I'm not sure how to write this without it sounding like ragebait or a fed post.
But why do most fellow Marxists critically support Russia today?
I can understand having seen Russia as a potential temporary ally or a necessary power that can stand against US / NATO hegemony over the globe. In short I can understand it from a strategic standpoint.
But what about morals of this?
To explain I've seen seen Russia as a necessary potential ally in the past too. But that has changed with the Ukraine war and concurrent events in Russia.
The way I see it, even with a CIA coup, a full scale invasion of a country still isn't justified. It's bordering on insanity in my mind to start such a war. The way the war and conscription is handled in Russia is also highly critiquable. The way people who fall from grace, also "fall out of windows" too.
The other major event that made me doubt Putin more was part of the leaks that happened with Navalny's death. Specifically the revelation of how Putin spend hundreds of millions not just on a palace like so many corrupt leaders and dictators do, but essentially what amounts to an own private town.
This is what lead me to believe that Putin devolved into insanity and paranoia from what he used to be, a calculated sensible dictator.
With all this in mind, why should we offer critical support to Russia instead of Ukraine?
Yes you can argue that Ukraine has been taken over via a pro-western coup regime, but they're still not the aggressors in the war.
I find it morally questionable to support an aggressor in such a clear scenario. And purely strategically speaking with how Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, I find their military capabilities not great either for any conflict with NATO.
Do any of you have any moral reasoning to critically support Russia? Or do you support it out of strategic reasons despite moral objections?
This potentially could be a bad opinion for this place, I'm not sure. I've talked online with Russian communists in Russia and they were risking arrest to organise against conscription in their own country. My feeling (God I could be wrong) is that this a correct and noble thing for them to be doing as Russians in Russia.
All the anti Putin arguments made in the West just can the flames of imperialist war here. It seems like we're rehashing all the mistakes of the socdems during WW1 by rallying around our national bourgeoisie instead of calling for revolutionary defeatism.
Russian communist interest can be different than communists from elsewhere, i find it that russian communists are in a very tough spot at this moment because if a civil war in Russia were to happen at this point of time, its very likely that the West would pounce and completely carve Russia. The very nation is at stake here, kinda opposite to how it was at stake with their participation in WW1, the revolution was the only way to save the russian nation in 1917, but what about now?
That is specifically why I'm asking.
I see the majority of Marxists critically or sadly sometimes uncritically supporting Russia in this conflict.
That is something I do not agree with or understand on a moral level. And on a strategic level I do not see Russia as a reasonable or competent potential ally anymore after the recent years. I cannot support Russia without any arguments for it that I'm not aware of, without any cognitive dissonance.
Why are you bringing morality into this though? Putin is not a communist to my knowledge, so I doubt people are studying his every word to guide their praxis as if he was the second coming of Lenin.
Putin is an ally against Western imperialism and its unipolar world order. That should be THE single most pressing issue to focus on for any Marxist in my opinion.
Why not? Isn't Russia literally fighting the West and supporting anti-west movements in the global south? You might be seeing this through a more static lense maybe? As in, thinking that just because he's an ally now, he's always going to be an ally. But that's not really a Marxist mindset. Things constantly change and evolve.
(I'm answering to "test" my knowledge on this as well. I promise I'm not attacking you, only the ideas, to see if what I write makes sense because I too am learning)