Its like some people interpret revolutionary defeatism as “I must support my government’s enemy”. Its a sort of reactive thinking that accepts the liberals framing of “support Zelensky or you support Putin”. Likewise, anyone who points out that Putin is a capitalist dictator who is pulling a George Bush style invasion gets associated with defending Ukrainian Nazis.
Many international communist parties are able to thread the “both are bad” line. Even the DSA was capable of doing it. But the atomized online left keeps getting lost.
The only thing I think is that anyone saying that Russia did this unprovoked and out of the blue, or uses this as a reason to “critically support” NATO is a fuckin op.
We’re witnessing imperialism spilling over into war. We’re witnessing the machinery of global capitalism functioning as intended. We’re seeing the expenditure of human life in the pursuit of consuming enough military hardware to justify the military economies of NATO and Russia.
There is no good ending to this. There are no good sides on this. All you can hope for is that Ukraine enters negotiations soon and NATO doesn’t escalate, but that’s seeming more and more unlikely by the day.
It’s the scale of the invasion that’s surprised even the most ardent NATO critics.
Revolutionary defeatism as a concept is murky at best, and there’s a reason why Lenin abandoned it entirely in his later years. The issues you’ve laid out with parts of the left actively siding with Russia in this instance proves how confusing the term constantly becomes, especially when the geopolitical situation is hardly black and white, with no real socialist movement lurking to pounce.
"support Zelensky or you support Putin”
I think if anything, liberals prove how this is actually true. They see anyone not supporting Putin as supporting the US regime and its narratives. I’d rather side with “Putin” than reaffirm liberals belief that 7 billion people exist to make rich white people comfortable.
because liberals say I support Putin, I support Putin.
You’re literally a case study of my point. Don’t let the liberals define you. Do you think Lenin went around saying “fine, I guess I do really support the Kaiser”.
Yeah that’s true. But a lot of the “neither side” stuff I’ve seen comes of as unprincipled waffling. Wars are often won by one side, so people want to know which side you want to win. And I think the far better outcome is if Russia wins and to state that, and the actual reasons why. Most of these people on twitter and elsewhere aren’t looking to have a deep conversation, they’re looking to do a character assassination bolster the position of NATO as a “necessary” peacekeeping" “defensive” organization.
