Ask Lemmygrad

This post has been reported for obvious trolling, but I think it's worth leaving it up for the discussion as people have explained what critical support means here.

Since people seem interested in the morality angle, allow me to introduce U. of Macao philosophy professor Hans-Georg Moeller.

• 📺 Why Sam Harris is Wrong - A Critique of Sam Harris' "The Moral Landscape"
• 📺 The Problem with Sam Harris' "Morality"
• 📺 If Morality Exists Everything Is Permitted. (Q&A)
• 📖 The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality (interview)

But what about morals of this?

I find it morally questionable to support an aggressor in such a clear scenario.

Do any of you have any moral reasoning to critically support Russia? Or do you support it out of strategic reasons despite moral objections?

But why do most fellow Marxists critically support Russia today?

Because they're fighting the US through their proxy in Ukraine, it do be as simple as that honestly. The NATO encirclement, the banderite stuff, the ethnic cleansing, etc just further strengthens the support, but the main reason is their alignment with the US, the global imperialist hegemon. The US having to allocate more resources into Ukraine opens up space for progress all around the world.

But what about morals of this?

What does that have to do with Marxism? Even if we appeal to morals, a "bad" moral conflict could be "good" in the grand scheme of things, that being fighting US imperialism. If revolutionaries cared about every morally troublesome decision, there wouldn't be any revolution.

op, this entire post can be boiled down to your need to look up what "critical support" actually means.

How much do you know about the era prior to Russian intervention in Ukraine? As far as i understand it the Ukrainian backed neo-nazi groups were literally shelling ethnically Russian towns, and killing civilians long before Russia stepped in. So i don't think portraying this as a black, and white agressor vs defender situation is correct. Donetsk, and Luhansk were actively asking Russia to intervene.

Now do i think that is why Russia intervened? Because they are just super nice, and wanted to help? Fuck no. They did it for geopolitical reasons like anything else. To secure the historically single most effective corridor for invading Russia. That doesn't mean that context is irrelevant though.

This is also functionally a proxy war. It's the US vs Russia, but the US is using Ukraine as its manpower pool, and bullet sponge. Ukraine doesn't have the ability to defend itself like it's done alone. Even with western backing it's losing.

The war only happened because the US wanted it to happen. They played Russia, but it backfired on them. The US wanted Russia to come in, and get weakened by Ukraine. Didn't really care how much damage Ukraine took in the process. But Russia is arguably better off militarily today than it was before this war started. It's also strengthened the ties between China, and Russia since Russia relies on China to be its economic lifeline in spite of all the sanctions.

So to answer the question: Why critically support Russia?

Morally- Tie: Neither side is worth a damn. Ukrainian civilians and Russian civilians are both innocent, and leadership in both countries is irredeemably evil.

Strategically-Russia Wins: Russian victory weakens the US. Aids the long term goal of destroying US empire.

Pragmatically-Russia Wins: If Ukraine maintains its independence it will have a total lack of young people, destroyed infrastucture, and be economically insolvent. It will be turned into a resource extraction site for the west, and likely never recover. It's neo-nazi government will be backed by the US, and impossible to overthrow via domestic rebellion. Another war could happen at any time. Not just with Russia, but with Turkey, Poland, etc. If conditions arise to allow it. As Ukraine will still not have nukes, and will be weakened significantly.

If Russia wins Ukraine will be taken over, and become part of Russia. Economically they'll be better off. Likely with significant investment from both Russia, and China in rebuilding their infrastucture. Still used as a resource extraction site, but since manpower will be able to be brought in from the rest of Russia working conditions will likely be better. They'll now be under the Russian nuclear umbrella. So unless WW3 happens another war isn't likely. (Yeah WW3 isn't exactly unlikely, but yknow.) Ukraine also has significant wheat production. To the west this is kind of a meh thing. They have plenty of farmland in the US, and are more interested in minerals. But Russia/China would be quite interested in maintaining wheat output, and would not risk it just to get some minerals. Not just for their own use, but to keep nations like Egypt stable. So the international food supply markets are likely to be more stable in this situation. Which helps not just Ukrainians themselves via jobs, and investment, but anyone in a food insecure region too.

Anecdotally-Russia wins: Idk how much this matters to other people, but personally when it comes to foreign policy stuff I recognize that the info we as civilians have access to is limited. So i look to the positions of organizations i believe have similar long term goals to my own, communist orgs, and also have access to more information. Intelligence agencies, etc.

China: Officially neutral, but leans toward Russian support.

DPRK: Openly supports Russia.

Vietnam: Neutral, Abstains from UN votes about the conflict.

Cuba: Leans pro-Russia.

These have a clear trend. When 0 AES states are supporting the side of Ukraine that tells me all i need to know. The situation isn't black, and white clearly. But critical support for Russia is the choice that makes the most sense for me. Not that my random poor person trying to survive opinion does much of anything.

What does morality has to do with this? Marxism is not a moral compass. Sure each of us have our own moral compass that is influenced by our own cultures, but that is not a part of Marxism.

We can disagree with Russia all we want, the reality of the matter is that, at the end of the day, they are still fighting and resisting NATO's imperialism.

Also, if you're going to bring morality into this, then you can't only talk about Russia invading, you also needs to weight in the ethnic cleansing Ukraine was doing, their Nazi military that are now officially recognized, their rehabilitation of figures like Estepan Bandera and their erasing of Soviet symbols in the country.

Can you explain how you:

• are ignorant of the conversations that have been had on this topic for 3 years.

• with a 2 year old account.

• while using "red guard" in your username.

You're clearly not as unfamiliar with the topic or the ML thought process followed here as your post implies.

I think it's weird wrecker shit to re-hash topics that were covered in this space already.

I think what NATO did to Ghaddafi explains Russia's behavior. They could no longer treat NATO as a defensive alliance, it proved itself to be an arm of imperialism. If they allowed Ukraine to become a staging ground for NATO bombers it would be begging for color revolution. They couldn't just wait, they had to act preemptively.

I don't have much time right now, but I know there have been previous threads on this with good answers. Here is some context on Ukraine and the nature of its administration:

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7112898

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/10/24/ukrainian-army-war-crimes-include-shelling-of-ambulences-firetrucks-and-rescue-workers-in-the-donbass-republics-similar-to-israelis-and-u-s-backed-terrorists-in-syria/

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8044328

And a thing on debunking the idea of Russian "imperialism":

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Imperialism#Russian_%22imperialism%22

NATO is violating a deal they arranged with russia to not expand their influence to countries in the Russian sphere of influence. Allowing Ukraine to become a part of the NATO poses a significant security risk for Russian sovereignty and National security. Even as things stand now, Ukraine was capable of briefly pushing into Russian lands and raising havoc. If they were a part of the NATO they would’ve been capable of doing much more damage. A country at war is not allowed to join the NATO, as it would force all the other countries in it into its mess.

The western world remains the enemy of Russia, even after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Oh boy this is gonna be a spicy comment section.

Essentially, the point is that Russia has no choice. The western empire has expanded eastwards and aims to control increasingly the former "Russian sphere of influence", which used to be the eastern block for the most part. The west can do this because it has the economic and geopolitical supremacy, and can do this through so-called"soft" power, political power and economic power.

This process progressively weakens the Russian empire in favour of the western empire. This leads to a stronger western empire over time, and this is something patently bad for the entire global south and all nations suffering under the yoke of western imperialism. Fighting against the western imperialism, even by means of military struggle, is considered positive by many socialists, even if done by a reactionary nationalist force. For example Mao famously allied with the Kuomintang during the Japanese invasion, because the priority was the elimination of imperialism, followed by the revolution. Edit: this is to me the epitome of critical support: having good analysis that lets you fight side by side with an anti-imperialist force, but after dealing with imperialism being able to fight the reactionaries and win.

Furthermore, history didn't begin in 2022. Tens of millions of Ukrainians have suffered the oppression of the west since 1990, becoming the poorest country in Europe and losing millions of lives to poverty, malnutrition, stress, unemployment, alcoholism and suicide since then. If you're concerned about the wellbeing of Ukrainians, you should primarily be concerned with the western role in the fucking up of the entire country over the past 35 years, which arguably affected it much greater than the ongoing invasion.

There's a lot to dislike about modern Russia but I'm not sure why a Marxist would strongly object to them for being at war with a US aligned, neo-nazi aligned NATO proxy that was running an ethnic cleansing campaign right on the Russian border.

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.

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.

Yes they are.

I wouldn’t call myself a supporter of Russia or Putin. But any country that stands up to U.S./NATO imperialism should have support from Marxists. Ukraine a proxy for U.S. intervention in Eastern Europe. Their military is also full of Nazis who have been trying to exterminate ethnic Russians in the Eastern regions of the country.