HAVANA (AP) — Four Russian warships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, will arrive in Havana next week, Cuban officials said Thursday, citing “historically friendly relations”…
I don’t. Not if it necessitates an alliance with distinctly and vocally anti communist and fascist regimes. I will not “critically support comrade Hitler.”
Thats so sick, Cuba should also reject all aid from Russia because they have different ruling ideologies? With comrades like these, who needs the fascists?
It’s called an analogy. Zionism is colonial imperialism, America is colonial imperialism. But sure, tap out with your moral superiority intact and your communist movements splintered and useless
What fucking communist movement are you talking about. Putin is not a communist, the current ruling party of Russia was built in the fucking forges of US neoliberalism, they are shaped directly in the image of the Chicago boys and influenced by American conservatism including adoption US culture war bullshit and American Clintonian thinktank liberalism.
Comparing them to opposition to genocide is farcical, calling them communists is downright insulting to any communist. What the hell.
I’m not saying we condemn Cuba uniliterally, I’m not calling for a fucking boycott of the Cuban state. I also think it’s cringe as fuck when Chinese government spokesmen say shit like “Sweden is a model for how to build real socialism :)” as did most others here, but no one was dumb enough to interpret that as a call for opposing China.
You know what’s gonna improve Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Palestine, North Korea, and all the other places liberals hate? Being pillaged by American and western European capitalists (in the case of Russia, being pillaged again). That definitely won’t create the type of crisis that’s perfect for promoting fascism.
You’re right, if you’re worried about fascism you should definitely oppose an alliance between Russia and Cuba.
Less sarcastically, I don’t know how old you are, but I’m old enough to remember seeing what the west did to the people of the Soviet Union. I know what they’re up to and the people of Russia, regardless of they’re government, do not deserve to go through that again. This is a world the US made, not Russia. If you don’t like capitalist restoration Russia you seriously need to ask if anything else is realistically possible in a world where they have to coexist with the US.
I’m learning that this place will excuse anything, including the violent suppression of communist by fascist movements and the US state department, as long as they can own the libs on the internet.
The Russian state did not have to turn out this way. This was not an inevitability. It took work and years and years of effort by the shittiest human being imaginable to make it the way it is now. It is not excusable to spend 30 years suppressing workers and building yourself into exactly what the US wants you to be because the US has a lot of power to make communism difficult. If the Cubans right now gave up on the workers movement and embraced anti communism, neoliberal capitalism and reintroduced limits on minority rights, that would be a tremendous loss, not some kind of inevitable thing we should just shrug off because “well it’s easier to do that and you don’t want them to face what they did when the US was more actively suppressing them do you”.
If you aren’t going to engage with what we’re saying regarding the necessity of what the Cuban government is doing, or even reckon with the historical realities of why Russia is the way it is, perhaps you would at least like to tell us what alternatives you see. Recall again this is all in the context of a world domimated by a hegemonic hyper-militarized state with nearly-unmitigated strike capacity that has proven itself eminently hostile to both governments.
I think there’s a side in this discussion not reckoning with the historical reality of what Russia is, and it isn’t me. It really, really, really isn’t me.
If you think the presence of Russia in a place will stop the US from interfering and trying to overthrow or remove that regime, you have not been following along. A Russian ship isn’t going to stop the US from embargoing them, it’s not going to stop them from trying to overthrow the country if they want to. Russian troops or deals with Russia haven’t stopped the US from doing so with any other latin american countries in the last decade.
I don’t presume to know or be able to accurately strategize for the perfect thing to do. I don’t even necessarily oppose whatever Cuba is doing, since I don’t know what Cuba is planning against. I just know that relying on Russia has proven to not work, and I don’t like their government. If the Cubans find this to be the best option that’s obviously their choice, but I still won’t critically support comrade hitler.
Honest question from a non-communist, based on your reply here. Does one need to support Putin to be a Marxist?
In a word, no. In a few more words, support for Russia (not Putin, as historical materialists don’t subscribe to great man theory) is only a partial, temporary, tactical one, in the context of imperialist liberation. Russia is still a capitalist state, though, so it’s a two stage strategy: first liberate colonized bourgeois states from colonizer states, and second revolution within those liberated bourgeois states.
Russia is an interesting case: it has already liberated itself from the post-Soviet “shock therapy” neocolonizers. This occurred during Putin’s administration, which is why he is especially hated by the US. So now the support for Russia is in the context of keeping the colonizers from recolonizing it, and supporting Russia to the extent that it helps other states liberate themselves. But Russia isn’t trying to “liberate” Ukraine, at least not all of Ukraine. It’s trying to resolve the genocidal attacks on the people of the Donbas, and it’s trying to resolve the imperialist military expansion at its border.
I’m learning that this place will excuse anything, including the violent suppression of communist by fascist movements and the US state department, as long as they can own the libs on the internet.
Ask me how I know you’re going to make a post that sums up to this in like two thousand words, with shittily-cited quotations and at least one outright plagiarization, to either lemm.ee, sh.itjust.works, or lemmy.world the minute you eventually catch your ban from this fed.
This whole thread has been most garbage take I’ve ever seen a Hexbear user account of any significant vintage make. It’s like you have almost no understanding of imperialism/colonialism or of “critical support” for bourgeois nationalist movements against them. Almost everyone here disagrees with you, as do many people of the Global South, who also align with and significantly support Russia against the imperial core.
This whole thread has been most garbage take I’ve ever seen a Hexbear user account of any significant vintage make.
bud you should’ve seen the wild shit that’s been said here in the past 4 years, this is somewhat mild in comparison. Like slightly underripe jalapeño spicy.
See, I keep most people who shill for CPUSA blocked based on having grown sick of arguments over that org’s predilection for tailism and how preachy about assimilationism some of its Black cadre have been-- what the hell’s been going on this time?
Oh jesus fucking christ not even ten comments down and I can tell this is gonna be some hot dogwater, thanks for keeping me in the loop tho
“I understand others might disagree, but we gained a few new members upon that speech, just by it alone.”
Mf got coons, minstrels, uncle Toms, and other assorted waterbearers for cracker genocide and started two-steppin like his gang of collaborators did shit smfh 🙄 Now I think about it you right; I HAVE argued with him before and he was JUST as obstinate then
All true statements made by some sort of genius.
Half the posts here have just been calling me an idiot, and I am not going to be shamed into falling in line. Therefore, “I’m right and you’re wrong”.
Even the USSR allied with England and the US to defeat Hitler, and the CPC allied with the KMT to defeat Japan. So what is your point here? I trust the Cuban leadership on Cuban military affairs way more than some guy with an internet connection.
This analogy doesn’t work unless you believe Cuba is currently close to being invaded. This is a geopolitical alignment, not an alliance of desperation against a genocidal threat.
Cuba sees aligning with Russia as preferable to isolation, it is not gearing up for a potential war with the US.
The embrace of fascism by its ruling political party, the fascist political structure, the fact that it’s built in the image of another fascist state (Namely the US), its embrace of anti-communism, anti-minority (whether those be gender and sexual minorities or religious and ethnic minorities), all the fucking nazis and fascists involved with or connected to the ruling party.
Is this place doing a bit right now?
When did it become fascist?
Somewhere around the time Yeltsin took power, did away with the soviet union and any communist project, suppressed left wing resistance to this. And I would say the fascist didn’t end when he then handed power over to the guy who is still in charge being a fascist and basically doing the exact same thing more competently.
I’m not going to hide the ball. My point is that fascism is more than just “country has a long-term ruler the U.S. doesn’t like.”
The embrace of fascism by its ruling political party, the fascist political structure, the fact that it’s built in the image of another fascist state
These are circular – “it’s fascist because it’s fascist” –
and the last two are the same point. It’s not the formal structure of a government that makes it fascist, either; the actions of the government matter more than the words in the constitution.
its embrace of anti-communism
Getting closer, but this doesn’t fit the facts. Russia’s second-largest party is the Communist Party. While Russia, as a capitalist state, is hostile to communism, it’s less hostile than any Western European state, to say nothing of the U.S., and it’s nowhere close to your classic examples of fascism like Nazi Germany, Pinochet’s Chile, the ROC, the ROK, etc.
anti-minority (whether those be gender and sexual minorities or religious and ethnic minorities)
Painting with far too broad of brush. Every country on the planet has work to do on treating all minority populations fairly, and most have had explicitly anti-minority policies in the recent past. These are reactionary policies and bad, but there’s a far cry between that and fascism. Was Cuba fascist before its new Family Code was passed? Is the U.S. not fascist if a queer woman can become a drone pilot?
all the fucking nazis and fascists involved with or connected to the ruling party
There are Nazi elements present in every capitalist country. Is every non-AES state fascist? Seems reductive.
I’m not going to argue this unless you can provide me a definition of fascism (I.e. not "Must call their ruling party “The fascist party”) that is useful and doesn’t include the Russian government.
Actually let me rephrase:
Come up with a definition that includes Chile, the RoC under the KMT, South Korea, et al, but does not include Russia.
Such a definition does not exist, and cannot exist. Classic definitions of fascism promulgated by people like Robert Paxton fit Russia, definitions of fascism like a decaying capitalist state run by a bourgeois lashing promulgated by people like Clara Zetkin fit Russia, definitions like Dmitrov’s definition of fascism as the most reactionary forces of finance capitalism having control over the capitalist state fit Russia.
But apparently Russia isn’t fascist because fascism is more than just being fascist.
The problem with most definitions of fascism is that they apply in one degree or another to virtually every capitalist country. This is especially true if one plays a little loose with the facts, or isn’t careful about what governmental actions are common vs. exceptional. And reducing it to fascism = capitalism is unhelpful for a half dozen ways.
I’d define fascism by two characteristics:
The state is ran nominally on behalf of capital, but capital is ultimately subject to the whims of the state. Contrast this with socialism, where capital is similarly under state control, but the state is ran on behalf of the people, and also with capitalism, where capital is both the main beneficiary and is completely running the show. Imagine a wealthy capitalist who displeases the state. Under fascism, the state is ultimately in charge: it can arrest or even execute the capitalist on any or no charges, seize property, etc. Under capitalism, capitalists have strong protections against the state – rich guy justice – and unhappy capitalists can and do depose unsatisfactory state actors. A capitalist state has to please its capitalist masters; a fascist state may play nice with capitalists, but the state is the master.
State repression is at an advanced, ubiquitous stage, where it’s more of an affirmative policy than a response against opponents. This is the “imperialism fully coming home to roost” part of fascism. Internal repressive institutions aren’t occasionally dipping into grotesque tactics; it’s now standard operating procedure. Seeking out and destroying (not merely harassing) internal enemies is an affirmative, constant mandate of these institutions, not something they kick into high gear during a crisis. The mandate to destroy (again, not merely harass) internal enemies far exceeds the legitimate police functions of the state (e.g., pursuing crimes that nearly any state would prosecute).
For 1, I think Russian capitalists still have plenty of power and control over the Russian state. For 2, I don’t think internal repression in Russia is anywhere near the scale and severity of, for instance, the White Terror under the ROC or the disappearing of prisoners in the Southern Cone regimes of the Cold War.
That would be an interesting definition of fascism, but it fails the test of including regimes that were listed as fascist.
Pinochet’s Chile was very clearly in a situation where national and international capitalists were making decisions and where much of Pinochet’s power was reliant on the support of international (Particularly US) capital interests and national capitalists who could and did flaunt the laws of the state.
I’m more shaky on the RoC but from my understanding there basically was no state power except sending in the military to knock heads occasionally, parts of that country were entirely run by corporations, parts of it were run by regional warlords, parts of it had functionally no government. Very few people were actually subject to the state, and the forces of capital in particular were not subject to much state power. Ownership of production, military power and state functionary tasks blended together and were often held by the same people who tended towards embracing profit motives. Although I will admit my knowledge of the RoC is limited and I might be misunderstanding.
As for the RoK, that was fully a subject state to US capital interests.
I’m also pretty sure the US is considered fascist in this particular discussion (Or at least that was my understanding), and I think the US capitalist class is kind of uniquely powerful.
If we are to set up a very restrictive definition of fascism, that one would be a worthy one to consider. But I don’t think it’s a correct or useful one for this particular discussion given our previous inclusions of other regimes that do not fit within it.
It is certainly one that would fit for a lot of traditional 20th century fascist powers, and one with a very clear outlook on what is being discussed.
Pinochet’s Chile was very clearly in a situation where national and international capitalists were making decisions and where much of Pinochet’s power was reliant on the support of international (Particularly US) capital interests and national capitalists who could and did flaunt the laws of the state.
Do you know of any examples of capitalists having a genuine conflict with Pinochet and winning? I don’t, because I don’t think there were many conflicts between those two parties to begin with.
I suppose you could look at Chile, the ROC, and the ROK as neocolonies instead of relatively weak fascist states, but then you could describe a colony as a weaker fascist client of the metropole, too.
I’m also pretty sure the US is considered fascist
I’d say it’s capitalist (it would be a lot easier for Jeff Bezos to get rid of Joe Biden than the other way around, so it fails condition 1) but imperialist (comfortable doing fascism abroad). As bad as its internal repressive institutions are, they’re still far from the scale and severity of governments most would label fascist. Would fascist police bother with body cams and similar reforms?
Looking at this the other way: what definition of fascism includes Russia, but doesn’t also include almost every capitalist country?
Do you know of any examples of capitalists having a genuine conflict with Pinochet and winning? I don’t, because I don’t think there were many conflicts between those two parties to begin with.
I mean his attempt to stay in power? He lost enough influence that he lost his role and was not only unable to maintain the military rule, but was unable to maintain any official role within the state despite his attempt to.
Isn’t that pretty explicitly him losing a conflict with his bourgeois backers?
Or would that not qualify (And if so what specifically would qualify?)
Looking at this the other way: what definition of fascism includes Russia, but doesn’t also include almost every capitalist country?
I don’t have a totally cogent and empirical definition, but I tend to agree with Franz Neumann (Well, the Chavismo reading of Neumann) that fascism is a conspiracy by big business and government. Where the interests of capital and the interests of the state in the face of crisis blend together and form a united front that rather than face the crisis begin to oppose their “common enemy” the proletariat and the “proletariatized”, through a call to action that seeks to rally the population under a reactionary banner that still remains elitist even if the movement is supposedly a popular one.
Which is a fairly broad definition and you could include many capitalist regimes in that (If you can call a group of people “Oligarchs” without irony you’re halfway there). The US would certainly qualify, as would Israel and the UK. On the other hand states like China, Venezuela, Cuba, et al obviously don’t. Most states that still have vestiges of Keynesianism or developmental capitalism at least try to address their crises and so may escape, and others give no pretext to a popular movement and are essentially despotic or aristocratic without necessarily being fascist (But are certainly fascist adjacent. Like I’m not gonna complain if someone calls Saudi Arabia fascist, even if I don’t think it technically qualifies)
Edit: also of course this definition imo does include the RoC with the KMT (Who at least tried to become a popular nationalist movement, and who did respond to crisis by blending together capital and state and going after anyone but the problem), Pinochet’s Chile, and I’m not entirely sure about worst korea but it would at least be fascist adjacent.
I’m more shaky on the RoC but from my understanding there basically was no state power except sending in the military to knock heads occasionally, parts of that country were entirely run by corporations, parts of it were run by regional warlords, parts of it had functionally no government. Very few people were actually subject to the state, and the forces of capital in particular were not subject to much state power. Ownership of production, military power and state functionary tasks blended together and were often held by the same people who tended towards embracing profit motives. Although I will admit my knowledge of the RoC is limited and I might be misunderstanding.
I mean the ROC during the Warlord Era functionally wasn’t even a state, let along a capitalist state. Unless you want to give fascism a transhistorical character (ie you want to speak of “Carolingian fascism” or call Julius Caesar a fascist), it doesn’t make sense to call ROC fascist. The understanding of Chinese academia is that the particular mode of production that China had during the Century of Humiliation, of which the Warlord Era was a latter stage of it, was semi-feudal semi-colonial. Thus, it cannot be fascist by the vast majority of Marxist definitions which explicitly specifies that the mode of production has to be capitalist. Otherwise, we can spend an eternity arguing whether Kublai Khan was fascist or whether Cyrus the Great was fascist.
Now, if you’re talking about the ROC declaring martial law in Taiwan after getting kicked out of the Mainland by the PLA, eh. I think it’s more Bonapartist than fascist. Taiwanese finance capitalists didn’t exist at that time since Taiwan was previously a Japanese colony, and at any case, Chiang Kai-Shek wasn’t going to rely on a bunch of benshengren capitalists who collaborated with the Japanese when his power base was waishengren ex-landlords who fled with him. Chiang Kai-Shek also introduced “land reform” where he expropriated land from benshengren landlord collaborators and gave the land to waishengren landlords had their land expropriated by the the CPC.
Minimizing the holocaust with frivolous and unwarranted comparisons to Hitler are generally frowned upon. I’m not even sure you could compare Putin to Yelstin.
I don’t. Not if it necessitates an alliance with distinctly and vocally anti communist and fascist regimes. I will not “critically support comrade Hitler.”
Thats so sick, Cuba should also reject all aid from Russia because they have different ruling ideologies? With comrades like these, who needs the fascists?
You forget that the ruling ideology here is “Fascist”. “Oh no if we don’t ally with the fascist, the fascists are gonna win”
Fuck hamas and islamic jihad, you don’t ally with Palestinian fascists to beat the zionist fascists, am I understanding your argument correctly?
I think equating Russian fascism to opposition to genocide is just comical read and I’m not gonna entertain it.
It’s called an analogy. Zionism is colonial imperialism, America is colonial imperialism. But sure, tap out with your moral superiority intact and your communist movements splintered and useless
What fucking communist movement are you talking about. Putin is not a communist, the current ruling party of Russia was built in the fucking forges of US neoliberalism, they are shaped directly in the image of the Chicago boys and influenced by American conservatism including adoption US culture war bullshit and American Clintonian thinktank liberalism.
Comparing them to opposition to genocide is farcical, calling them communists is downright insulting to any communist. What the hell.
I’m talking about Cuba in this instance. You’ve got your wires crossed
I’m not saying we condemn Cuba uniliterally, I’m not calling for a fucking boycott of the Cuban state. I also think it’s cringe as fuck when Chinese government spokesmen say shit like “Sweden is a model for how to build real socialism :)” as did most others here, but no one was dumb enough to interpret that as a call for opposing China.
You understand the Ukrainians were planning to genocide the Russian population of the Donbas right?
I don’t support Ukraine and Cuba isn’t taking part in that conflict. This is irrelevant.
Just admit you don’t know anything it’s fine.
The “fascists” is your own government. If you don’t oppose them first and foremost you are full of shit
What regime are we talking about now, the US it sounds like?
Are we doing that thing where we pretend the Soviet union is still around and Russia isn’t a fascist oligarchy squatting on its corpse?
Are you doing the liberal thing where you pretend a state becomes fascist when you hate it enough?
Oh we are, ok.
You know what’s gonna improve Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Palestine, North Korea, and all the other places liberals hate? Being pillaged by American and western European capitalists (in the case of Russia, being pillaged again). That definitely won’t create the type of crisis that’s perfect for promoting fascism.
You’re right, if you’re worried about fascism you should definitely oppose an alliance between Russia and Cuba.
Less sarcastically, I don’t know how old you are, but I’m old enough to remember seeing what the west did to the people of the Soviet Union. I know what they’re up to and the people of Russia, regardless of they’re government, do not deserve to go through that again. This is a world the US made, not Russia. If you don’t like capitalist restoration Russia you seriously need to ask if anything else is realistically possible in a world where they have to coexist with the US.
I’m learning that this place will excuse anything, including the violent suppression of communist by fascist movements and the US state department, as long as they can own the libs on the internet.
The Russian state did not have to turn out this way. This was not an inevitability. It took work and years and years of effort by the shittiest human being imaginable to make it the way it is now. It is not excusable to spend 30 years suppressing workers and building yourself into exactly what the US wants you to be because the US has a lot of power to make communism difficult. If the Cubans right now gave up on the workers movement and embraced anti communism, neoliberal capitalism and reintroduced limits on minority rights, that would be a tremendous loss, not some kind of inevitable thing we should just shrug off because “well it’s easier to do that and you don’t want them to face what they did when the US was more actively suppressing them do you”.
Is this a gpt post where the bot is prompted to be an ultra but always reach the conclusion the CIA wants
No I’m just right and that makes you mad
If you aren’t going to engage with what we’re saying regarding the necessity of what the Cuban government is doing, or even reckon with the historical realities of why Russia is the way it is, perhaps you would at least like to tell us what alternatives you see. Recall again this is all in the context of a world domimated by a hegemonic hyper-militarized state with nearly-unmitigated strike capacity that has proven itself eminently hostile to both governments.
I think there’s a side in this discussion not reckoning with the historical reality of what Russia is, and it isn’t me. It really, really, really isn’t me.
If you think the presence of Russia in a place will stop the US from interfering and trying to overthrow or remove that regime, you have not been following along. A Russian ship isn’t going to stop the US from embargoing them, it’s not going to stop them from trying to overthrow the country if they want to. Russian troops or deals with Russia haven’t stopped the US from doing so with any other latin american countries in the last decade.
I don’t presume to know or be able to accurately strategize for the perfect thing to do. I don’t even necessarily oppose whatever Cuba is doing, since I don’t know what Cuba is planning against. I just know that relying on Russia has proven to not work, and I don’t like their government. If the Cubans find this to be the best option that’s obviously their choice, but I still won’t critically support comrade hitler.
Okay, I’ll copypasta myself again:
AMAZING THAT HOURS LATER THIS IS THE ONE COMMENT NOT REPLIED TO.
Ask me how I know you’re going to make a post that sums up to this in like two thousand words, with shittily-cited quotations and at least one outright plagiarization, to either lemm.ee, sh.itjust.works, or lemmy.world the minute you eventually catch your ban from this fed.
They really did go from five month squeaky-clean modlog to permaban in one thread.
What a speedrun that was.
This whole thread has been most garbage take I’ve ever seen a Hexbear user account of any significant vintage make. It’s like you have almost no understanding of imperialism/colonialism or of “critical support” for bourgeois nationalist movements against them. Almost everyone here disagrees with you, as do many people of the Global South, who also align with and significantly support Russia against the imperial core.
bud you should’ve seen the wild shit that’s been said here in the past 4 years, this is somewhat mild in comparison. Like slightly underripe jalapeño spicy.
Lucky for me I arrived fashionably late. Thank you for terraforming the place for me o7
DONT STACK ROCKS FFS.
I think that thread was the peak for me. That or Liberal socialists continued trolling that got tolerated because they said sorry once. Power dynamics
My friend, this isn’t even the dumbest I’ve seen in the last 48 hours (thanks to the CPUSA threads)
it certainly has been one of those days… or weekends
See, I keep most people who shill for CPUSA blocked based on having grown sick of arguments over that org’s predilection for tailism and how preachy about assimilationism some of its Black cadre have been-- what the hell’s been going on this time?
In that case you’ve almost certainly blocked this person, since they’ve been doing that for a long time, but here’s the thread anyway:
https://hexbear.net/post/2730106?scrollToComments=false
Oh jesus fucking christ not even ten comments down and I can tell this is gonna be some hot dogwater, thanks for keeping me in the loop tho
Mf got coons, minstrels, uncle Toms, and other assorted waterbearers for cracker genocide and started two-steppin like his gang of collaborators did shit smfh 🙄 Now I think about it you right; I HAVE argued with him before and he was JUST as obstinate then
Holy fuck tell us how you really feel homie 🤣
Impressive really considering that I am right.
Some turbolib smuglord has taken over someone’s hexbear account is what this sounds like. Really embarrassing.
I don’t accept “Smug” as a point of criticism from this comment chain.
All true statements made by some sort of genius. Half the posts here have just been calling me an idiot, and I am not going to be shamed into falling in line. Therefore, “I’m right and you’re wrong”.
“ur mad” is a bold stance to take given how fucking mad you guys are
Even the USSR allied with England and the US to defeat Hitler, and the CPC allied with the KMT to defeat Japan. So what is your point here? I trust the Cuban leadership on Cuban military affairs way more than some guy with an internet connection.
This analogy doesn’t work unless you believe Cuba is currently close to being invaded. This is a geopolitical alignment, not an alliance of desperation against a genocidal threat. Cuba sees aligning with Russia as preferable to isolation, it is not gearing up for a potential war with the US.
Cuba is not facing an invasion but they are facing a strangling embargo, aligning with Russia is preferable than withering away in isolation.
There are connections to make that aren’t purpose made for anticommunism by the American state department
Do you seriously think they went out of there way to get Russia help with not starving and no one else? What connections are you even talking about?
Cuba should’ve sent a DM to online smart communists to lecture the president about food and energy.
Your giving me flashbacks to that stunt some of the worst DSA members pulled.
Yeah, sanctioning a tiny island and threatening the whole world to follow along in a globalized economy is not akin to genocide.
What makes Russia fascist?
When did it become fascist?
The embrace of fascism by its ruling political party, the fascist political structure, the fact that it’s built in the image of another fascist state (Namely the US), its embrace of anti-communism, anti-minority (whether those be gender and sexual minorities or religious and ethnic minorities), all the fucking nazis and fascists involved with or connected to the ruling party. Is this place doing a bit right now?
Somewhere around the time Yeltsin took power, did away with the soviet union and any communist project, suppressed left wing resistance to this. And I would say the fascist didn’t end when he then handed power over to the guy who is still in charge being a fascist and basically doing the exact same thing more competently.
I’m not going to hide the ball. My point is that fascism is more than just “country has a long-term ruler the U.S. doesn’t like.”
These are circular – “it’s fascist because it’s fascist” – and the last two are the same point. It’s not the formal structure of a government that makes it fascist, either; the actions of the government matter more than the words in the constitution.
Getting closer, but this doesn’t fit the facts. Russia’s second-largest party is the Communist Party. While Russia, as a capitalist state, is hostile to communism, it’s less hostile than any Western European state, to say nothing of the U.S., and it’s nowhere close to your classic examples of fascism like Nazi Germany, Pinochet’s Chile, the ROC, the ROK, etc.
Painting with far too broad of brush. Every country on the planet has work to do on treating all minority populations fairly, and most have had explicitly anti-minority policies in the recent past. These are reactionary policies and bad, but there’s a far cry between that and fascism. Was Cuba fascist before its new Family Code was passed? Is the U.S. not fascist if a queer woman can become a drone pilot?
There are Nazi elements present in every capitalist country. Is every non-AES state fascist? Seems reductive.
I’m not going to argue this unless you can provide me a definition of fascism (I.e. not "Must call their ruling party “The fascist party”) that is useful and doesn’t include the Russian government. Actually let me rephrase: Come up with a definition that includes Chile, the RoC under the KMT, South Korea, et al, but does not include Russia.
Such a definition does not exist, and cannot exist. Classic definitions of fascism promulgated by people like Robert Paxton fit Russia, definitions of fascism like a decaying capitalist state run by a bourgeois lashing promulgated by people like Clara Zetkin fit Russia, definitions like Dmitrov’s definition of fascism as the most reactionary forces of finance capitalism having control over the capitalist state fit Russia. But apparently Russia isn’t fascist because fascism is more than just being fascist.
The problem with most definitions of fascism is that they apply in one degree or another to virtually every capitalist country. This is especially true if one plays a little loose with the facts, or isn’t careful about what governmental actions are common vs. exceptional. And reducing it to fascism = capitalism is unhelpful for a half dozen ways.
I’d define fascism by two characteristics:
For 1, I think Russian capitalists still have plenty of power and control over the Russian state. For 2, I don’t think internal repression in Russia is anywhere near the scale and severity of, for instance, the White Terror under the ROC or the disappearing of prisoners in the Southern Cone regimes of the Cold War.
That would be an interesting definition of fascism, but it fails the test of including regimes that were listed as fascist. Pinochet’s Chile was very clearly in a situation where national and international capitalists were making decisions and where much of Pinochet’s power was reliant on the support of international (Particularly US) capital interests and national capitalists who could and did flaunt the laws of the state. I’m more shaky on the RoC but from my understanding there basically was no state power except sending in the military to knock heads occasionally, parts of that country were entirely run by corporations, parts of it were run by regional warlords, parts of it had functionally no government. Very few people were actually subject to the state, and the forces of capital in particular were not subject to much state power. Ownership of production, military power and state functionary tasks blended together and were often held by the same people who tended towards embracing profit motives. Although I will admit my knowledge of the RoC is limited and I might be misunderstanding.
As for the RoK, that was fully a subject state to US capital interests.
I’m also pretty sure the US is considered fascist in this particular discussion (Or at least that was my understanding), and I think the US capitalist class is kind of uniquely powerful.
If we are to set up a very restrictive definition of fascism, that one would be a worthy one to consider. But I don’t think it’s a correct or useful one for this particular discussion given our previous inclusions of other regimes that do not fit within it. It is certainly one that would fit for a lot of traditional 20th century fascist powers, and one with a very clear outlook on what is being discussed.
Do you know of any examples of capitalists having a genuine conflict with Pinochet and winning? I don’t, because I don’t think there were many conflicts between those two parties to begin with.
I suppose you could look at Chile, the ROC, and the ROK as neocolonies instead of relatively weak fascist states, but then you could describe a colony as a weaker fascist client of the metropole, too.
I’d say it’s capitalist (it would be a lot easier for Jeff Bezos to get rid of Joe Biden than the other way around, so it fails condition 1) but imperialist (comfortable doing fascism abroad). As bad as its internal repressive institutions are, they’re still far from the scale and severity of governments most would label fascist. Would fascist police bother with body cams and similar reforms?
Looking at this the other way: what definition of fascism includes Russia, but doesn’t also include almost every capitalist country?
I mean his attempt to stay in power? He lost enough influence that he lost his role and was not only unable to maintain the military rule, but was unable to maintain any official role within the state despite his attempt to. Isn’t that pretty explicitly him losing a conflict with his bourgeois backers?
Or would that not qualify (And if so what specifically would qualify?)
I don’t have a totally cogent and empirical definition, but I tend to agree with Franz Neumann (Well, the Chavismo reading of Neumann) that fascism is a conspiracy by big business and government. Where the interests of capital and the interests of the state in the face of crisis blend together and form a united front that rather than face the crisis begin to oppose their “common enemy” the proletariat and the “proletariatized”, through a call to action that seeks to rally the population under a reactionary banner that still remains elitist even if the movement is supposedly a popular one.
Which is a fairly broad definition and you could include many capitalist regimes in that (If you can call a group of people “Oligarchs” without irony you’re halfway there). The US would certainly qualify, as would Israel and the UK. On the other hand states like China, Venezuela, Cuba, et al obviously don’t. Most states that still have vestiges of Keynesianism or developmental capitalism at least try to address their crises and so may escape, and others give no pretext to a popular movement and are essentially despotic or aristocratic without necessarily being fascist (But are certainly fascist adjacent. Like I’m not gonna complain if someone calls Saudi Arabia fascist, even if I don’t think it technically qualifies)
Edit: also of course this definition imo does include the RoC with the KMT (Who at least tried to become a popular nationalist movement, and who did respond to crisis by blending together capital and state and going after anyone but the problem), Pinochet’s Chile, and I’m not entirely sure about worst korea but it would at least be fascist adjacent.
I mean the ROC during the Warlord Era functionally wasn’t even a state, let along a capitalist state. Unless you want to give fascism a transhistorical character (ie you want to speak of “Carolingian fascism” or call Julius Caesar a fascist), it doesn’t make sense to call ROC fascist. The understanding of Chinese academia is that the particular mode of production that China had during the Century of Humiliation, of which the Warlord Era was a latter stage of it, was semi-feudal semi-colonial. Thus, it cannot be fascist by the vast majority of Marxist definitions which explicitly specifies that the mode of production has to be capitalist. Otherwise, we can spend an eternity arguing whether Kublai Khan was fascist or whether Cyrus the Great was fascist.
Now, if you’re talking about the ROC declaring martial law in Taiwan after getting kicked out of the Mainland by the PLA, eh. I think it’s more Bonapartist than fascist. Taiwanese finance capitalists didn’t exist at that time since Taiwan was previously a Japanese colony, and at any case, Chiang Kai-Shek wasn’t going to rely on a bunch of benshengren capitalists who collaborated with the Japanese when his power base was waishengren ex-landlords who fled with him. Chiang Kai-Shek also introduced “land reform” where he expropriated land from benshengren landlord collaborators and gave the land to waishengren landlords had their land expropriated by the the CPC.
wtf Paxton’s anatomy of fascism absolutely does not apply to Russia.
Sound off all you want but read the book before citing it you wanker.
It sure does though.
Of all the definitions of fascism, Paxton’s would fit Russia the least of them.
You haven’t read it. It’s really obvious. Fuck off.
Wrongo.
Minimizing the holocaust with frivolous and unwarranted comparisons to Hitler are generally frowned upon. I’m not even sure you could compare Putin to Yelstin.
so you hate anti-imperialism got it
Horseshoes go on a horse’s feet, not in your head.
Then you are a disgrace to socialism and have failed your revolutionary duty.