******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ********************
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*****************************************************************
Putin’s Russia is an imperialist state dominated by a capitalist
oligarchy that controls the state and that has developed a bellicose
attitude toward its neighbors, whom the oligarchy reproaches for having
taken advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union in order to escape
its century-long tutelage. Embracing an ultra-nationalist ideology that
gives a good deal of space to racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia, its
authoritarian neoconservatism has become a veritable standard for the
European extreme right. For those of us dedicated to fighting Western
imperialism, be it American or European, an understanding of the Russian
state’s imperial nature, of its expansionist tendencies, and of the real
nature of its contest with the West is essential.
In Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation is supported by important
sectors of the extreme right such as Attack, in Bulgaria; the National
Party, in Slovakia; Jobbik, in Hungary; the National Democratic Party,
in Germany; the National Front, in France; the Freedom Party of Austria;
the Northern League and the New Force, in Italy; the Flemish Interest
Party, in Belgium; and so on.1 On March 22, 2015, at the Holiday Inn in
Saint Petersburg, the Russia Patriot Party organized an International
Conservative Forum involving a large number of these movements, with
participation from Eastern Ukraine military leaders linked to fascist
groups. That network will strengthen the connection among European
nationalists who support the Russian Federation’s foreign policy against
Brussels and Washington.
Which Russian Imperialism?
Some people nostalgic for the post-Stalinist Soviet Union close their
eyes to this reality, forgetting that the denunciation of Russian
imperialism was always at the heart of Lenin’s thought and action. Did
he not advocate the defeat of Russia in 1914? On December 12 of that
year, Lenin wrote,
The Great Russians cannot “defend the fatherland” except by desiring
the defeat of Czarism in any war, this as the lesser evil for
nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Great Russia. For Czarism not only
oppresses those nine-tenths economically and politically, but also
demoralizes, degrades, dishonors, and prostitutes them by teaching them
to oppress other nations and to cover up this shame with hypocritical
and quasi-patriotic phrases.2
Replace the word “Czarism” with “oligarchy” and Lenin’s judgment remains
completely true today.
Russia is a unique imperialist power because as it colonized the
non-Russian people of its empire, at the same time it brutally repressed
and virtually enslaved the mass of Russian and non-Russian peasants
inside Russia, generally from the seventeenth century onward, a process
that resembled those perpetrated by the European powers in their
far-flung colonies. With the emergence of capitalist imperialism in the
last third of the nineteenth century, Russia sought to compensate for
the relative weakness of its economic and financial monopolies by the
exclusive military control of a vast territory and, as Lenin suggested
in 1916, by “special facilities for robbing minority nationalities.”3 In
this way Russia could try to play in the big leagues, as a junior
partner of France and England. Not understanding this, some Marxists
refer to Lenin in order to call into doubt the imperialist nature of
today’s Russia, pointing out the relative weakness of its finance
capital sector. But this only shows that they do not understand Lenin’s
characterization of Russian imperialism before 1917.
full: http://newpol.org/content/putin-war-ukraine-%E2%80%A8and-far-right
_________________________________________________________
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
