Russiagate has impacted the thinking of leftists, and even many who call themselves communists, in more ways than they’d like to believe. Everyone with at least some awareness of the Democratic Party’s corruption and hypocrisy has recognized how deranged liberals have become about Russia during the last decade. So leftists have tried to distance themselves from Russiagate, with its embarassing conspiratorial thinking. Yet because the left is predominantly opportunistic, it hasn’t been willing to give up Russiagate’s core belief: that if somebody is serious about challenging U.S. imperialism, and thereby supports Russia’s actions to weaken Washington’s hegemony, then they’re a reactionary.
I'm currently catching up on two weeks worth of your articles so please forgive me if my comment is addressed in a more recent article. I wanted to comment on two things in particular.
When you talk about bourgeois interests in the war I think it's worth considering that a lot, if not most, of Russia's weapons manufacturing is state owned (i.e. Almaz-Antey, UAC, KTRV, and Rostec). Since even those who are critical of US imperialism claim that Russia is basically just as imperialist as the US, the dominant tendency is to act as if the two countries have a military industrial complex that are comparable at least in profit motives if not in actual profit dollars. But if one is largely state owned and the other is entirely private, any claim of equivalent profit motive doesn't seem to make much sense.
On a completely different note, you mention Putin's accommodation of the church's anti-gay politics. There are two points that I think need to be seriously interrogated when making claims of lack of LGBT rights in Russia. In Oliver Stone's interviews of Putin, Putin firmly stated that he has his own conservative religious views on LGBT issues but he also believes that LGBT people have the right to not be discriminated against. Therefore, he claimed that Russia does have laws on the books against LGBT discrimination. Now consider that before 2010 both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stated publicly that they did not believe in the validity of homosexual marriage but were also against LGBT discrimination. Therefore, without having much knowledge on the actual legal rights, I could see it being possible that Russian laws regarding LGBT rights could be much closer to the US's trajectory of progress on that issue than we'd like to admit.
Separately, the most famous evidence given for claims that Putin/Russia is anti LGBT is the anti LGBT propaganda law that was passed several years ago preventing LGBT propaganda targeted at children. According to Donald Courter of The Revolution Report, a Marxist-Leninist journalist based in Russia, the anti LGBT propaganda law was in fact a legislative project that came from the Russian communist party. So in that most famous case, Putin was not accommodating the church's LGBT politics, but rather the communist party's.
In summation regarding the LGBT question, I think we as principled Marxist-Leninists need to actually educate ourselves on the actual LGBT conditions in Russia, or anywhere for that matter, before engaging in sweeping generalizations that come from, and perpetuate pink-washed imperialist propaganda.
You’ve made me aware of inconsistencies in the narratives of the imperialism-compatible leftists that I hadn’t known about! You know what this means? It means the people I ridicule here are even bigger liars than I had thought. You’ve inspired me to write something repudiating these ideas, and retroactively undoing the effects of what I wrote in this one.
Very insightful write-up, comrade. Keep writing ✊🏾️
I'm currently catching up on two weeks worth of your articles so please forgive me if my comment is addressed in a more recent article. I wanted to comment on two things in particular.
When you talk about bourgeois interests in the war I think it's worth considering that a lot, if not most, of Russia's weapons manufacturing is state owned (i.e. Almaz-Antey, UAC, KTRV, and Rostec). Since even those who are critical of US imperialism claim that Russia is basically just as imperialist as the US, the dominant tendency is to act as if the two countries have a military industrial complex that are comparable at least in profit motives if not in actual profit dollars. But if one is largely state owned and the other is entirely private, any claim of equivalent profit motive doesn't seem to make much sense.
On a completely different note, you mention Putin's accommodation of the church's anti-gay politics. There are two points that I think need to be seriously interrogated when making claims of lack of LGBT rights in Russia. In Oliver Stone's interviews of Putin, Putin firmly stated that he has his own conservative religious views on LGBT issues but he also believes that LGBT people have the right to not be discriminated against. Therefore, he claimed that Russia does have laws on the books against LGBT discrimination. Now consider that before 2010 both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stated publicly that they did not believe in the validity of homosexual marriage but were also against LGBT discrimination. Therefore, without having much knowledge on the actual legal rights, I could see it being possible that Russian laws regarding LGBT rights could be much closer to the US's trajectory of progress on that issue than we'd like to admit.
Separately, the most famous evidence given for claims that Putin/Russia is anti LGBT is the anti LGBT propaganda law that was passed several years ago preventing LGBT propaganda targeted at children. According to Donald Courter of The Revolution Report, a Marxist-Leninist journalist based in Russia, the anti LGBT propaganda law was in fact a legislative project that came from the Russian communist party. So in that most famous case, Putin was not accommodating the church's LGBT politics, but rather the communist party's.
In summation regarding the LGBT question, I think we as principled Marxist-Leninists need to actually educate ourselves on the actual LGBT conditions in Russia, or anywhere for that matter, before engaging in sweeping generalizations that come from, and perpetuate pink-washed imperialist propaganda.
You’ve made me aware of inconsistencies in the narratives of the imperialism-compatible leftists that I hadn’t known about! You know what this means? It means the people I ridicule here are even bigger liars than I had thought. You’ve inspired me to write something repudiating these ideas, and retroactively undoing the effects of what I wrote in this one.