Russia and the Left?

[ComradeAllende]

Why do some self-proclaimed leftists support Putinist Russia, especially given its recent aggression toward Ukraine and other Eastern European countries?

[Redistribute the Rep]

It's mostly out of anti-American sentiment. They rightly oppose American imperialism but think the way to counter that would be by supporting the "lesser evil" of ithe mperial powers

[ComradeAllende]

They also seem obsessed with opposing the Maidan revolution. I know that the Maidan would technically push Ukraine further into the US-NATO orbit, and it was supported by a number of far right-wing groups (Right Sector and Svoboda) but wouldn't a pro-Maidan regime be a welcome sign of liberalism and a path away from Kiev's current oligarchy? I would think that socialism would develop much more harmoniously with democratic ideals if it succeeded a bourgeois liberal state (as opposed to an illiberal ex-communist oligarchy).

[Црвена]

I agree with RTR, but I also think part of the reason is that leftists feel obliged to support Russia because they think that some vestiges of its past remain: a misconception aided by pro-Russian rebels' use of Soviet symbols and their painting of the Maidan supporters as "fascist." This is, I think, why the left in Germany leans pro-Russia and SYRIZA was willing to negotiate with Russia.



They also seem obsessed with opposing the Maidan revolution. I know that the Maidan would technically push Ukraine further into the US-NATO orbit, and it was supported by a number of far right-wing groups (Right Sector and Svoboda) but wouldn't a pro-Maidan regime be a welcome sign of liberalism and a path away from Kiev's current oligarchy? I would think that socialism would develop much more harmoniously with democratic ideals if it succeeded a bourgeois liberal state (as opposed to an illiberal ex-communist oligarchy).

When the socialist revolution comes, the bourgeois state will be smashed. It doesn't matter whether it's a liberal or illiberal state, because we are going to completely destroy it.

[Faust Arp]

I don't know of many Western leftists who are explicitely pro-Novorossiya, other than tankies, thirdworldists and the IMT (maybe also some other Trotskyist sects, I'm not sure), and nobody takes them very seriously. I honestly think that a much bigger problem for much of the Western left is an explicit or implicit pro-Maidan sentiment.

There is absolutely nothing about Maidan worth defending from a left-wing perspective: it's a middle-class movement, nationalist in nature, which can't even be accurately called anti-imperialist, because it served as a proxy for another imperial bloc from its very start. While the Maidan regime could superficially appear to be more "liberal" and Lenin has that one quote about how socialists should always strive for greater social and political liberalization while working within a bourgeois system, his point was that such liberalization gives more space for the working class to freely organize. The Kiev regime is doing the complete opposite - it seeks to equate Communism and Nazism as equally harmful "totalitarian ideologies" and is cracking down on the radical left.

A lot of the pro-Maidan sentiment in the West comes from kneejerk fear of the Russian "Other", an unfathomable, oriental power which goes against established Western enlightenment values (some bring up Marx's and Engels' ideas on Russia being the hotbed of reaction in Europe and the main enemy of progressive movements, but keep forgetting that in the mid-19th century Tzarist Russia was literally the main foreign protector of the European status quo and the sponsor of various royal dynasties - the geopolitical situation today is radically different). Really, it's SPD-style social patriotism all over again.

In the arena of global conflict, the Left has only one side which it needs to support - the international working class. In a conflict where the working class has absolutely nothing to gain from any faction, the Left has no job picking a side. So what should be the correct, proletarian internationalist response to the conflict in Ukraine? I think that, for socialists in the West, the old third-campist slogan "neither Washington nor Moscow" is outdated - there's no need anymore for the Left to explicitely dissociate itself from Moscow's line, since it should come as a given that we're against Putin, and the bipolar geopolitical constellation of the Cold War era is gone and replaced with a unipolar one - where the USA with its sattelites is the only true global power whereas Russia, China etc will never be able to advance beyond the level of second-rate, regional powers economically dependent on the USA (the dependence is still reciprocal in a way, to be a bit more precise), due to the structure of global finance capital, without a huge rupture in world economics which might possibly have apocalyptic consequences. Also all the anti-Putin opinion that people need to hear is already all over mainstream media. Revolutionary socialists should look up to their predecessors' positions in WW1 for a true internationalist answer to this conflict - aim the brunt of their criticism against their "own" side (for the Western left, it should be aimed against Kiev and NATO, and for the Russian left, against Novorossiya and Putin) without in any way supporting the "opposite" one, and push for peace as quickly as possible.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Calling the area held by the insurgents "Novorossiya" is misleading, I would say - there was a proposed "new Russian" confederation, but like the Union State, it foundered as its various constituents discovered that, rhetoric aside, they don't actually like each other very much. It's about as ephemeral a state as the 1991 "Dubrovnik Republic".

And the ICL takes the line that the proletariat has a military side with the insurgents against the Kiev government sponsored by the EU. That is quite clear to me - all other things being equal, we stand for the right of people to decide where they want to live (for the same reason the ICL stands for the right of the Chechen people to leave Russia). The overwhelmingly Russian-speaking population in the East of Ukraine doesn't want to live in an Ukraine governed by the Maidan government. This is hardly surprising - they don't want to end up like Russians in the glorious Baltic EU democracies.

The problem is that much of the European "left" is pro-EU in orientation, and as Russia, through no fault of its own (Russia acts as a soft cop for both EU and American imperialism), is demonised by the majority bourgeois faction in the EU, this means that "the left" of Europe is overwhelmingly against Russia. That is why there was massive support for the various colour revolutions, why the situation of Russian speakers in the EU is barely mentioned and so on.

I just hope they don't at one point realise the glorious democratic confederation of the PKK/KCK is holding territory for Syria, which is sponsored partly by Russia, the cognitive dissonance might kill.

And paradoxically enough, the anti-Russian sentiment of much of "the left" means focusing on marginal figures among the Russian opposition, Dugins and other people with maybe a thousand followers (because the alternative would be to recognise that Russia is a run-of-the-mill bourgeois state), which is precisely Putin's line.

[phantasm]

Even to this day, many Russians still maintain some very anti-capitalist rhetoric. Some left-wingers admire this sentiment (and rightly so), but fail to cross-check the Russians' rhetoric with their actions, and thus mistakenly believe that Russia's economic and political systems are still truly left-wing.

As for myself, I do support some of Russia's actions on a case-by-case basis, but their system as a whole is not truly leftist - it is a rather complex and confusing synthesis of left-wing and far-right ideas. As such, it's important to not fall into the trap of thinking Russia is leftist when their actions do not completely match their rhetoric.

[Comrade Jacob]

They guard Russia because they have hope, a faint and faded hope that one day it will flower. - Gandalf

[Realzowi]

It comes from the mistaken idea that the only imperialism is American, so Russia must be 'anti-imperialist'.
I am in the IMT, and can state the IMT is not pro-Novorossiya.
We have opposed the 'anti-terror operation' in East Ukraine and have joined the Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU) campaign. This for the reason that we oppose the reaction and leaning on fascist elements of the Ukrainian state. However, within this campaign we oppose those who idealise Novorossiya as some kind of new leftwing paradise.
We have stated that the movement in the East in the beginning had some progressive features, but that with its militarisation and reliance on Russia, it shifted to the right.
Our Russian section is against Putin's military adventures in the Crimea and Ukraine, and has organised some small anti-war demos.

[Flavius]

As it was mentioned above, a lot of leftists support Putin's Russia because of their anti-American stances, and the right-wing aspects of Maidan and what came after it. However, I don't think this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic is right.