I apologize for the way I asked my question, and I appreciate that so many of you took the time to respond. I am thoroughly reading your responses, and I will ask better questions in the future

As someone else put better than I, you need to free yourself of the western propaganda framing that is “authoritarianism” as a snarl word and an insult as well as a set of blinders designed to shut down critical thought and inquiry.

Was the US “authoritarian” when it installed brutal military dictatorships in south Vietnam and Korea? How about when it supported Pinochet and helped him murder leftist catholic priests? When did it stop being authoritarian hmm? Like a serial rapist was it ever doing anything but putting on an act of being good? Because deep down that’s what it is. It can pretend to be good, it can even on the surface seem to be on its best behavior but deep down it’s structurally a monster and like the serial rapist is not going to be reformed. Let me remind you Biden fully supported Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people so don’t go thinking Trump flipped a switch from good-mode to evil-mode or something. Trump just cranked the dial up a bit more on the brutality and oppression machine and got it extra revved up domestically (the red scare ring a bell? there were actually two of them, this isn’t the first time, how about after 9/11 when anyone not with Bush was a traitor and they passed the Patriot act to punch holes in the constitution and rule of law?).

One should be wary of over-simplifying but I’d be remiss not to point out the old war-time adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Obviously this isn’t always true but when fighting a unipolar hegemon that won the cold war, that has dominated the entire world ever since, that controls finance, wields dollar hegemony, sanctions as weapons against anyone who displeases it, who violates international law flagrantly without consequences, you can’t get too picky. You can be critical, you can point out that hey I heard those guys we’re temporarily allied with saying they want to knife us once we win the battle together and that’s wise and you should be critical in your head of capitalist powers who are not friends out of choice but out of necessity. Yet as long as that necessity holds they are friends. We call this critical support. We support Russia against NATO and the US, we don’t support Russia’s reactionary moves at home, their homophobia, etc.

And no, Russia cannot replace the US if it falls as an equal or worse imperialist power. US world hegemony was built directly on the legacy of centuries of European colonialism, it was cemented in a unique historical moment in 1990 with the illegal dissolution of the USSR. It was not built in other words in a year or a decade but the work of centuries, cemented by various historical events which cannot re-occur. For one China has risen and is continuing to grow in strength. This is historical materialist analysis, this is analysis based on the material realities and the historical material realities.

So yes Russia may become an enemy but for now the greed and arrogance of the west is forcing them to be our ally. Russia wanted to be an equal capitalist partner with the US over Europe and eventually other parts of the world. That would cut into profits, it couldn’t be allowed, like all large countries which cannot be easily subjugated the US slated Russia for being broken up by internal ethnic tensions, it stoked problems in Chechnya and various other regions, it started a fire in Georgia, then in Ukraine. It’s the same thing in China and Xinjiang, divide and conquer. The British used this strategy to occupy and plunder India for a hundred years, pitting various minor powers against each other, keeping Indians divided, subterfuge and shifting alliances to maintain the upper hand. Again and again Russia reached out their hand attempting to be a partner with the US and again and again the US responded by turning a blow torch on it. With Ukraine Russia may have finally learned that it is not going to happen.

See also this post and the excellent replies explaining the history behind Russia’s move in Ukraine if you haven’t already: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7357678

As others have said, you are using language that has diffused to you through propaganda or spending too much time interacting with Western news media and social media.

If you are interested in socialism/communism, you’d do well to re-examine what “authoritarian” means, as it’s nothing more than an idealist catch-all term meant to quickly dismiss any country that’s not part of the Western capitalist system.

The second thing to note, is that you should try and understand what idealism, realism and materialism mean. They are different philosophical approaches to examining and analyzing history, politics and economics. If you are interested in Marxism, you should understand that Marx was a proponent of materialism, and materialism concerns itself with material conditions (which is what most of us ascribe to here), rather than fake “morality” (idealism) or with selfish self-preservation (realism).

As an example, why do wars get started?

1. Realists would tell you that the world is a chaotic place, and that countries act out of selfish interests. If a country sees itself as being able to win a conflict with another country, and benefitting from it, then it will start the conflict. The only way to ensure peace for a realist is to ensure that an international system exists which ensures that any conflict is too costly (because of big alliances) or will result in less benefits than envisioned (due to international pressure).

2. Idealists would tell you that the world is divided into ideological camps. Countries with different ideological frameworks (political, economical, cultural, religious, etc) will always be at odds with each other and therefore will always fight each other. The only way to ensure peace is to convert everyone into the same ideological camp through any means necessary. Typically, idealists will view themselves as the “good guys” and anybody who stands outside their group as the “bad guys”. The latest evolution of this framing is the “freedom/authoritarian” divide that the West has been pushing for the past 60 years.

3. Materialists would tell you that the world is governed by capital. Capitalists, through various means of control and pressure, will direct their nations to wars that aim to secure resources, open up markets to themselves and exclude competitors, or destroy competing capital. The only way to secure peace for a materialist is to eradicate capital and the capitalist economic system, so as to take away the conditions that cause wars.

Having said all that, why do we critically (not blindly) support Russia?

• Western imperialism has almost total control of the world, has a massive economic, industrial, political and military infrastructure in place, and has the means and range to affect any nation on Earth. Hence, any socialist projects are immediately and brutally besieged by Western imperialism, which is why it is extremely difficult for socialist projects to currently succeed.

• After the dissolution of the USSR and a decade of shock therapy, Russia finds itself mistrustful of the West and outside their system. Hence it has become (or has always been) a target of Western imperialism. Therefore, to survive it needs to resist and fight Western imperialism, which is the dominant force in the world right now.

• Russia is the one nation, beside China, that is currently able to effectively fight Western imperialism. Therefore, having both the means and the motivation, means that Russia can be an ally against Western imperialism.

• Russian politics and society are dominated by reactionary and conservative elements currently. And its government is highly anti-communist. However, there is still support for communism among many people, and its alliance with China makes it a possibility that Russia might one day return to socialism. However, the important part is that Russia is in no position to suppress socialist movements outside its borders, as the US and its allies have been doing endlessly for decades. In fact, it’s in its interests to support such movements, so it can gain allies in its fight. Russia has formed strong alliances with both China and North Korea. It has strengthened its ties with Cuba and Venezuela. And it is attempting to support socialist projects in Africa, such as that in Burkina Faso. Maybe in the distant future, Russia will turn imperialist as well, but it’s not right now.

• The war in Ukraine was an attempt by the West to weaken and dismantle Russia. The west has invested so much in this war, that a defeat of the West here would create effects that would ripple across decades. In fact, I would argue that the decolonization efforts of Western African nations from the chains of France, would not have been possible, had the US not been so focused and invested in Ukraine.

• The efforts to build a multi-polar system can only help our efforts to build socialist projects. Especially if one of those poles is China.

• I’m not going to touch on how the war in Ukraine got started, as that would make it a much longer post than it already is. Suffice to say that it’s our view that this war was provoked by NATO, and Russia is right to have intervened militarily in Ukraine, both on a political level and on a humanitarian level.

Therefore, we don’t particularly like the internal politics of Russia, but materially, its foreign policy is aligned with our goals right now.

“No investigation, no right to speak” is a helpful guideline. This is a good example of how to ask questions like these.

“Authoritarian” is not a meaningful descriptor because it applies to every state, hence “dictatorship of the proletariat/bourgeoisie”. Russia has no colonies, is not imperialist, and is no more “authoritarian” than any country in the imperial core. Russia is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, but it’s ended up resisting the imperial core and deserves critical support in that domain, not for its domestic policies.

You have used the word “authoritarian” three times in the one paragraph you wrote in your post. I want you to take some time to think about why this word so important to you. What exactly do you think it means?

Edit: Some additional food for thought: do you really think that it applies only to some countries and not others, and is it really a word that is helpful in understanding the world from a materialist socialist perspective, or is it just a thought terminating moralistic cliché?

The others here have answered you and done so with amazing detail and eloquence so i won’t bother getting into it.

I want to say though i know as humans we have this tendency to kind of turtle up when our world view is threatened and refuse to move from our position. You may feel under personal attack when someone attacks a false belief you held.

Its natural to feel this way. All people experience it to an extent. I do hope you will overcome that feeling though and read these responses with an open mind. There is much more reading for you to do after aswell im sure. On many issues, and topics.

I want you to know you wont be attacked here if you open your mind to these things. You don’t need to turtle up. Many of the people here have had to go on this same journey of discovering what lies theyve been fed and breaking free from them.

Now that being said. If you dig your heels in and try to argue things based on vibes, or feelings, or just refuse to listen to any information not approved by the US as “legitimate.” People here will get tired of it and might not be super nice to you.

The people here arent obligated to do the labor of teaching you a bunch of stuff. Even if some will be nice enough to do just that. Its really a great community so im sure plenty will be.

Point is tho, make sure your putting in the effort yourself too if thats the route you choose to go, and keep in mind the people taking the time to teach you about this stuff are doing a big service for you. So keep it respectful and open minded.

Id reccomend visiting ProleWiki the link should be on the main page i think? Its a great place to dive in to stuff. Especially historical stuff youve been lied to about.

My biggest tip would be just observe. Be a lurker and give it awhile. No need to decide if this is the place for you or not right away.

Imperialism (led by the US and reinforced by other western allies) is the current and ongoing primary contradiction, not a lack of local communism. Russia is positioned in opposition to US/western imperialism, so we give them “critical support” in their efforts to combat the global capitalist empire, but do not give them credit for being a capitalist regime.

The western empire is the single biggest obstacle to communism and the most consistent in pushing violent anti-communist tendrils across the globe, on top of having a history of orchestrating violent coups and other means of control over nation-states that simply defy imperialist or colonial control, even if they are not really “communist” in practice. One of the most prevalent examples being the major part that the western empire played in destroying the USSR and thus, leading to the capitalist conditions of current day Russia.

It’s not about whether Putin is better or worse than Zelensky in some individual-focused way, or whether Russia is a better or worse government than Ukraine. Ukraine at this stage is effectively a proxy for NATO expansion (NATO being a tool of the western empire) and Russia is defying NATO’s advancement on its borders in fighting with it. But that is just touching on it on a vague level. This thread has lots of great resources on understanding the Ukraine-Russia conflict and how it started: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7357678

Russia is not imperialist, see an explanation on why here: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Imperialism#Russian_"imperialism"

In general, what you are probably facing up against is the tendency for western imperialist propaganda to oversimplify and claim equivalence of things that are not equivalent. Russia is difficult to even compare to another nation because of its unique history, being both a major part in a staggeringly influential and effective mass marxist socialist state project (the USSR) and also being part of the same project that fell and was reduced to a capitalist mess. It is made more complicated by how it has not been reduced to simply being another servant of the western empire after the loss of the USSR, but has ended up in opposition to it still in one form or another.

It is also one of the most consistently and prolifically vilified countries, due to decades of Cold War propaganda, both during the height of the Cold War and after the USSR’s fall. It is not surprising then that some people would have a hard time wrapping their head around it as neither hero nor villain and as part of a complex dynamic on the world stage, with an even more complex history, grappling with challenging material conditions throughout. But embracing that complexity is an important exercise in getting used to viewing the world beyond the binary lens of good and evil that anti-communist propaganda loves to do.

Let me try to answer you directly.

What is the positive outcome of defending an authoritarian regime like Putin’s?

Caveat before I answer, you have asked a leading question that makes a few assumptions, mostly phrases in accordance with imperialist rhetoric.

Having said that, the only positive outcome of such actions on social media is the raising of the awareness of others of the task at hand - dismantling imperialism. The more people become aware of the need to dismantle imperialism AND the details of that struggle, the better.

I don’t see how that advances socialist goals in any way.

It advances socialist goals by changing the conditions of under which socialism can develop. A world where the US and European powers are in decline, shown to be in decline, and lose the support of their own citizens is a world that has much greater potential for socialist projects to survive than a world where the US bombs any even vaguely socialist projects without any consequences.

I am learning that Zelenskyy and Ukraine are not as good as Western media describes, but I do not see how Putin is better.

Is this a moral framing or a practical one? If moral, then you have a problem with your analysis because assigning morality to a person or a state is a category error and leads to incorrect analysis. If a practical one, it should be pretty clear. Zelenskyy cooperates with the US militarily to extend the USA’s lethal forces including nuclear first strike capabilities, and Putin opposed the USA militarily. It can be as simple as that.

I am interested in being part of lemmygrad.ml, but not if it depends authoritarian regimes, especially if they are not working towards socialism/communism.

Why do you want to be part of the community? What draws you to us? Why do you hold an unexamined standard and use it to judge the community you want to belong to? What does that keep you safe from?

In my experience, I started off with your position years ago. I eventually learned that I was repeating unexamined propaganda from my home country of the USA and that my entire framing was arrogant, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, moralistic, and ultimately founded in abject ignorance. Come here to learn when you’re ready. It’ll change your entire understanding of history and, thereby, the present.

I want to work towards socialist goals, but I don’t want to be used as a tool in some authoritarian geopolitical mess.

You already are being used as that tool, based on your rhetoric. You already repeat unexamined propaganda from the West. You are on social media engaging in discourse while remaining deeply ignorant and completely immersed in imperialist propaganda, and you don’t realize it.

What I have found is that spending time with communists, even when they hold positions that feel morally uncomfortable, ultimately develops within you the ability to spot propaganda from all sides and engage with it safely, because propaganda relies deeply on ignorance, faulty hueristics, and contradictory language. The project to counter all three is a huge part of communist discourse, and you’ll be much safer sitting in discomfort and learning than using your comfort as a guide right now because your comfort is based on how you were raised within the imperialist project, not because you built it yourself through deep historical analysis.

Russia also gives me the impression of being colonialist but I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

We don’t operate on impressions here, we operate on analysis. The short answer is that Russia has no colonies so it’s not colonialist. The long answer is incredibly long. AFAIK no one has written a definitive analysis on the topic yet. There are many books and essays on the topic, but none of them are comprehensive, and that means you and me are gonna have to read a bunch of things, both what other people have written as well as their sources and not just on Russian colonialism but on colonialism, neocolonialism, post-colonial theory, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, we operate on vibes a lot here, but we don’t go throwing around statements like “This nation-state is X” without serious digging.

Stick around and you’ll learn more than you ever thought you could. If you’re not ready, don’t sweat it. We’re not going anywhere. You can always come back and begin the learning process with us some other time.

Russia isn’t Socialist but they aren’t “authoritarian” because that word is literally meaningless. All governments are authoritarian. All governments by definition enforce law (the rules of society) and curtail the rights of the individual. (You’d probably be better off just removing the word from your lexicon)

Russia supports anti-imperialism in Africa and in some cases is directly supporting socialists like in Burkina Faso. Russia does have reactionary tendencies but systemic racism is not nearly as pronounced as in euro-american nations and it is mostly imported from the west. Anti-racism is one of the defining features that separates socialism from nazism.

Russia is far more likely to become socialist than any other developed countries. The war has shown them the advantages of a planned economy, state ownership of industry, and the detrimental cost of a privately owned national bank and their strong ties to China also act as a socialist influence. A loss in Ukraine would not help Russia back to socialism it would just get them broken up and turned into neo-colonies. (who would all be manipulated to fight amongst themselves by the CIA or redirected against China)

Russia also gives me the impression of being colonialist but I’m not sure if that’s accurate

no it isn’t accurate. Name one Russian colony. At the very worst you can call Russia expansionist because the people in areas they annex are granted full citizenship and all the privileges and rights that entails. Since the start of the SMO Russia has been paying pensions of elderly people in Donbas, people who never contributed to their economy. That is not the action of a colonialist.

Russia, or to say Iran, or Assad get (critical) support for their anti-imperialist position in global politics. They themselves are not pro-socialism, but it is wrong to say that their anti-imperialism doesn’t help the global socialist cause.

You either side with russia or with imperialism.

If you dont see how opposing imperialism by force advances socialism, read Lenin’s book on Imperialism.

Putin is better in the sense that zelensky serves imperialism and putin is destroying it.

I’m interested in being part of Lemmygrad.ml, but not if it defends authoritarian regimes

Your place isnt among communists then.

If you dont support the people fighting imperialism, you are already being use as a tool in some authoritarian geopolitical mess.

And to be a colonialist state, you need to have colonies, and thats not the case as far as i know

Hope to have helped you

I will recycle my past answer.

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.

• Robert Parry, 2015: The Mess that Nuland Made
• Jeffery Sachs, 2023: The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace

Just out of curiosity, is this not something you saw before making an account? 😅

It really just comes down to two very simple things:

1. While Putin/Russia certainly aren’t socialist, they at least don’t actively try to scrub away and bury every last remnant of their socialist past, which is more than can be said for certain other eastern European countries. Likewise, they have shown real willingness to cooperate and provide valuable support to other actual socialist nations like Cuba and the DPRK.

2. Russia isn’t the dominant Imperialist power, the US and it’s European buddies are. Expecting a socialist revolution to happen anytime in the near future in the imperial core as things currently stand is naive at best, the rest of the world must lift themselves up on their own first. If Russia falls, it’s easy mode for the West to continue dominating the rest of the world, China for all it’s merits can’t take on the entirety of the West by itself.

I know some people are dunking on you here but there are also a lot of good comments on this subject if you wanted to read them.

Try your best to enter the conversation with an open mind, it took me years of deprogramming the imperial propaganda, and the final push was when the imperial core started genociding my own country.

There are still pro-western/imperial arabs and muslims! I talked to them the other day and it was an extremely frustrating conversation but some people do not want to have their minds changed, they just want to argue.

I asked plenty of questions I thought were elementary here and I’ve gotten amazing responses every time, nobody will criticize you as long as you are actually open to learning.