Image from the League of Filipino Students To tell what a person or organization truly believes, don’t look at what they say they believe. Look at what things they show, through their practice, that they prioritize and de-prioritize. This is what we must investigate in order to see who shares the most important goal of communists at the moment. This goal being to break the Democratic Party’s influence over the communist movement, and over the wider liberation struggles.
Say what you will about Caleb Maupin, but a thing that he highlighted more than others when analyzing Russia's SMO is the anti-imperialist elements of Putin's political history since becoming Russia's leader. Namely his nationalization of oil, putting limits on profits of the established oligarchy, and massive investment in infrastructure. This lead me to do some further reading about Putin and the conclusion I came to is that the image of him as an oligarchic authoritarian dictator is entirely fictional. This is the image not only depicted by the conservatives and liberals, but also by most so called leftists. I'm largely coming to this conclusion because I'm Mexican-American and my Mexican family loves AMLO. I'm a communist. I know that AMLO is not a communist. But I don't see any reason not be super enthusiastic about how he's turning Mexico around and undoing so much of the harm done by neoliberal pro-American monsters who have led the country for decades (I had family who fled Juarez when the murder rate was rising to double digits PER DAY. My understang is that this was similar to the conditions of Russia in the 90s). Now back to Putin. When I study his political program since becoming president of Russia it seems almost identical to AMLO's program. Also, the mainstream media is finding every opportunity to make baseless claims that AMLO is an anti-democratic dictator. So all that is to say that for me, the answer to the question "why should communists support Russia?" is that they should have been supporting it for the past 20 years. Putin is and has been an anti-imperialist hero regardless of not being a communist. I look at all the improvements made in Russia over the last 20 years and it gives me hope that the people of Mexico have something similar to look forward to. As a sidenote, as someone who's bisexual, I also think there's a crucial conversation to be had about LGBT rights in Russia which I think are entirely mischaracterized in a way that promotes the imperialist agenda.
Say what you will about Caleb Maupin, but a thing that he highlighted more than others when analyzing Russia's SMO is the anti-imperialist elements of Putin's political history since becoming Russia's leader. Namely his nationalization of oil, putting limits on profits of the established oligarchy, and massive investment in infrastructure. This lead me to do some further reading about Putin and the conclusion I came to is that the image of him as an oligarchic authoritarian dictator is entirely fictional. This is the image not only depicted by the conservatives and liberals, but also by most so called leftists. I'm largely coming to this conclusion because I'm Mexican-American and my Mexican family loves AMLO. I'm a communist. I know that AMLO is not a communist. But I don't see any reason not be super enthusiastic about how he's turning Mexico around and undoing so much of the harm done by neoliberal pro-American monsters who have led the country for decades (I had family who fled Juarez when the murder rate was rising to double digits PER DAY. My understang is that this was similar to the conditions of Russia in the 90s). Now back to Putin. When I study his political program since becoming president of Russia it seems almost identical to AMLO's program. Also, the mainstream media is finding every opportunity to make baseless claims that AMLO is an anti-democratic dictator. So all that is to say that for me, the answer to the question "why should communists support Russia?" is that they should have been supporting it for the past 20 years. Putin is and has been an anti-imperialist hero regardless of not being a communist. I look at all the improvements made in Russia over the last 20 years and it gives me hope that the people of Mexico have something similar to look forward to. As a sidenote, as someone who's bisexual, I also think there's a crucial conversation to be had about LGBT rights in Russia which I think are entirely mischaracterized in a way that promotes the imperialist agenda.
Thank you, as always, for being so clear and accurate and daring to say it. Please never stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqe3IQQo_t4 Michael Hudson Must Watch, and read the books, I have. There is a historical alternative to western civ nastiness.