“The guy who thinks Marx was wrong” idk who you’re talking about

lol

Theories of imperialism after Marx like Lenin

Why did Lenin consider Russia to be imperialist? It didn't export capital and himself described it as "a country most backward economically, where modern capitalist imperialism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a particularly close network of pre-capitalist relations." Was Lenin not following his own definition?

I’d sum up how I feel about this a bit by saying that the best outcome now in the short term would be a negotiated peace

And that I'd agree with

create opportunities for the global south to develop free from their domination.

Liberating the global south from the oppression of foreign-aligned national bourgeoisie by replacing it with the oppression of regular national bourgeoisie, classic

I like how this whole discussion began when I said people shouldn't be disregarding class analysis in favor of thinking solely in terms of national struggle, and the response has been people that think of countries as homogenous entities telling me about which nation to vouch for :galaxy-brain:

Edit:

Imperialism is an inevitability of capitalism, but it’s not an inevitability in every capitalist country

Huh?

I do agree with him, Lenin’s description of imperialism does not fit Russia.

Did it fit Tsarist Russia?

Finance capitalism also developed out of industrial capitalism. Socialism "develops" out of the self-emancipation and self-abolition of the proletarian class. I'm sorry for reading Marx instead of the guy who thinks Marx was wrong lol, I forgor imperialism was a bad thing only evil people do instead of an economic inevitability of capitalism

I'm sure that them not criticizing the one semi-great power not opposed to their existence is because of the extremely socialist character of the war and not because they'd want to avoid biting the hand that feeds them lol

Russia isn’t imperialist, technically or otherwise.

Then I don't care what un-Marxist definition of imperialism you use if you don't agree with Lenin

national interest

And I like how you immediately ceased your "Akcshually Russia is technically not imperialist 🤓" claptrap after seeing that last paragraph lol, concession accepted

any capitalist war is an imperialist war

No

Renegade

Literally Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin lol

We must support Germany in its anti-imperialist struggle against British world hegemon - Lenin

Yeah, that’s the point. Russia is forced into the position, again, of opposing an evil empire for its own survival, not out of any high minded ideals but by simple historical fact.

Yes

That doesn’t change that a loss for them and a win for the empire would be a huge blow to other countries outside of the imperial core, attempting to pursue alternative models of development outside of US dominated global capitalism.

There are no words for me to describe how uninterested I am in exploring alternative models of capitalism lmao

Financial capitalism as opposed to industrial capitalism, one of which can basically only exist by continued expansion of imperialism and the other which at least has potential to develop into socialism

What the actual fuck is this clown shit lmao, I hope to Christ you worded it wrong

There’s a reason none of the AES states take your position on this

Because it's in their national interest not to lol

Russia is capitalist too so it’s just as bad

:gigachad:

They’re actively opposing the largest imperial force in the world and losing would be a massive negative outcome, the end goal for the imperialists is not just the massive exploitation of Ukraine by privatization and subjugation at hands of the IMF etc but also of Russia itself. If Russia falls they’ll be forced once again to live the shock doctrine of the 90s, and China will end up completely encircled. A strategic loss for the west on the other hand means the emergence of an alternative to the global economic system where US dollars rule the world, which will immensely benefit the entire global south.

There is no outcome of the war that threatens the US or NATO or Russia for that matter, unless you somehow think Ukraine is gonna march all the way to Moscow lmao. The biggest damage done to NATO countries during the course of this war has been at the hands of NATO themselves

You haven’t made any decent case for Russia doing imperialism (which they don’t really, not as Marxists understand the concept),

I love using the most myopic definition of imperialism possible lmao. Tsarist Russia had not exported one iota of capital and was leagues behind other imperialist countries, yet Lenin recognized it as an imperialist power, why do you think that is? What would you call Russia exerting control over its former sphere of influence trying to ensure markets for its energy exports? And that's ignoring Russia's presence in Central Asia

Any capitalist war is an imperialist war, Russia trying to assert its control back onto its former backyard is imperialism, how is this controversial lmao. Do you consider the Tsarist Empire to be imperialist or do they pale in comparison to the British unipolar world order?

the conflict needs to be seen in its historical context to be able to recognize whether one faction or another is a historically progressive force, as opposed to a reactionary force.

Kautsky

In the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy for example,

What the actual fuck lmao. The North was a progressive force because they would have abolished slavery, the current conflict is between two indistinguishable models of capitalism. There is exactly no progressive outcome for this war.

le multipolarity

The biggest meme I fell for. A multipolar world order of cooperating countries would be the nightmare scenario for socialism, the point is to seize the opportunity to gain ground while the bourgeoisie is disunited, and that moment is right now. And that's beside the point that there is no outcome of the war that threatens the US world order, at most you can view the conflict even happening as a symptom of a slipping hegemon.

multipolar world order which [...] is far preferable for the global south

No shit that the local bourgeoisie would prefer more wiggle room than submitting to US imperialism all the time. There's a reason Russia is beating the multipolarity drum so eagerly, they've been excluded by the US from the unipolar world order so the only option is to directly carve breathing room for Russia.

and more conducive to building socialism

I want you to answer to me, in detail, where you are building socialism right now, and what you think "building" socialism entails

Russia [...] opposing imperialism

Surreal

Russia being defeated by NATO would be an absolutely disastrous setback for the workers of the world tbh.

The conflict has exactly zero impact on the workers of the world, you can view it as a symptom of the declining US world order but it most certainly is not a cause of it

https://libcom.org/forums/history/bordiga-leninist-who-put-his-hopes-axis-27122017

24 feb was for me what you call a great day. But now that Putin has grown soft, I begin to lose the trust I had placed in him to strangle and pull down the so-called US colossus, that is, the greatest exponent of capitalism. They are afraid of bringing down America, they are afraid because they know that with it, the whole capitalist system will collapse. I still hope that Putin will not renounce the struggle, and will go all the way, to the extreme consequences.

The great and authentic revolutionaries of the world are two: Putin and Lukashenko. But Putins shows that he has always been against the plutocracy and against the democracies, which paralyze the life of nations.

Xi Jingping, allying himself with Kyiv and Washington, has betrayed the cause of the proletariat. Moreover, I can say that on this I agree with Putin, when he says, as he did in his speech from this February, that if there is a man who desperately wanted the war, who first prepared it and then instigated it, it is the American president. From my point of view, however, I clarify that Biden is nothing but the exponent of supercapitalism that aims at the conquest of a totalitarian imperialism.

If Putin can make yield the odious powers of EU and America, while making thus precarious the capitalist world balance, long live the butcher Putin who works in spite of himself to create the conditions of the proletarian world revolution :bordiga-despair:

I have said nothing about who is or isn't responsible, if anything I literally just said this whole thing is the fault of US foreign policy blunders, and I completely agree with the first part of your comment. I have no idea who you think you are arguing with or why, none of what you said has to do with my point lol.

If anything, a strategic defeat of the US could further US imperialisms decline and help working people of the world, because the principle opposition to working-class movements throughout the world is the US, not Russia.

Russia is not the one running around the globe putting down workers uprising because they are not in a position to do so on account of US capital already having conquered the globe. If they were in a similar position, what exactly do you think they would do? Once again, Russia's opposition to the US is just them acting in their national self-interest. Frankly, CSTO is already plenty competent at putting down workers uprising as we've seen in Kazakhstan.

You see what I mean about framing it in national terms and completely ignoring class? Russia, NATO and the US are not coherent, homogenous entities. US and NATO might be at the helm of the world bourgeoisie at the moment, but Russia is also very well acting in the interest of its own bourgeoisie. Neither of their proles have absolutely anything to gain from any outcome of this war, and neither does Ukraine's when frankly the only difference would be which sphere of influence the kleptocrats running the country would be in. The war also, if anything, rejuvenated faith in NATO by giving them a boogeyman, so any point about it "declining" US imperialism is already moot.

The thing to do when the bourgeoisie are fighting amongst themselves is, and always has been, to attempt to turn it into civil war. People in NATO countries should of course rally against their own, but Russian proles rallying en masse against their own government would also be a good outcome. Seeing every conflict as Team A vs Team B and trying to see which outcome would be marginally better is stupid, the truth is the only conflict that exists is class conflict.

Any capitalist war is an imperialist war and the proles have nothing to gain from it

unipolar US hegemony

Ergo, the people who want their own slice of the imperialist pie would have to go through them. I certainly hope you don't think Russia's opposition to NATO is from the goodness of their own heart lol, if anything the only reason they are now opposed to the US is because they'd been denied a seat at the big boys table despite every US foreign policy expert saying this would be a horrible fucking idea

Damn I thought this was the guy who straight up decapitated his landlord

Class War

The problem is people forget seem to forget the class part and focus entirely on national conflict, and even in undoubtedly inter-imperialist conflicts like the Nato vs Russia proxy war over Ukraine socialists of all stripes fall into the death trap of trying to pick between whichever bourgeoisie they prefer.

I used to be confused how the best and most popular Marxists of their day like Plekhanov and Kautsky could ever support WW1 but now that doesn't seem so crazy.

Kid named The Last Man :walter-shock:

You are not a real leftist unless you have a Manichean worldview and treat politics like team sports

I have a friend who is obsessed with his channel and sent me that shit when I said the monarchy should be abolished :deeper-sadness:

I got banned for having Cum in my name

Very interesting, thank you!

I had been aware of that tiny bit of Alexander in that mosaic there but had never seen the full thing, very stunning. Interesting how the depiction looks a bit different than the Apollonian figure we typically see him portrayed as. The portraits in that thread genuinely look incredible, the Roman art I was familiar with was typically very flat and rigid and pretty boring, so seeing something as realistic and beautiful as something that would come out of Renaissance Florence is a bit of a shock.

I wish we brought mosaics back as an art-form, they're pretty popular in Orthodox churches where I'm at but I feel like they have a lot more potential than just a boring portrayal of Saint Whoeverthefuck in a basic static pose. The socialist era mosaics that we have left over are a million times more stunning and animated with like a million colors, they looks really cool.

Fuck man art is so awesome, I wish I had the time to just sit down and study it all day :NOOOOO: