this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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Inventing Reality
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When the media decides who you are rooting for.
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I think we've reached a fix point and just circling an irreducible disagreement. I guess the theoretical question (to which I have no answer) would be "at what point does a large peripheral power cross the threshold to becoming a small imperialist?".
I am also profoundly in disagreement with your "total global hegemony" category, because to me that looks like replacing an abstract category (imperialism) with a concrete (US/NATO) which at this point gets us into Marxist metaphysics.
But I'll leave it at that because I have other things to do. Maybe you're right and revisiting Lenin should be one of those. At any rate thanks for an engaging discussion that went way above the idiotic mudslinging that I was responding to.
I think it's pretty easy to look at it in terms of classes. In Russia, the nationalist bourgeoisie are in power, and because of the lack of capital export as a driving factor, there is practically no imperialist bourgeoisie in Russia. Meanwhile, the west is driven entirely by imperialism, this is how their economies perpetuate. In a conflict between nationalists and imperialists, the nationalists are the more progressive force, which is why the ML line is in critical support for Russia.
Even when Russia wins, they do not have the ability to translate this into imperialism. They can try, but the south is already developing beyond the point where they can be taken advantage of as easily. The rise in south-south trade has resulted in development, whereby imperialism is eroding. Russia's weakening of NATO supremacy assists in national liberation movements in the global south, such as in the Alliance of Sahel States.