Adding this to my Parenti collection! Goes hard.

The point is that analysis of authority without analysis of class is meaningless. The USSR was brutal and totalitarian to the capitalist class, the landlords, the Tsarists, and the fascists. The working classes, via control of the state, made no excuses for the terror they inflicted on their domestic ruling classes, and this terrified global porkie. The KGB, police, millitary, Warsaw Pact, and other use of working class authority was the real manifestation of the dedication of the working classes to preserving the incredible gains they made against domestic infiltration and international aggression and encirclement.

Marxists have learned from the collapse of the Paris Commune that we can’t just take the state, we have to smash it and replace it with a proletarian one dedicated to preserving socialism. Dr. Michael Parenti on socialists defending against imperialists and sabateurs. Applies perfectly to Venezuela today.

Lukashenko and the editor of RT said it, not the Russian government nor millitary.

There’s absolutely no reason why this short, simplistic agitprop needs to be made in artisinal fashion from a Marxist perspective. Labor hours saved is valuable, and nobody is enjoying this agitprop from the perspective of artistic analysis. AI cannot replace art, but the insistence that every graphic regardless of use-case be made in artisinal fashion is reactionary.

Comrade cfgaussian already answered perfectly here. Essentially, you mix in defensive wars with allyships with other countries, and claim the defensive wars are for imperialism and the allyships “puppetry.” The Sahel States are progressive, and are allied with Russia in their national liberation from France and western imperialism.

I am a Marxist-Leninist, yes. Imperialism needs to be analyzed primarily by the definition of imperialism Lenin gives, not on whether or not a country interacts with others. In most of these examples, such as the Sahel States, Russia is working against imperialism.

Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism by which finance capital and world monopoly are dominant. Russia does not have this. Russia is currently under the control of nationalists, not finance capital, and it is the west that has that global financial monopoly.

Your error is in both erasing Lenin’s analysis of imperialism and viewing any kind of interaction Russia has as inherently imperialist working backwards from there.

Marxism-Leninism has been used by billions of people around the world for the purpose of liberating the working classes. I think you should do more research before saying such things.

You’re on a site where the majority of users are Marxists right now, we’re pretty big fans of the soviet union. It wasn’t some utopia, but it was incredibly progressive for its time. Life expectancy doubled, literacy rates tripled, healthcare and education were free and high quality, housing was free or low cost, wages increased and working hours lowered, and society was democratized. Anti-capitalism isn’t restricted to Marxism-Leninism nor to the USSR specifically, but over here we uphold actually existing socialism.

Consider giving Blackshirts and Reds and This Soviet World a read, or check out the intro ML reading list I made.

There’s no evidence that the collapse in Ukrainian defenses will slow down, rather it seems like it will accelerate as strongholds fall and the war becomes increasingly unpopular. Russia isn’t trying to take all of Ukraine, just the four oblasts, the Economist is trying to frame it as total and complete conquest of Ukraine. When compared to Russia’s actual objectives, Russia is advancing steadily.

Further, Russia does not “throw meat” at the war. Russians are largely supportive of Putin right now because he’s doing a balancing act between appeasing the Russian capitalist class and the rising socialist movements in the public. Russia’s economy is holding strong, the sheer fact that sanctions are still coming out means they haven’t been effective thus far. I belong to the Marxist school of economics, which recognizes actual production over the largely financial western economies.

Your final accusation that I’m a bot for not agreeing with you is just the cherry on top. You give clear examples of liberals manipulating data like the economist graph and using percentages of total Ukrainian territory and not the Donbass region, because when we measure Russia by its ability to achieve its actual goals its clear that its rapidly advancing towards them. You’re quite literally uncritically spouting liberal, western propaganda that falls apart at the slightest prodding.

It’s definitely going to last longer than any of us want or hope for. The problem is that morality doesn’t make any difference on the unfolding of historical progression and as such true justice is unfortunately rare.

Yep, it’s deeply tragic.

Proper party building, democratic centralism, and a strong adherence to theory and a connection to the working classes.

Ableism too, amazing. Mask-off.

Incredible homophobia from you. Counteract my points with your own, not mask-off homophobia. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.

More evidence of the DotP in place, as this isn’t an isolated incident.

Liberalism and fascism are rooted in the same base characteristics, after all.

Russia has been gradually taking more and more land and strategic footholds. This war is incredibly brutal, and the massive rise in FPV drones that are cheap and deadly forces slow movements, almost like a return to World War I style trench warfare. The Russian economy is still holding on strong, Europe is importing tons of gas indirectly from Russia through alternate channels, and Russia has spent the last decade trying to rely less on unreliable western trade partners. Further, there’s no real evidence of Russia putting Trump in the White House, nor would Ukraine suddenly be winning had Harris been in office.

Russia doesn’t have a stake in the world imperialist system, France does and has for centuries. If France were to lose in a war against the global south, there would be a huge blow to their continued domination and subjugation of African countries. The fact that Russia has a rising communist movement is just a bonus tacked onto the end, it isn’t an indication of the country being imperialist or not. In fact, the nationalists in charge of Russia are caught between needing to appease the public yearning more and more for socialism and their own interests in perpetuating their capitalist system.

Does that make sense?

If Russia was actually imperialist and the Russo-Ukrainian war an inter-imperialist conflict, then I’d agree with you, but Russia isn’t imperialist (and certainly not the USSR). In the current era, the US Empire is the hegemon, and its vassals the beneficiaries of imperialism. Russia is governed by nationalists who do not have a stake in the global imperialist system, and as such are forced into south-south trade and south-south alliances. Further, there is a rising communist movement within Russia that is growing year over year that stands to return Russia to socialism.

Ukraine is used somewhat similarly as how Israel is used by the US Empire; as millitary bases. The far-right Banderites in Kiev have power currently, and are doing their job of de-communization. The Donbass region seceded, and the ensuing war between Donetsk/Luhansk and Kiev is what is sparking Russian intervention. Russia is not doing this in pursuit of new neocolonies to exploit, nor does it have any. Russia lacks the financial capital as well as a spot in the global financial monopoly by which imperialism functions that the west has.

A NATO victory over Russia would result in ethnic cleansing in the Donbass region, serious destabilization in a significant anti-US force, and a strong ally for socialist countries and anyone trying to break away from the IMF.

Yep, Marxist-Leninists have been advancing our theory beyond Lenin. What Lenin laid out is still foundational for analyzing the imperialism of today, but we are no longer in the age of competing empires, but a dying mega-empire and the rise of the global south.

The failure of MAS to consolidate, and instead to destroy itself over splitting, will end up disastrous for the Bolivian people. Every socialist party must view them as an example of how not to handle succession.