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It turns out one of my friends is a pro-Ukraine leftist type (hexbear.net)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Arenge@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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Shouldn't have said anything, now I'm getting paragraphs upon paragraphs about Putler and how the West has a moral obligation to prolong the war in Ukraine for as long as possible sad-boi

Also while apparently it can't be denied that the far right has grown somewhat stronger in Ukraine, the Ukrainian military had to rely on militias such as Azov so they wouldn't lose, we should not worry because they haven't seen that much electoral success

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[-] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 12 points 7 months ago

I love how nobody considers any alternatives to supporting one of the sides in the war - either supporting Ukraine because something something democracy, human rights and Putler or support Russia because multipolarity, denazification and NATO expansion.

I only know of one such initiative - the split of the group "Communist Organisation" from Germany which aligned with the Greek Communist Party created a campaign to give financial support for various communist groups in Ukraine and Russia they had contacts with. It was cautious and didn't really go anywhere.

But at least it existed. Why support either side beyond acting like a foreign minister in the 1970s? Where's the proletarian internationalism?

It'd be more productive than the dead end we're in, at the mercy of whatever which state does or doesn't.

[-] thetaT@hexbear.net 8 points 7 months ago

Remember - Lenin never supported any side in WW1. In fact, he hoped for an enemy victory, as that would create the conditions for a revolution.

Picking sides in an inter-imperialist war is anti-Lenin.

[-] Kaplya@hexbear.net 33 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

From Lenin’s Lecture on “The Proletariat and the War” (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 war in Ukraine is not WWI.

[-] plinky@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago

Enemy victory for western leftists would be russian victory, non?

[-] thetaT@hexbear.net 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

A stalemate where Russia gets the eastern parts of Ukraine would be a move towards creating the necessary revolutionary conditions in both Ukraine and the rest of the West

[-] ziggurter@hexbear.net 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Sure. Wherever you live, organize around pushing for your own country (and/or those it has influence with) to back down. War between nation-states is universally war against the working class everywhere.

If you live in Russia, organize around getting Russia to back away and stop expanding the front (though yeah: good luck with that at this point...).

If you live in the U.S. or any Western country, organize around going hands-off and halting the shipment of weapons and halting expansion of NATO.

If you live in Ukraine, organize around pushing for diplomacy, an end to conscription, and all the state repression that's been aimed at anyone speaking up against the war, against NATO membership, against fascists' role in governance and policing and war-making, etc.

Either way, push for a diplomatic end to the meat grinding. Ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. Under any conditions whatsoever, really. Doesn't matter where the fucking national borders finally wind up on a map. Ceasefire. Doesn't matter who last did whatever strike or terrorist act or whatever. Ceasefire. Doesn't matter who said what racist nonsense about whose mother. Ceasefire.

All other problems can and will be solved by us, outside of the "solutions" of (especially neoliberal) nation-states. We will deal with the fascists. We will deal with systemic racism and state-oppression of various ethnicities, etc. We will deal with reaction against the left, labor, and the working class. No war but class war.

In any Western country, of course, this will be interpreted as "pro-Russia". LOL. It's bullshit, of course, but that's the shit leftists have always had to deal with. Especially when fighting on the anti-war, anti-imperialism front.