chapotraphouse

https://redsails.org/discours-sur-le-colonialisme/

First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is [assaulted] and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and “interrogated,” all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.

And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss.

People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind — it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.

Cesaire's use of the imperial boomerang is why I don't support any war but class war. The soldiers will come home to take jobs as cops or become mercenaries. The technology and weapons will proliferate as new tools of state oppression. Whatever people became okay with doing over there, they're now comfortable doing it at home. The domestic political landscape warps to become the war machine in a country now filled with Freikorps.

I'm less optimistic when it comes to things like this, because it sounds your friend has hit the snag of national chauvinism. My experience is that's the one thing preventing most westerners from adopting a fully communist and/or anti-imperialist worldview, and I don't know if it's something you can just talk a person out of.

The meat of it is that westerners don't view people outside the western core as fully human. People outside the core aren't seen as completely capable of making their own decisions, thoughts, or they don't have legitimate struggles. The view is that all people outside the core truly wish to be subjects of the core and the only reason they wouldn't is because they're brainwashed by a dictator or they lack the capacity to reason.

How do you break this spell? Only thing I've seen that works is random experiences and self-directed study. The person has to want to see the first-world's enemies as people and they have to have curiosity about them. I've never seen someone simply get talked out of it. It's by far the most deeply rooted brain worm in the western mind. I see it time and time again. Even if a Westerner is able to overcome their bigotry against queer people, or ethnic minorities, or even declare themselves against capitalism, the final step is almost always recognizing a global struggle and recognizing that people outside of Europe and North America actually are people with legitimate considerations.

There was a good metaphor someone on Xiaohongshu had regarding military invasions for “liberation”: “an egg cracked from outside will just be a runny mess, but an egg cracked from the inside will be a new chick.” The track record for military engagements as the aggressor producing better outcomes for the target country are extremely poor: Iraq (both times), Afghanistan (both times), Libya, Korea, Vietnam.

The current Ukrainian-Russian conflict looks different on the surface level as Russia invaded Ukraine and so it looks like supporting Ukraine isn’t an aggressor move but just supporting a country against an aggressor. This is why it’s important to look at vital historical contexts, that Russia’s attack is a response to western talk/threats of Ukraine joining NATO and western “joint military exercises” in Ukraine. Not to mention the repression of ethnic Russians in the separatist regions. One of the things that’s satisfying to do morally but just leads to bad analysis is treating foreign leadership that’s seen as antagonistic like they’re cartoon villains that do evil for evil’s sake. Like Putin is going to throw god knows how many Russian lives and resource down the drain to try and conquer Europe because he just loves evil and power so much. So western involvement is only going to amplify that Russian sense of threat from the West. And that’s the biggest that Western baby leftists often have to overcome is understanding that western, imperialist armies don’t just make mistakes, they’re mostly in the wrong.

I am struggling with this problem too. My main strategy is to start by questioning the basic belief that Russia aims to go to war and conquer Europe. There is no material basis to believe that this is something Russia wants to do, plans to do, or can do. To achieve this you also need to persuade the person that in the war in Ukraine Russia is acting in response to American/atlanticist provocation. This means distinguishing between the military aggression of Russia with its defensive strategy. If you persuade the person of this, then they need to find a new explanation why the EU wants to increase arm productions. If a defensive war with Russia is not imminent then why do they want to spend money for war?

I think the main problem in addressing this issue and answering this question is acknowledging the content of actually existing imperialism as it is shaped today. This is the biggest hurdle that western leftists have to go through in developing as leftists and Marxists. The person/friend needs to acknowledge that the present state of things is that the "west" has set up a concrete world order such that it (primarily its capitalist class) exploits the rest of humanity, but right now this capitalist class is worried this arrangement is weakening. Imperialism is not an abstraction (that the west but also China and Russia engage in) but a concrete reality. When western leaders (be it Europeans, or Americans) talk about "beating" or "defeating" China or Russia, this should not be understood as winning a competition among equals (whether in the battlefield or in the markets) but as beating back to submission subordinate people who dare to raise their head. This is very difficult to convince people in the west, because the real content of western propaganda is to convince them exactly of the opposite, that Putin/Xi are aggressive, dangerous, dictators and not politicians who simply try to improve the position of concrete classes in their societies (and this is where the discussions on free speech, citizens rights, LGBTQ+/minority rights are used as instruments of imperialism). Just so happens today I saw this article from Jason Hickel that is on this theme especially about China. If they are convinced of this, then you need to persuade them that China/Russia not only never claim that they wants to take the role the west has today, but they simply cannot for concrete material reasons.

This is my experience with your problem. Many of the readings suggested in this thread are excellent and useful and engage in the things my answer is summarizing.

I'm probably not the best person to answer. But the simple answer is that war always hurts the poor and working class, and always enriches the already rich. The people getting conscripted, evacuated from their homes and living in refugee camps, trying to survive near a warzone, etc, they're all proles. Middle class and above have gotten the fuck aware from the war zone, they're probably sipping cocktails on some beach resort overseas. I think everyone from communists to chuds understand that war profiteering is a big cause of war; rich people are going to make it big selling some weapon or service to the military at far inflated prices.

Also the stated reasons for the war don't affect us poor people in any way. My country gaining or losing a bit of territory has zero effect upon my quality of life. But me and my love ones dying as soldiers or civilian casualties definitely will.

This takes a bit more left understanding to grasp: but the ones advocating for war, the media and politicians, are just tools for the bourgeoisie. The focused group tested, well rehearsed reasons are their reasons, not our reasons.

evil Russia conquering part of Europe

Lots of people believe this, but it's silly. If Russia is requiring years and tons of treasure just to retake Donbas, there's no fathomable way that Russia could conquer and occupy say Eastern Europe. And what does Russia have to gain from turning Europe into a graveyard of Russians and non-Russians just so they retake Finland or something, with a 100% hostile population.

Capitalism requires constant growth to survive, yet the entire world is now part of a capitalist economy. The only way for markets to expand is to break things so capitalists can profit from rebuilding. War becomes very profitable then, because all the destruction creates new opportunities that wouldn't have been available before. First and obviously, weapons manufacturing has been making massive profits from Ukraine. Secondly point to Trump's mineral deal, where the government was so weak it agreed to humiliating terms that give away 50% of their natural resources for more military support. Similarly, Ukraine was made to open up it's agricultural land to big corporations to sell. Post socialist states are the biggest targets for war profiteering because often they have some government control over key economic resources, which capitalists would love to open to the private sector. Iraq is another example of destroying a country so the capitalists can get fire sale prices.

Most of the world—the Global South—is poor, because they are colonized by the Global North. That is the sole purpose of the North's wars.

Wealth flows from the Global South to the Global North to the tune of trillions of dollars a year, and the wealth gap between the North and South continues to grow despite liberal cheerleading to the contrary. Most progress against poverty has occurred in China, while elsewhere progress stagnates. Maybe send him the yellow Parenti lecture—"poor countries are not underdeveloped, they are over-exploited."

Then tie it back to Russia and China:

Tell him about Niger, one of the world's poorest nations despite a wealth of material resources. In 2023 they finally overthrew their west-aligned government, rejected US and French military presence, and pivoted to Russia as a security partner. Niger now plans to nationalize their uranium production, retaining those profits to provide for their own people. Russia and China threaten the dominance of the US and Europe, which threatens the profits they can extract from nations like Niger.

Tell him about China's Belt and Road Initiative, which threatens the West's imperial project on a global scale. Wars against Russia and Iran—and Iran's axis of resistance throughout the Middle East—are part of a broader effort to not only prop up the petrodollar but also isolate China, stop China's Belt and Road Initiative, and arrest China's rising dominance. The genocide in Palestine serves this purpose. Israel functions as a US military outpost to dominate the region, and Palestinian resistance threatens that role.

As others here have mentioned, Russia views the war in Ukraine as a defensive war against NATO encroachment. And America knows this. US analysts have predicted for decades that Ukraine joining NATO would be a red line for Russia. Biden himself, earlier in his career, said as much (sorry, I can't find my source for this). They're doing it anyway, because they want to bankrupt and overextend Russia in order to weaken China, in order to protect their dominance over the poor nations of the world.

Russia has neither the desire nor the ability to conquer Europe. More generally, the west's wars are never, ever defensive. Your friend needs to understand this.

Not sure why you think wars are bad.

From Lenin: Lecture on “The Proletariat and The War”, October 1(14) 1914:

For a Marxist clarifying the nature of the war is a necessary preliminary for deciding the question of his attitude to it. But for such a clarification it is essential, first and foremost, to establish the objective conditions and concrete circumstances of the war in question. It is necessary to consider the war in the historical environment in which it is taking place, only then can one determine one’s attitude to it. Otherwise, the resulting interpretation will be not materialist but eclectic.

Depending on the historical circumstances, the relationship of classes, etc., the attitude to war must be different at different times. It is absurd once and for all to renounce participation in war in principle. On the other hand, it is also absurd to divide wars into defensive and aggressive. In 1848, Marx hated Russia, because at that time democracy in Germany could not win out and develop, or unite the country into a single national whole, so long as the reactionary hand of backward Russia hung heavy over her.

In order to clarify one’s attitude to the present war, one must understand how it differs from previous wars, and what its peculiar features are.

…

The present war is an imperialist one, and that is its basic feature.

In order to clarify this, it is necessary to examine the nature of previous wars, and that of the imperialist war.

Lenin dwelt in considerable detail on the characteristics of wars at the end of the 18th and during the whole of the 19th centuries. They were all national wars, which accompanied and promoted the creation of national states.

These wars marked the destruction of feudalism, and were an expression of the struggle of the new, bourgeois society against feudal society. The national state was a necessary phase in the development of capitalism. The struggle for the self-determination of a nation, for its independence, for freedom to use its language, for popular representation, served this end—the creation of national states, that ground necessary at a certain stage of capitalism for the development of the productive forces.

…

An imperialist war is quite a different matter. On this point, there was no disagreement among the socialists of all countries and all trends. At all congresses, in discussing resolutions on the attitude to a possible war, everyone was always agreed that this war would be an imperialist one. All European countries have already reached an equal stage in the development of capitalism, all of them have already yielded everything that capitalism can yield. Capitalism has already attained its highest form, and is no longer exporting commodities, but capital. It is beginning to find its national framework too small for it, and now the struggle is on for the last free scraps of the earth. If national wars in the 18th and 19th centuries marked the beginning of capitalism, imperialist wars point to its end.

The whole end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were filled with imperialist policy.

Imperialism is what impresses a quite specific stamp on the present war, distinguishing it from all its predecessors.

Only by examining this war in its distinctive historical environment, as a Marxist must do, can we clarify our attitude to it. Otherwise we shall be operating with old conceptions and arguments, applied to a different, an old situation. Among such obsolete conceptions are the fatherland idea and the division, mentioned earlier, of wars into defensive and aggressive.

Of course, even now there are blotches of the old colour in the living picture of reality. Thus, of all the warring countries, the Serbs alone are still fighting for national existence. In India and China, too, class-conscious proletarians could not take any other path but the national one, because their countries have not yet been formed into national states. If China had to carry on an offensive war for this purpose, we could only sympathise with her, because objectively it would be a progressive war. In exactly the same way, Marx in 1848 could call for an offensive war against Russia.

And so the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th are characterised by imperialist policy.

Imperialism is that state of capitalism when, having done all that it could, it turns towards decline. It is a special epoch, not in the minds of socialists, but in actual relationships. A struggle is on for a division of the remaining portions. It is the last historical task of capitalism. We cannot say how long this epoch will last. There may well be several such wars, but there must be a clear understanding that these are quite different wars from those waged earlier, and that, accordingly, the tasks facing socialists have changed.

It is a failure of historical imagination. Getting a more thorough and nuanced understanding of history will help. Not related to this but I always hear about the USSR compared to peak liberal America. Not compared to historical contemporary Jim Crow America.

War and killing are bad. Nato is maybe bad? So if you don't know about the imperialism the math is unclear but you have one set of data points you are sure of. So you default to that direction. Without sufficient education it is hard for us in the west to really appreciate the depth of evil our empire represents.

I'm following the ideology of the new mega and increasingly understanding that leftists should be pro-war against the imperialist-fascists who always exploit peace for their benefit until they don't require it anymore. The peace the west has had since WW2 has been used to create a literal propaganda machine (LLMs), even more mass-destruction and war devices, further destroy and empty the planet of its resources, ideologically pacify millions of people and destroy unions, etc.

Maybe instead of being an imperialist who wants the downfall of a small opponent to the global hegemon they should be wanting war with the most evil people on the planet instead?

War is not always bad, as in something you must oppose any country participating in. The USSR creating a war economy to fight Nazis was good, for example. Wars for national liberation are necessary for that liberation, particularly on the timelines and in the forms needed. Every revolution becomes a war. The violence and deprivation of war is monstrous, and we do not want war, but we also cannot condemn it against our or others' liberation.

So, for example, with Ukraine, it is important to understand that this is not a war with national liberation on one side and Russian belicosity on the other. Ukraine is not sovereign, it was used by NATO powers (following a color revolution where they picked the successor government) to threaten Russia and commit ethnic cleansing against the predominately ethnic Russians in Donbas and is now being used as a toop to try to hurt and distract Russia, not liberate Ukraine. The West promoted the war and then prevented peace, disrupting early attempts to negotiate. Imperialists are now using racist scare tactics to try to increase militarization of Europe at the expense of social programs, which is to say, the material wealth of the general public. Why did NATO ppwers want to isolate and threaten Russia in the first place? Because after the illegal dissolution of the USSR, Russia was designated to be a poor and exploited country, stripped for parts by the West, and its development into a nation capable of resisting this, and becoming a regional power, is considered a threat to the general world order, as Russia is not at the imperialists' table, so its growth and actions are often opposed to those of imperialists.

This is why their logic on Ukraine is wrong. They are accepting cynical racist propaganda about Russia as part of this set of strategies.

My best success so far is to talk about war activity by EU countries over the past 80 years. What has military budget been historically used by EU countries? Invasion of Africa, bombing of the middle East, support of US military activity...

Another angle I use is to talk about the upcoming arrival of the far right to EU governments. Libs may want military budget while socdems are in power, but tell them in 2030 it's gonna be Marine LePen, AfD, Santiago Abascal and Meloni using that military.

I'd make a comparison to WW1 and the war propaganda that was spread around at the time - portraying the Germans as vicious apes, theremoved of Belgium, that kind of thing. The German army absolutely engaged in war crimes during their advance - so did basically every army during that war. Does that justify the murder of millions of people and the ruination of entire generations? Of course not, particularly when you consider that every participant in the war was a colonial empire. The same, essentially, is true of the war in Europe today. We should not be sacrificing hundreds of thousands, millions of people to this horrific war just because NATO and Russia, both neoliberal capitalist entities with imperial ambitions, are in a dick-measuring contest where the prize is the right to exploit Ukraine's resources.

There is no russia, there is no west, there are very powerful people wanting to sell a lot of bombs. It's good for business, especially if the war is far away and another country can send their children to die.

Russia is fulfilling its role as an antagonist for the scene they want you to believe in. It's a scarecrow. Yeltsin was in the white house a few day before they coup'ed the USSR. Nationalist russia is gonna go to war because it's what nationalists country do.