Palestine

Before the war kicked off, there was a strong liberal movement in Russia. That was especially the case in bigger cities, where a lot of people genuinely wanted more integration with Europe and the West in general.

But then the war started, and the mask came off. The West’s response wasn’t just sanctions on oligarchs or the government. It immediately devolved into an unhinged, open season on anything and everything Russian. We’re talking about regular people getting banned from sports and arts, calls for collective punishment, and just a flood of the most vile, racist garbage directed at Russians as an ethnic group. It went from “we hate Putin’s regime” to “we hate you people” in about five seconds flat.

And that was a gift from heaven for the Kremlin. They’ve been saying for years that the West secretly despises all Russians and wants to see Russia broken up and erased as a culture. Suddenly, they could just point to the news and say see? we told you so.

Western behavior completely nuked any domestic liberal opposition. What were they supposed to argue for? Hey, let’s be friends and emulate the people who are calling for us to be shoved back into the stone age?

By treating the entire Russian population as subhuman orcs, the West forced even those skeptical of Putin to rally around the flag in a defensive posture, ultimately consolidating his power in a way he could have never achieved otherwise.

However, the political landscape is now shifting due to forced economic reorientation. As ties with the West fracture, Russia's primary economic partners are now China, Vietnam, and the DPRK where Communism is the official state doctrine. An economic realignment towards the East will inevitably drive a political change in turn. The liberal ideology associated with a hostile and crisis-ridden West is becoming discredited, while the Marxist ideology of Russia's successful new partners gains prestige.

When your major allies are communist nations where people live well, and your enemies are capitalist states whose economies are faltering, the perceptual shift is inevitable. This fundamental reordering of Russia's economic life will directly fuel the rising popularity of communist opposition at home. People are starting to realize they took a big detour in the 90s, and that USSR could've developed the way China did if different decisions were made.

Hey, your resident lemmy.ml russian (but also in exile lol) here

Judging by my friends and family, I feel like vaguely liberal views are still somewhat popular in major cities, mostly because people kind of enjoy berger and cola and internet, and associate all those things with liberalism. It did take a big hit because of how the West reacted to the war, hurting many regular Russians, but it's still present.

But there can be no such thing as left-liberal opposition in Russia, period. The oligarchs and their socially conservative, reactionary viewpoints dominate all aspects of public life. LGBT propaganda (like holding hands with a same-sex partner in public), blasphemy (like taking a funny photo with a church in frame), and denigration of armed forces (calling the ongoing conflict "a war") are punished by real prison terms. What do you think happens when someone poses a real political threat to those in power?

Pro-capitalist (right-liberal) views meanwhile are encouraged for obvious reasons.

Sadly this all means that there can be no serious communist or socialist opposition either. CPRF is a hollowed out shell of its former self (even of 20 years ago), its only purpose is to put a hammer&sickle rubber stamp on oligarch agenda of today (think: Democrats in the US but with much less power and a communist aesthetic). Communists of Russia seem vaguely promising but never make any real progress when (very rarely) elected (think: DSA). Anarchist movements are disorganised and often infiltrated by FSB, for the organisers to be promptly put on trial for random bullshit.

I hope China can push a more communist agenda on Russia in the future, but it's not looking good for now