to them.
After the fall of the USSR, the people who assumed power in these countries are (or need to pretend to be) all about God, Country, Family in the same way that European fascist/conservative dictatorships of the 30s used to be. Ukrainians and Russians aren’t alone on this. Literally every non-left eastern European politician (from Russia all the way to Cyprus) will say similar things to what Putin has said. The Ukrainian politicians are the same. They just pretend otherwise right now, to keep the West supporting them.
The thing is, unfortunately for our morals, Putin is integral at destabilizing the US hegemony, and the global capitalist machine it supports. That doesn’t make Putin a good guy. We critically support Putin and Russia, because stopping US imperialism has more priority than restoring human rights to the LGBTQ+ Russians (as in the US empire needs to be weakened, so we can maybe survive as a species). It’s also important to remember that the only real way this liberation can happen, is through the Russian people themselves and not through the rest of us.
I know.
I mean i’m a Pole, we have exact same thing in catholicism, so we have worst sides of both religions. Also probably deepest bootlicking of USA in the world. Oh joy.
Western decadence, which to him is what rightists criticize America for. Welfare, trans rights, critical race theory, etc. Mostly vague culture war stuff used to push nationalism and rejection of an “other”
IDK about them having any objection to welfare, that been one of the main things they’ve focused on especially in this latest speech
Hell the biggest pro-RU hawks I know were complaining he only talked about welfare in this speech
That too, although unfortunately there is also a second meaning.
even though he is a counterweight to American imperialism, we cannot forget that he is a right-wing conservative, who has been using the LGBT population as a campaign target which creates a tragedy so cannot have uncritical support for it. In the words of Alexandre Vasilenskas, on the phenomenon of Russian conservatism towards the LGBT+ population: “How much Putin can re-establish a sovereign project without putting capitalism in check is something to be observed. And it is “the issue” for Russian communists. Even those allocated in the limited PCFR. In relation to the LGBT population, a tragic crossroads was created, fortunately very different from ours: for the majority of the people, the civil rights of this population are identified with the tragedy of the 90s. It stands as a warning to the dangers of the “Ford foundation left”.”
…who the hell is “degrading” and “degenerating” their children???
He’s using deliberately vague words to garner support from various political groups. Christians, ultranationalists, MLs, liberals, etc. would all have different interpretations of these words and that’s his goal: to present some sort of “united front” against the West, which all the Russian social classes largely have some interest in.
Or vegetarians?
(This is a Zizek joke.)
well…the ratio of hardcore fetishism (pedophilia and unnecessary edgyness) between nazis/fascist vs communists leans mostly to the nazi side
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His defense of Ukraine “denazification” is not genuine, Putin is far-right conservative that we shouldnt mistake as an ally for a second.
We may momentarely be alligned when it comes to US imperialism with him but thats it
Putin may not be genuine in wanting to denazify Ukraine but the Russian people definitely are. At the end of the day he is a politician and if he wants to keep his popularity he needs to deliver on the promise. Russians are very serious about not tolerating a militarized Nazi regime on their border that is killing Russians. There is a deep and genuine historical disgust with Nazism in Russia for obvious reasons.
Obviously he is not an “ally”, he is an anti-communist, he pretty much openly says it. He despises Lenin.
Yet he is doing something that is useful for our cause, which is defeating the US empire in a proxy war and ushering in multipolarity. But, unlike for him, for us that multipolarity is not the end goal, it’s just a stepping stone on the path to a new wave of revolutions and the renewed spread of socialism. That however requires the weakening of the “West” and the breaking of the imperialist stranglehold on the global south.
Yeah this is what I’m talking about. I do feel that many people on our side have ilusions with him when they shouldnt
I don’t get that impression. The only ones who have illusions about Putin are the liberals who think he’s the second coming of Stalin. Everyone else i’ve seen seems to be aware of exactly what he is, both on the anti-imperialist left and on the pro-Russia conservative right.
