I have the displeasure of living in SSpain :spain-cool:, and in Europe we’re submerged in Russophobic propaganda that even permeates the language, so much so that in Spain the idiom for drinking a lot of alcohol is “beber como un Cosaco” (to drink like a Kossack). A lot of this stems from anticommunism, from the Jewish-Bolshevism conspiracy of fascist propaganda, from cold-war era bullshit, and now from western imperialism against Russia. This Russophobia and hatred of everything Russian is a powerful weapon of propaganda of western imperialism, and it should be denied and fought against without a doubt.
At the same time, the historical roots of Russian nationalism are those of a repressive form of nationalism (Russian Empire). Lenin himself called the Russian Empire the prison of peoples, meaning the oppressed nations under the Russian centralist yoke, and Russian being the majority ethnicity in Russia leads to modern capitalist Russia to engage in Russocentric policies that harm minority ethnicities in the country. Within Russia, Russian nationalism is definitely used by right wing nationalists and by the state as a cudgel against progressiveness, ethnic and cultural minorities, and is linked to the traditional “family” to socially oppress LGBTQ and women.
The Russophobia of the west funnily enough empowers this, because Russians see their culture and their history denigrated mostly through racism and propagandistic and revisionism, and this only gives arguments to the Russian nationalists. Additionally, the contributions of all other ethnicities of the former USSR are erased by both sides, such as the millions of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tatars, Maris, Tajiks and a myriad of other ethnicities who fought and won against the Nazi monster and furthered the creation of a fairer and more moral society. All of those get lumped under the label “Russian” when anticommunism rears its head.
So the question is: how do we simultaneously criticise the pervasive Russophobia in the west without defaulting to Russian Nationalism? What form should our arguments and propaganda take, and how do we go about this?
This goes nowhere while the Ukraine war is occurring. A better question to ask is what happens after the Ukraine war and where that will take the consciousness and beliefs of the average person. The position to take today should be in preparation of where things go next.
Where do things go next? Post-war Ukrainian fascism will unleash a terror campaign in Europe, meanwhile most states in the world will rapidly try to get friendly with Russia again to benefit themselves. Tourism will open up and within a few years millions of people will be visiting Russia from nato countries for recreation again.
The terrorism in Europe will reinforce everything that was said about Ukraine during the war and the lightening of relations along with tourism will rapidly improve attitudes.
China went from “They’re doing a genocide” to being more popular in the world than the US in just a few years.
Say now what people will eventually be prepared to accept later.
Several years down the line, libs will be doing the “who could have possibly predicted that a fascist Azov regime would seize power in Ukraine?” bit and we’ll be saying “Us, we did, we were saying it for years and you called us brainwashed by KGB propaganda for it.”
Are you perhaps asking what the right stance is on Russia? Because I struggle with that as I’m being pulled in multiple directions.
From what I’ve seen, leftist analysis of Russia and the war in Ukraine tends to coelesce around two frameworks:
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the “WW1 model” of inter-imperialist conflict, where capitalist Russia is a temporarily embarrassed imperialist power and is as much an ally as “small business owners”; the CPRF is usually viewed as nazbols in this framework; emphasis is placed on far-right and anticommunist elements in the government, with the rehabilitation of the USSR and Stalin seen cynically as nostalgia and “Great-Russian chauvinism”.
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the “primary contradiction model” where Russia is (for the time being) viewed as an ally of convenience in the fight to break US-EU hegemony, the “capitalists who will sell us the rope”. The Russian state being anticommunist and conservative is viewed the same way as Iran being anticommunist and conservative: a secondary contraction that can’t be properly addressed while the West co-opts public grievances. They also point to China, Cuba and the DPRK viewing Russia as a major ally.
Adherents of the first framework tend to loathe adherents of the latter much more than the other way round, viewing them as naive at best or as patsocs at worst. Calling on Russia to “crush the Banderites” is compared to asking WW2 Japan to “decolonise” Asia. In turn, some critical supporters view it as the USSR joining the Allies, with the US as Nazi Germany.
Good explanation of the two tendencies. Funny how “Great-Russian chauvinism” is represented by Stalin, a Georgian man who rose to fame within the Bolsheviks with his theoretical contributions to the national question.
I do believe that the correct position in the west right now is revolutionary defeatism, and that implies critical support of Russia. It’s just hard to maintain a high morale inwards and keep public support outwards when upholding such a controversial position.
One of the most useful moral and rhetorical tools I’ve found is actually looking at the people of Ukraine and the reasons for their suffering. The population of Ukraine plummeted already after 1991, and the standards of living have been terrible ever since. High mortality, shitty healthcare, terrible economics and job prospects, deindustrialization, crumbling infrastructure, erosion of social safety nets… Discussing these failures since 1991 with leftists shows them how a great deal of their anti-Russian position doesn’t come from the objective damage done to Ukrainian people but from western propaganda. The west’s policy in Ukraine has murdered tens of times more people than Russia has since the start of the conflict.
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I believe it’s important for us as leftists to apply realpolitik when it comes to countries, especially those outside the AES realm, whose interests do not align with Western imperialism, especially the US. This is why we have the concept of
, we have to weigh said countries’ undermining of Western imperialism against any anti-socialist tendencies in their state (different than the people) to determine if there’s more harm there against the goal of socialist political economy than good in stifling Western imperialism.I think there’s a danger in engaging in a “counter-idealism” to justify support of said countries. I’m not talking about the clear meme shitposting, but earnest framing of them as being fundamentally good and anything against their interests as fundamentally bad. This gets us away from material analysis and often goes into the nationalism parroting you’re concerned with.
As far as combating Russophobia, this might sound reductive but I often find simply pointing it out is effective. Just “Calling Russian people orcs is bigoted” is typically enough to get people to backtrack, or at least get defensive in a guilty way that exposes they know they’re being xenophobic and are uncomfortable with being called out.
I think there’s a danger in engaging in a “counter-idealism” to justify support of said countries. I’m not talking about the clear meme shitposting, but earnest framing of them as being fundamentally good and anything against their interests as fundamentally bad. This gets us away from material analysis and often goes into the nationalism parroting you’re concerned with.
Yeah, honestly that’s something I’ve seen and which I don’t particularly like. At the end of the day, there’s a balance to strike between propaganda and correctness. It’s hard to get people to understand your critically support of Russia if everything they ever know about the country is negative propaganda, and for internal morale reasons it’s also important to do this. In this fashion for example, even if I broadly don’t support Iran’s internal policy, I think the propaganda with the pink shaheds is a good thing to propagate, and it raises internal morale and external perception of Iran. Are there similar things to be done with Russia?
My brain goes to, political cartoon with various piles of smoldering ash labeled “Iraq”, “Afghanistan”, “Libya”, “Syria”, “Gaza”, and Uncle Sam is standing next to them saying “I don’t know why Russia thinks we’re a threat.”
That’s the part of the Ukrainian proxy war that Westerners seem to have the biggest trouble getting, that other countries could possibly and justly see the West as aggressors.
I’m in the so-called “west”, so I focus on why the west is in conflict with Russia at all.
-The west wants to pillage Russia again like they did in the 90s. This is it. They already did it in recent living memory and only stopped becausePutin reined in the collaborators that made facilitated a lot of the pillaging. There’s nothing else to discuss. None of the Russian threats are real and the only reason any of these western governments do anything is to funnel more working class wealth towards their national bourgeoisie.
-Ok, the other things these governments do is divide and distract their working class by encouraging ethnic nationalism/resentment so they don’t join together and eat rhe rich. Capitalist restoration Ukraine, with western support, was doing an ethnic cleansing along it’s eastern border. The need for a capitalist country to do this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone in the west. They also shouldn’t be surprised that Russia eventually had to intervene (in fact, their escalation of the ethnic cleansing almost seemed like a deliberate provocation
)With this in mind, who cares about Russian nationalism. These same westerners also hated Russian internationalism. The western engagement with Russia is entirely about consolidating bourgeois power at the expense of Russian workers and keeping them from having another revolution that shakes the world.
I don’t know what to add about this other than just sticking to what you believe and not worry about slander.
As a person who is not European or of the Euro diaspora I always found it really odd how Europeans don’t consider the largest and arguably the superlative European country as European.
they have a funny alphabet, a weirder kind of christianity, used to be communists, and if you look at a map it’s mostly asia, nevermind that the population is heavily skewed toward the western edge
OOooh I forgot about wrong Jesus duh! Never mind that it is 40% of the European continent is Russia, 15% of the European population is Russian and that 80% of Russians live in the European part of the country lol
It is the world historical role of the Russian people to develop and progress class consciousness and socialism and progressive movements inside Russia itself. It is NOT the role of westerners. Great strides and progress were made here until Westerners attacked and destroyed and dismantled the USSR, alongside Liberal and revisionist USSR factions.
The role of westerners is Revolutionary Defeatism. This is quite clear, and outlined quite specifically, in all socialist texts that are not chauvinistic in nature. Literally 100% of Western “socialist” projects not specifically international in nature fall to social chauvinism, facism and revisionism. It is not up for debate, it is not up questioning, western socialists have no place attacking Russian society in public discussions or anywhere outside of casual discussion with other socialists. They must first, and foremost, oppose their own empire. Full stop. All of their public discourse and political action must be aimed against their own state and its allies and proxies.
As you said, russophobia in the west gives ammo to the rightwing nationalists of Russia by continually proving their points. The only way to give breathing room to progressive movements within Russia to flourish without being considered CIA cut-outs and proxies, is by us overthrowing our own empire. As long as our capitalist empire exists, it will generate massive amounts of Russophobia and imperialist sabotage. The best thing we can do to aid progressive movements inside Russia is destroy our own fascist empire to deprive the Russian rightwing of utility and true arguments.
Democrats act like Russia is a malignant reactionary force corrupting America. The inverse is true. Russia was one of the most progressive projects on Earth until the malignant reactionary force of America corrupted them. The best thing we can do to help them is cut off the emanating source of corruption (American empire and its endless capital penetration).
Eggs do not hatch from the outside. An egg broken from within is new life, an egg broken from outside is someone’s meal.
The Russia libsremovedabout is the Russia they made.
why do you think that advocating against rusophobia mean defaulting to russian nationalism? the two dont seem related that much to me. advocating against islamophobia or sinophobia is not really about supporting ISIS or Han nationalism. its just about treating people like people.
You’re right that it doesn’t default to this and I phrased incorrectly. My point is more about the propaganda angle and how to maintain a revolutionary defeatist stance and anti Russophobia without being perceived as being pro-Putin with regards to Russian internal politics.
You’re going to get perceived as “pro-Putin” no matter what you do, especially when criticizing NATO and US imperialism. There’s no point in trying to gain the acceptance of the liberal centre
There’s no point trying to refine propaganda?
you cannot refine propaganda in a way that it wont be labelled pro-russia / pro-putin / communist. our opponents dont operate on logic or nuance.
You said
You’re right that it doesn’t default to this and I phrased incorrectly. My point is more about the propaganda angle and how to maintain a revolutionary defeatist stance and anti Russophobia without being perceived as being pro-Putin with regards to Russian internal politics.
There’s not going to be such a “propaganda angle”, even american nationalists/realists such as Mearsheimer that are critical of NATO expansion and US military adventures are constantly slammed as sino-russian propagandists. Do you think the political establishment will be gentle enough to extend acceptability to actual, radical communists?
I don’t have a problem with refining arguments and propaganda itself, but your assumption that you can just not be perceived as pro-Putin is just wrong
without being perceived as being pro-Putin with regards to Russian internal politics.
that is not up to you how you are perceived. (eg. you will be labelled communist for supporting even the most socdem policies). on propaganda, i think in the imperial core we should focus on criticizing our own structures (EU, NATO etc.) and how these impede national sovereignty for the global majority. it was western capitalism that robbed russia+former USSR in the 1990s, and modern Russian policy is a social/political reaction to that. it is a country that is trying to preserve what little industry/resources/population it has. does it mean that it is doing a great job at it? perhaps not. but do we have the right to judge from the imperial core couch? definitely no. i have a similar stance to Iranian policies. (advocating for Iran’s right to sovereignty is not automatically pro every single anti communist, pro veiling law that they have, right?)
Don’t let Liberal “perceptions” of you and optics arguments enter your thinking at all, it’s self-hedging and self-defeating. Stand up for your principles. Be clear and straightforward with your logic. Mealy-mouthed half answers convince nobody, people smell the stink of loser.
You can see I didn’t flinch in my arguments against western imperialism or Russophobia. I’m not arguing for changing our ideology, propaganda is important though.
If you soft peddle rhetoric to protect the feelings of social chauvinists you’re going to get a social chauvinist movement. To adulterate your messaging in order to appeal to current public opinion instead of the principled and correct position is tailism, and despite being morally repugnant and a rot upon socialism, it also has never worked and is a strategic dead end. The masses don’t need more ideological confusion and incoherency and hedging, they need simple, straightfoward principles that appeal to their sense of justice and their underlying class interests. They need to reach towards the true consciousness, not towards another false one.
You can have different strategies on what aspects to emphasize and de-emphasize in your propaganda, but that does not mean adulterating or changing your underlying positions, being dishonest or hiding your views.
Maybe I am being too cynical here please excuse me, but when the answer is obviously socialism with standards applying equally among all members of society and getting as close to this as practically possible, what’s the actual contradiction you’re trying to solve?
Like is it a split in the left and you are trying to figure out which group to support? If you want to follow the footsteps of Lenin you’re supposed to figure out how to unite all these groups, which is practically impossible to give satisfying answer to, from the sidelines. It’s the same old: “Read theory and figure out how to apply it in your circumstances.”
The contradiction I’m trying to solve is mainly propagandistic: how do we engage in revolutionary defeatism and against Russophobia without being linked by our propaganda targets to the rightist positions in the internal politics of the Russian Federation?
I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about it until the war stops. You are currently engaging in heavier that will get you labeled as a bot, you’re not supposed to ask questions. There is a bad guy and good guy, if you question the good guy you’re a potential threat.
While I agree that that’s a reaction you’ll find online, many of my progressive non-ML acquaintances are willing to listen to me when I talk.
Do any of your acquaintances like sports?
It’s real common to have a situation where you’re of course rooting for your own team, but you’re also “rooting” for whoever is playing a team ahead of you in thr standings. I put “rooting” in quotes because you may not like that other team at all (you may even actively dislike them!), but you would like them to win in one specific scenario because it helps your actual goal. You aren’t going to start actually supporting the team you’re “rooting” for.
An example like this may get the point across because people are used to making that sort of “compromise” all the time in that context.
Why does your propaganda address Russia at all? Being correct is one thing - that’s for internal political education. External communication must have a point to it and that means stressing certain points at certain times while ignoring others.
Unfortunately we don’t get to steward public discourse and the topics at hand. This is simply a topic that comes up, and when as an ML you get asked about a topic, you must provide coherent answers that reflect your position and ideology. We’re mostly correct in the long run, and people will see that over time.
What situations are you talking about exactly? Hanging out with friends? The point must always be what outcome you want.
I point out that Russia is intervening in a genocide, which is a good thing.
