this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Truth is simple.
For people in Europe (especially middle/east) russian imperialism is the same thing, as american imperialism to a middle east and countries in the North and South America.
We can all hate russian and USA imperialism, hate the mainstream media, but please don't use other imperial contry as a alternative :)
How does this follow this meme at all? Whenever I or others post anything opposed to US imperialism, a country that in this century is responsible for killing over a million of my Iraqi brothers and sisters, we're accused of being Russian. At what point are we using Russia as an alternative?
All imperialism is bad, not matter that is russian, american, chineese, etc.
We have to remember about that.
What does this have to do with being accused of being Russian when talking to Americans? This is a total non sequitur. You're telling me I have to remember all imperialism is bad... ok? So the fuck what? How does that change the fact Americans are propagandized to believe everyone who disagrees with them is Russian? I am not Russian, I'm Persian.
Ask american.
I'm from Poland, from post east block country. So i know a lot about being part of soviet empire, and no one here wants to go back to be ally of russia.
Of course American imperialism is also bad.
There is no Russian or Chinese imperialism. All imperialism is bad, but you've caped for European imperialism and invented brand new imperialism to serve as a red herring for European imperialism as a sub-factor of the larger US Empire.
Of course, that Soviet Union and Russia are imperialistc states.
lol clarance thomas over here citing his own opinion
No, they are not, lmao.
But there is no such thing as "Chinese Imperialism" or "Russian Imperialism"(that thing died with the Russian Empire)
One has military bases on every inhabited land mass on earth, the other does not, your local concerns do not make them even remotely comparable
Just because russia is a failing economy, and no longer has bases all over the world, that does not mean that it's no longer imperialist country.
Authoritarian pseudo communism ruined soviet union, an then thanks to Jelcyn, neoliberalizm killed what was left.
Neither Russia nor USSR ever had bases around the world as that's what imperialistic countries like USA tend to do
"No longer has bases all over the world" lol they never did, try again
Remember times, when soviet empire had bases from Kuba to Korea, a lot of bases in Europe, and stuff going on in the middle east and Africa?
Deployment =/= occupation, citing Cuba is especially laughable seeing as how they explicitly invited the Soviets specifically to counter the threat of the US, and it worked
Russia is not imperializing Europe, Europe itself is imperialist, and western Europe is especially guilty of imperializing both eastern Europe and the global south.
Of course that's not true. Russia openly saying, that it wants to rebuild soviet era imperium.
Where Europe is imperializing? Europe independent countries just started EU, economic and politics alliance, just like BRICS. EU is not responsible for the wars (Russia is, i.e. Ukraine, Georgia, Chechen war...).
No they fucking aren’t. And anyway the USSR wasn’t an empire. It was a union of soviet states, like it said on the tin.
We liberated them from Fascism, and they will never forgive us.
Neither the Russian Federation nor USSR are examples of imperialism. Neither is dominated by financial capital, nor do either expropriate vast sums of wealth from the global south through unequal exchange and export of capital. Europe does, though, and this is why they are imperialist while BRICS is not. NATO is also responsible for many of those wars, such as the Russo-Ukrainian war, by installing far-right Banderites that began ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine, resulting in Donetsk and Luhansk seceding and requesting Russian assistance.
while i agree with your first statement, your point about "far-right banderites" and ethic cleansing are loughable.
Rise of nationalistic ideologies in Ukraine is quite consiqential. It's a reaction to Russian attempts at gaining political control via puppet figures. Russia reacted to that reaction, Ukraine then reacted to that, and now we have the mess we have. Absolutely moronic, yet here we are.
And ethnic cleansing, seriously? "Ukrainian" and "Russian" are not athnicities. Even cultures don't differ that much. The only notable difference is the language, except even there it's not that simple. The more to the east of Ukraine you got, the more russian-speaking people there you'd meet, which is fairly normal, but you'd still meet those even on the western half. I'm not even talking about cities like Odessa where the majority always was and still is speaking Russian. Nobody seem to ever attempt to "ethnically clense" Odessa. I wonder why...
Some aquaintances of mine from eastern Ukraine would also be quite surprised to know that they apparently were "ethnically cleansed".
The rise in nationalism was empowered by the west to serve their interests. Russian and Ukrainian are indeed unique ethnic groups, and the 13,000 civilians killed by Kiev over the last decade before 2022 is evidence of the oppression of ethnic Russians by Kiev.
From davel's compilation, again:
Groups like Azov have been folded in officially. The Kiev regime upholds Stepan Bandera and uses likeness for propaganda. Nazis infest Ukrainian leadership:
The east supported Yanukovych, and that's why the far-right Banderites couping him kicked off the war.
i'm not saying it wasn't influenced by the west. It wouldn't have been successful without the context i mentioned tho. You know, where Russia tried to influence Ukraine and failed.
Also, it's not like Russia ever tried to de-escalate this, on the contrary, since the Ukrainian revolution against Yanukovich regime, russian outlets haven't missed any opportunity to portray Ukraine as some kind of a nazi state. It's kinda natural of people to unite against a bigger enemy, so no wonder that the more Russia screamed about how nationalistic Ukraine is, the more nationalistic it became, with it's peak at the start of the war.
It's really a shame, and so fucking embarassing that political forces of the historical regions of Ukraine and Russia never got along.
The fact that modern ukrainian nationalists use ww2 related symbols only proves that, and nothing else. To call them nazis is the same as to call Russian regime a nazi one, as they too use symbolics of nazi collaborationists. What's really funny is that they use it as a symbol of victory in ww2.
Just for the clarification sake, i don't indulge nationalism. More over, i hate the very concept of nationality, as it has little to do with reality, and only serves propagandist purposes. And what you're doing here is defending one group of nationalists by attacking the other.
I refuse to delve into why the so called anti-terroristic operation had started, because we both have no evidence about the actual reasons, just what the news outlets of either side wanted their people to believe. I'll just say that given that "the west" managed to influence the western Ukraine, it's entirely not off the table that Russia had their people on the east itself. Especially considering that there's no linguistic, cultural, nor ethnic barriers to blend in, and the fact that the border between the two coutries was quite easily passable before the shit went south.
edit: Your reasoning for it also doesn't check out, considering the creation of internal displacement programs Ukraine had created, and humanitarian aid it provided, that is, if by "the war" you mean the territorial conflicts that lasted for eight years, before the official war started.
And if you're talking about the current conflict, i'm afraid, "the banderites" weren't the ones who had started it. Belarus wouldn't have been boasting about the so called "preemptive strike" that Russia landed on "Ukrainian positions" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_now_I_will_show_you_where_the_attack_on_Belarus_was_prepared_from)
Yanukovych took the Russian loan because the IMF loan required austerity measures and the Russian loan didn't. It wasn't because of "Russian meddling," but because the west put literal Nazis in power. The Russian state is run by nationalists, but not Nazis.
I defend nationalism in the context of anti-imperialism, the standard Marxist position. Fanon's a great read on this. Russia was not and is not ethnically cleansing Ukrainians like Ukraine is towards Russians.
Taking the russian loan is not the only, and is not the main issue people had with him.
It's pretty safe to assume that they use those symbols because they where used by anti-russian movements of the past, rather than because they believe in race superriority and need for killing jews in camps.
lol.
First, i'd like you to re-read my previous comment, as i added a few paragraphs. My bad for doing that after publishing it in the first place, i know, sorry, didn't expect you to reply that quick
Second, how tf would anyone define a russian from ukrainian? Those are not ethnicities in the first place. Cultural differences are practically non-existent. Even language. I already told about all of that.
How the fuck are the eastern conflicts prior to 2022 are "ethinic cleansing", but all-out war with the objective to seize Eastern Ukraine, resulting in tens of thousands ukrainians dead is not "ethnic cleansing" to you?
Also, good on you for defending the "good and fluffy nationalism" so that the "evil imerialism" won't come. Look out of the window and see for yourself how well this twist of logic works. Every modern country is national, and it doest prevent corporate imperialism in any way. Every country is national, yet we still got NATO. And nato would've bossibly been a good thing, if only it wasn't just a US plaything. US regime is quite nationalist btw. Doesn't prevent their imperialistic advances in any way.
Thanks for sharing the "good read", but unless i see any reasoning that you extracted from it, i won't consider it good. And it just so happens that your reasoning is not the best so far.
p.s. wow, my instance was down unusually long. Well, my instance is back, so here it goes. Happy new year btw!
Yanukovych taking the Russian loan is why the west couped him, though.
It isn't at all safe to assume. These are Nazis literally calling themselves as such.
Russia and Ukraine have distinct ethnicities, culture, and language, and have their own historied regions. Similarities do not mean they outright are the same, this is the line far-right Russians use to claim Ukraine itself is illegitimate.
War isn't ethnic cleansing, while Kiev actively targeted ethnic Russians.
This is an extreme misreading of what I said. I despise the nationalism of imperialist states like the US, but support the nationalism of countries like Burkina Faso that have nationalist revolutions against their own colonization. Nationalism doesn't prevent an imperialist country from being imperialist, it can be a tool used by oppressed peoples in liberating themselves. I'm no PatSoc or MAGA Communist.
Good thing you entirely misread my reasoning. The Wretched of the Earth is a banger.
Happy New Year!
my point still stands. You can't light a wet log, just as you can't initiate a coup (especially of this scale), if people happy with the present regime.
And If we're delving into discussing only the geopolitical reasons, the current war, judging by the deeds of either political side, is held mainly due to the resources found on the east of Ukraine.
They can call themselves whatever atrocious things they want and use whatever symbolics they want to our mutual distaste, (i'd still like to hear where they stated that they're nazis tho) yet their ideology doesn't match to the one of nazis'.
To be frank, i'm so tired of this shit. I wonder, how much years will pass until people finally stop competing, who'd first claim their political opponent to be Hitler. Literally the most basic attempt at dehumanization. And just fyi, claims about russians being nazis where just as many.
Of course they're not the same, yet, as i previously said, linguistic attribution does not work universally, there are quite many Ukrainians for whom russian is their main language. Such cases are occurent on all of the Ukrainian territory.
The ethnic mix is also practically indistinguishable, as i, once again, had already stated.
Modern culture is as well quite troublesome to distinguish, due to intercultural communication, apparent in the past, and bracically universal in the modern day thanks to the internet.
There are few exceptions regarding the ethnicity and culture in some isolated regions, like Carpathian or Caucasian mountains, but those always were a minority.
Ah yes, the internet. if you're anywhere from the post-ussr part of the earth, you'd know how close and indistinguishable those cultures really are, because you'd be able to find lots of common cultural experience simply hanging out in the post-soviet internet space, aka runet.
Tracking by family tree would also be troublesome. Many ukrainians have relatives in Russia and other way around.
Yes, i'm afraid that the russian far-right are not entirely wrong, there is really a lot in common. It doesn't justify their wish for "rebuilding" the "ussr" tho.
once again, neither "Russian" nor "Ukrainian" are ethnoses. And once again, especially if we're talking about the Eastern Ukraine, you will be able to distingush one from another only by asking for their passport. On what basis you call that "ethnic cleansing", because not only Ukrainians and Russians are indistinguishable from each other, there where political progams, aiding easteners with relocation to safer regions.
The motives you assumed just do not correlate with the actions that were taken.
The assumption that fighting began due to discovery of atural resources on the Ukrainian east just adds up better.
quite the double standards you got there. Nationality as a concept is nothing more than a hoax, first invented in France during the revolution.
It's a mean of manipulation to instill large-scale tribalism into people. I believe people of the modern age should unite based of their political ideology, rather than based of a national myth. And guess what, they already do. Only the modern political system doesn't take this into account, so what we get is a set of countries united on surface, but very polarised underneath.
Such state of constant in-fighting is inevitable in national states, and emerges as soon as external threat ceases.
In other words, nationalism is a bad tool and should be thrown out.
State independence should also come after the well-being and prosperity of individual people inhabiting said state. In other words, if a country isn't providing sufficient degree of well-being to its citizens, it should be merged with its neigbor in equibenificial manner. As soon as the region becomes prosperous enough to function as a sovereign political unit, it should be separated back. Otherwise, it only serves for the benefit of those in power, and nationalism helps them keep it that way.
Russian-Ukrainian situation is a pretty good example actually. While neigbours kill each other in trenches, those in power have the time of their life, having more control than any their predecessor, as the war serves to be a huge leverage point for them.
You can definitely launch a coup without the public supporting you, that's largely the difference between a coup and a revolution. Allende was couped despite being popular. Sure, some Ukrainian nationalists were upset with Yanukovych, but it wasn't a universal reaction (as the DPR and LPR show).
Secondly, saying slavic peoples share a lot in common is similar to saying Chinese ethnicities have a lot in common. It's true, there are commonalities, but there are also distinct differences. Targeting one group for their unique characteristics is the basis of ethnic cleansing, no matter the similaritied otherwise.
As for your views on nationality, you speak as though imperialism and national liberation movements don't exist. There's no double standard in play, the basis of eliminating national divisions is national emancipation. Read Fanon.
Nationalists weren't the only one upset. Lots of people wanted Ukraine to head west, because western (as in EU) economic ties seemed to have far brighter perspectives than the russian ones. More over, it still is, as Russia has all the resources needed to surpass EU in every way possible, yet it struggles, thanks to the degree of corruption present, as well as its oligarchic nature. Orientation for EU promised the potential to get Ukraine out of the state it had been in after the 90s.
Except there isn't, as i already stated, unless, once again, as i already stated, if we're talking about cultural minorities, present in particular isolated regions of both countries. Ukrainian region had significant cultural differences, only those lost its relevance when the soviet era came into place, and i've already explained why. The differences between modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are mainly political, and it becomes really apparent as soon as you compare a ukrainian to russian, and then to polish or slovakian.
Until you point out the concrete differences on which basis "ethnic cleansing" could be commensed, your point will sound ridiculous to me, born ukrainian, who happened to be friends with individuals from far west and far east both of Ukraine and Russia, as well i hapen to be aquainted with some belarussians and kazakhs. I also did visit Moscow before the shit stirred, lived in Czechia, and been to Poland after. I think i have some credibility on the topic of modern slavic cultures and their differences, thank you very much.
Your argument about "ethnic cleansing" is not even remotely representative of my observed reality. If it was the case, there would've been family tree investigations on the whole ukrainian territory, concentration camps as all people from investigated regions would've been suspended, and so on. Cities like Kharkiv, Odessa, or Dnipro would've also been "cleansed" just as the Ukrainian far east supposedly was, those regions had voted for Yanukovich in their majority after all, and people there also primarily speak russian.
Nobody seemed to "cleanse" them, until the "valiant Russian military" came and did it first tho. And that was despite Kremlins agenda about the need to defend russian speakers no matter in what part of the world they live. People freely fled the eastern regions since the very start of armed conflicts as well, and the ukrainian government was aiding them at that.
Regarding the nationality, those movements are irrelevant to what i've said. Both imperialism and national liberation should not exist. First is cancerous and exploitative in its nature, second is based on a fictional idea of nationality and leads to nothing more than poverty and infighting after the liberation part is done.
Let me repeat myself, nationalism is a tool of tribalism, and tribalism leads to disasters. See modern Ukraine, modern Russia, modern US, the whole deal with Kosovo or the Nagorno-Korabakh conflict.
And where nationalism isn't a disaster yet, it results in bigotry and prejudice. See eastern-european countries like Czech Republic or Poland.
Liberating countries only seems like a great idea on paper, only, without the proper economic conditions being met, the result is always far from beneficial. Post-soviet countries or Balkans are great examples. "We have nothing to eat, our country has no means of economical growth, but at least we have our fantasy about how we first came to be independent, and it really unites us" ~ uggh, thanks no thanks, keep this shit to yourself. It's degenerative and outright harmful to think in those categories, or instill such thinking onto others, and gives of "divide and conquer" type of narrative. People are people, and should be treated as such first and foremost. If you deceive them "for the greater good", or because sovereignity on some imaginary basis is morally correct in your book, that just makes you a manipulative cunt, treating people as means to an end.
National division ceases to exist only if everyone is emancipated, which is not possible. Unless the state is large enough to have all the resources to not only achieve its emancipation, but also prolong it indefinitely, it is inherently dependent on others, which in turn leads to power imbalance, therefore conflicts on that basis, which in turn, leads to tribalistic behaviour. In modern doctrine that amounts to rises of nationalistic ideologies in such regions.
And once again, you don't sound persuasive, if all you can is to insist for me to read some book, without ability to provide sufficient arguments yourself. A reference without citation is worthless, and cannot be considered a counter-thesis. Such behaviour only makes me think, that you prefer blindly accepting any information presented by authoritative-enough source, to applying critical thinking and analysis of said information yourself.
I, for one, won't ever recommend a book to a rando on the internet, unless directly asked to do so. Especially if we're talking about politics and worldviews. The world is constantly changing,but the books don't. They where written in a certain context, for people that existed inside of that context. They are nothing more than a dead knowledge of the past with not necessarily correct world's perception of the author layered on top, and they should be treated as such. Meaning, while reading a text we should always compare the depicted reality with the observed one. Otherwise you're just falling into dogmatism.
If this wasn't the case for you, you'd be able to provide sufficient reasoning yourself based on pure logic and observed information. Instead, you're spouting the same bs about ethnic cleansing third time in a row, completely ignoring my counter-arguments, as well as defending the need for practicing the ideology that should be history in our modern globalistic society, purely because it serves as a tool of political manipulation, and is suggested as such by some book.
Again, having a shared land, history, culture, and language is enough to form a distinct nation. Simply claiming that imperialism shouldn't exist doesn't mean that it doesn't, and national liberation using Vietnam as an example is progressive in the context of freeing Vietnam from colonialism. Nationalism in the US perpetuates imperialism, nationalism in Vietnam works towards ending it. It doesn't matter how much you don't want nations to exist, they will until imperialism is ended and global socialism is achieved, and as such we need to first end imperialism, where nationalism in the imperialized countries is a useful tool.
Incorrect.
In the Soviet Union, the working class was in control of the state, and brought with it genuine democracy (see Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan). The state indeed, wielded by the working classes, suppressed bourgeois and fascist counter-revolution. Belarus is not a "victim of Russian imperialism."
The modern Russian Federation is indeed run by right-wing nationalists, but Russia itself has a platry sum of finance capital, no colonies nor neocolonies, and is largely run on its own industrial production and export of energy and fuel.
None of this has anything to do with imperialism thus far.
Territorial expansion itself is not imperialism. In the case of the Soviet Union, territorial expansion was in the form of a multinational federation of socialist states. In Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk requested support from Russia and voted to join the Russian Federation in response to the far-right Banderite regime in Kiev ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Neither of these are examples of imperialism thus far.
An unintentional famine is not "economic exploitation," nor did the soviet union "exploit other eastern bloc countries." The RSFSR was the most developed in the USSR, but it did not do so via underdeveloping the other eastern bloc countries.
None of this is imperialism thus far.
Marxism-Leninism is indeed correct, so spreading it was a good thing. Modern day Russia is more socially reactionary and indeed is run by right-wing nationalists, but this alone is not imperialism.
None of this is imperialism thus far.
No it is not. BRICS is made up of global south countries breaking free of imperialism, NATO is made up of the world's imperialist powers and uses its hard power to maintain their plunder.
This is nothing.
I have spoken to people that lived in the USSR, and they paint a very different picture. The picture they paint agrees with the sources I gave you already, that the soviet union was run by the working classes. There was no "new class" that emerged, but instead a buildup of state power to protect the gains of socialism against imperialism and sabateurs.
Belarus is not a colony just because they trade with Russia. You need to provide evidence for your claims.
There was no empire, for starters, and further the Polish People's Republic was progressive for its time, its fall a tragedy.
I do, likely better than you.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Correct. Quotations and an emoji aren't a point.
There was no empire. Trade existed, as did a socialist economy characterized by central planning, which also meant Poland and the Czech Republic, etc got a lot of "free stuff" in return.
I'm not skipping any of it, but if you must have more information, Prague in 1968 was a fascist uprising. There were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about “democracy” or “freedom” is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.
War is not inherently imperialism, like how Russia is currently responding to requests for aid from Donetsk and Luhansk, and isn't trying to colonize Ukraine.
I ignored nothing. I suspect that you feel that because I didn't often name exactly that which I was responding to that it means that I ignored it, but in fact it's all there. It's you who is selectively ignoring what I say to further your anti-communist agenda.
Soviet Union was democratic and never authoritarian, unlike USA and it's European vassals. Neither is Russian Federation.
Russia defending ethnic Russians in breakaway republics from genocide at hands of Right Wing Ukrainian regime isn't "imperialism"
What's that Holodomor hoax you're mentioning here and how was it "economic exploitation"?
The last paragraph is projection right? Afterall, America and it's vassals do try to show themselves as not being right wing Authoritarian regimes but fail miserably.
And how is an economic cooperation union like BRICS "imperialistic" like NATO?
The USSR was authoritarian, but in a proletarian manner. It had to exert great effort to keep proletarian power going. It was a dramatic expansion in democracy, but we shouldn't pretend it didn't use state power to protect itself and the gains it made. Instead, we should question what it truly means to be "authoritarian."
While i agree about the USSR being democratic, i'd like to know on what basis you state that USA or EU isn't democratic.
As well as i'd like to know, on what base you assume that holodomor is a hoax.
But there is no such thing as "Russian Imperialism". Atleast it defending itself by preventing it's American vassal neighbours from becoming American bases isn't imperialism.
except they don't really. Since the Russian-Ukrainian war had started, Finland had joined nato. Doesn't seem like Russia gives a fuck.
On every parley Russia demands of Ukraine to surrender its eastern territories. What this has to do with nato bases? If it was as simple as you suggest, peace would've been already negotiated.
I think saying that Russia engaged in war because they wanted to defend themselves is at least partially wrong, as at least one of the actual reasons seems to be the resources that where discovered in eastern Ukraine in the 2000s.
Projection