Russian media is extremely pro Palestine because the movement is inherently anti-US, but they are fasistically chauvinist and incredibly homophobic, racist, transphobic, etc.
It’s a weird double standard that many follow blindly.
This is, unfortunately, just the ugly result of complete societal collapse. US capital destroyed Russia in the 1990s, and the country has still not fully recovered. Look at Ukraine for an even more dramatic example: in just 23 years, it went from a socialist republic to a state ruled by a genocidal and openly fascist government. That modern Russia is as imperfectly progressive as it is is honestly something of a miracle.
Modern Russia is not progressive in social terms. They do have all sorts of fundamentalism lurking around. I will say Putin as a whole is responsible for bringing back Russia from death. Many say he brought nationalism and such but i argue, what’s the alternative nowadays. Old Russians are communistic and dead , middle aged Russians are chauvinists and anti commies and younger generations are pro west completely and despise everything about USSR. As a realist I think it’s difficult for eastern block countries to find a common agenda. It’s either fascism or socialism. Russia is exceptional because Putin came from WW2 family. He lost many relatives but he thinks in Christian ways and don’t have a good grasp in Marxist theory. Well, like many middle aged people he also thinks USSR had more negative issues than positives. Russia has a short life span, if it becomes socialist it will live but after Putin if it turns towards fascism. It’s the end of Russia
This is completely true, from everything I’ve seen and heard. What I probably should have said (noted this below as well in reply to ComradeSalad) is that Russia plays, on the world stage, an imperfectly progressive role.
Old Russians are communistic and dead , middle aged Russians are chauvinists and anti commies and younger generations are pro west completely and despise everything about USSR.
I’ve heard this varies by region? I.e., in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg there is a huge liberal contingent, and a lot of anti-Soviet feeling. But in the “hinterlands” you find, among all ages, a much more positive view of the USSR, and more people will describe themselves as “communist” in their politics (whether or not they have a very clear idea of what that means). I haven’t been to Russia, so I’m going entirely off hearsay, but it’s a huge country with a lot of room for local variation.
I will say Putin as a whole is responsible for bringing back Russia from death.
This I would push back against a little, as being somewhat un-materialist. One should not deny the important role Putin has played. But history is not made by individuals, and Putin has been able to achieve what he has because he has the backing of an important strata of Russian society: the security services and the mid-level bureaucrats who see to much of the day-to-day running of the country. Though not communist in any real ideological sense, these people have tended to have a deep-set patriotism, and they emerged from the 1990s very angry, and rightfully so, at the west what it had done to Russia. Putin, I think, came to power with the support of this class – i.e., he is what Marx would have called a “bonapartist,” a leader who represents one faction of the ruling class seizing power to suppress another faction. I believe Zyuganov described him in exactly these terms soon after he was elected.
I don’t want to pin down “bonapart” terms onto Putin and such. Putin is not Napoleon. To the 3rd world he is just a casual non westerner in front of an onslaught by colonial countries. I mean he is no different from Nehru, nasser (except the debatable socialistic part). Nehru, Nasser were called socialist as namesake and were very much anti colonial and pro Palestine. That’s how I see Putin. He is standing against the ongoing colonialism of the world and he has successfully prevented it by this SMO. Materialist or not, I believe a leader’s role and philosophy is crucial for a society and his country. When Nehru was alive, our people looked onto his image and personality. He was deadly against organized religion , superstitions and was biased in pro USSR camp. He industrialized the country whereas Modi , when we look forward onto his ideology and legacy it’s all BS and fascistic. I believe Stalin had an enormous role in USSR which was slandered and squandered by the later leaders which eventually broke up the USSR. Stalin also had said, a role of a revolutionary leader and his positions is very important to marxism. We in the 3rd world lack leaders like Putin (he has courage and will to do the right thing ).
I gotta push back against this. I understand this is just your perspective, and it explains some things, and I’m not attacking you whatsoever. And Putin did genuinely do some good things, but to say that he has an exorbitant amount of courage is to oversell, in my opinion. He has enough to stand against the U.S., but he is still a conservative tool and a reich-wing reactionary coward.
**but he is still a conservative tool and a reich-wing reactionary coward.
**
A leader who is anti LGBT is normal in the 3rd world. Not many countries in the world is pro LGBT. You might be living in a country which was swept by sexual liberation movement of 1960s. That thing was solely European and atlanticists and was sponsored by CIA. It might have some positive effects on society but if you observe the world carefully , except the western European and Cuba, most fall into patriarchal category due to capitalism and imperialism. You cannot bring pro LGBT values into the east without dismantling the US empire which have used this as a tool against Russia and E. Europe and also against China.
Regarding Putin, he is quite exceptional. If he were a coward he could have immigrated to IS for a more luxurious , calm life. Instead he chose to stay in Russia and rectify it and started saying about multipolar world in early 2000. As a person from the 3rd world, I have to give this man the due credit. That’s when China invited Putin in BRI. He was at the front with Xi. All commie countries have good relations with Russia. Yes, it’s not socially progressive and it will take time for Russia to adjust itself.
You are absolutely correct with your analysis, however I will push back that it is “imperfectly progressive”. Practically any “progressive” actions that they take are practically only done out of pure pragmatism, such as establishing ties with China for capital reasons, or because the act is anti-US, such as with the Palestinian movement.
Further, most progressive elements that remain are vestiges that remain from the USSR, with those things often times being seen as a negative that they are actively trying to get rid of, such as the USSR’s abortion laws. Beyond that, Russia has sadly become incredibly regressive in almost all aspects, and the decline has been a depressing view of the consequences of the fall of the Union.
Good clarification. The better way to think about it is probably that Russia plays. on the level of international relations, an imperfectly progressive role. Everything you’ve said about internal affairs in Russia seems true, and is echoed by comrades living in Russia.
most people arent struggling to figure it out, most movements are supported by a wide range of people and they dont all agree on everything it is an unfortunate reality that some small percentage of people who are on the right side of history on something are also reactionary on other things, thats just life. And the atrocities carried out by isntreal are so bad that even a lot of reactionaries support Palestine
The west hijack queer struggle and weaponize them to justify imperialism by advertizing some of their imperialist institutions as queer so they can call queerphobe any crackdown on said institutions and distract the public’s attention away from the fact that it’s about fighting imperialism.
In response, the actual genuine queerphobes in nations dealing with western imperialism use pink imperialism’s weaponization of queer struggle against actual queer struggle by pretending that queer struggle is a genuine part of western imperialism and saying that those are western values that the imperialists are trying to impose on them.
This is a common trope of middle eastern queerphobic rethoric, they say all the time that the west is trying to impose homosexuality on the muslim world.
I heard from someone on here that it’s also a big reason why china is still very lacking in lgbt rightscompared to the 4 others ML countries: chinese boomers distrust the lgbtq+ movements because they have seen first hand the west weaponizing it against china, most notably with the west’s strategy of sometime using gay bars and other lgbt spaces as base for spying on purpose so that they can screach seeseepee lgbt discrimination when china crackdown on them.
They should see that the enemy is clearly the Zionist entity and not the LGBTQIA+ community.
I’m surprised they are struggling to figure that out, like what are they trying to point out here?
Are they attempting to highlight that they are both homophobic and transphobic with this?
Russian media is extremely pro Palestine because the movement is inherently anti-US, but they are fasistically chauvinist and incredibly homophobic, racist, transphobic, etc.
It’s a weird double standard that many follow blindly.
This is, unfortunately, just the ugly result of complete societal collapse. US capital destroyed Russia in the 1990s, and the country has still not fully recovered. Look at Ukraine for an even more dramatic example: in just 23 years, it went from a socialist republic to a state ruled by a genocidal and openly fascist government. That modern Russia is as imperfectly progressive as it is is honestly something of a miracle.
Modern Russia is not progressive in social terms. They do have all sorts of fundamentalism lurking around. I will say Putin as a whole is responsible for bringing back Russia from death. Many say he brought nationalism and such but i argue, what’s the alternative nowadays. Old Russians are communistic and dead , middle aged Russians are chauvinists and anti commies and younger generations are pro west completely and despise everything about USSR. As a realist I think it’s difficult for eastern block countries to find a common agenda. It’s either fascism or socialism. Russia is exceptional because Putin came from WW2 family. He lost many relatives but he thinks in Christian ways and don’t have a good grasp in Marxist theory. Well, like many middle aged people he also thinks USSR had more negative issues than positives. Russia has a short life span, if it becomes socialist it will live but after Putin if it turns towards fascism. It’s the end of Russia
This is completely true, from everything I’ve seen and heard. What I probably should have said (noted this below as well in reply to ComradeSalad) is that Russia plays, on the world stage, an imperfectly progressive role.
I’ve heard this varies by region? I.e., in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg there is a huge liberal contingent, and a lot of anti-Soviet feeling. But in the “hinterlands” you find, among all ages, a much more positive view of the USSR, and more people will describe themselves as “communist” in their politics (whether or not they have a very clear idea of what that means). I haven’t been to Russia, so I’m going entirely off hearsay, but it’s a huge country with a lot of room for local variation.
This I would push back against a little, as being somewhat un-materialist. One should not deny the important role Putin has played. But history is not made by individuals, and Putin has been able to achieve what he has because he has the backing of an important strata of Russian society: the security services and the mid-level bureaucrats who see to much of the day-to-day running of the country. Though not communist in any real ideological sense, these people have tended to have a deep-set patriotism, and they emerged from the 1990s very angry, and rightfully so, at the west what it had done to Russia. Putin, I think, came to power with the support of this class – i.e., he is what Marx would have called a “bonapartist,” a leader who represents one faction of the ruling class seizing power to suppress another faction. I believe Zyuganov described him in exactly these terms soon after he was elected.
I don’t want to pin down “bonapart” terms onto Putin and such. Putin is not Napoleon. To the 3rd world he is just a casual non westerner in front of an onslaught by colonial countries. I mean he is no different from Nehru, nasser (except the debatable socialistic part). Nehru, Nasser were called socialist as namesake and were very much anti colonial and pro Palestine. That’s how I see Putin. He is standing against the ongoing colonialism of the world and he has successfully prevented it by this SMO. Materialist or not, I believe a leader’s role and philosophy is crucial for a society and his country. When Nehru was alive, our people looked onto his image and personality. He was deadly against organized religion , superstitions and was biased in pro USSR camp. He industrialized the country whereas Modi , when we look forward onto his ideology and legacy it’s all BS and fascistic. I believe Stalin had an enormous role in USSR which was slandered and squandered by the later leaders which eventually broke up the USSR. Stalin also had said, a role of a revolutionary leader and his positions is very important to marxism. We in the 3rd world lack leaders like Putin (he has courage and will to do the right thing ).
I gotta push back against this. I understand this is just your perspective, and it explains some things, and I’m not attacking you whatsoever. And Putin did genuinely do some good things, but to say that he has an exorbitant amount of courage is to oversell, in my opinion. He has enough to stand against the U.S., but he is still a conservative tool and a reich-wing reactionary coward.
**but he is still a conservative tool and a reich-wing reactionary coward. ** A leader who is anti LGBT is normal in the 3rd world. Not many countries in the world is pro LGBT. You might be living in a country which was swept by sexual liberation movement of 1960s. That thing was solely European and atlanticists and was sponsored by CIA. It might have some positive effects on society but if you observe the world carefully , except the western European and Cuba, most fall into patriarchal category due to capitalism and imperialism. You cannot bring pro LGBT values into the east without dismantling the US empire which have used this as a tool against Russia and E. Europe and also against China.
Regarding Putin, he is quite exceptional. If he were a coward he could have immigrated to IS for a more luxurious , calm life. Instead he chose to stay in Russia and rectify it and started saying about multipolar world in early 2000. As a person from the 3rd world, I have to give this man the due credit. That’s when China invited Putin in BRI. He was at the front with Xi. All commie countries have good relations with Russia. Yes, it’s not socially progressive and it will take time for Russia to adjust itself.
You are absolutely correct with your analysis, however I will push back that it is “imperfectly progressive”. Practically any “progressive” actions that they take are practically only done out of pure pragmatism, such as establishing ties with China for capital reasons, or because the act is anti-US, such as with the Palestinian movement.
Further, most progressive elements that remain are vestiges that remain from the USSR, with those things often times being seen as a negative that they are actively trying to get rid of, such as the USSR’s abortion laws. Beyond that, Russia has sadly become incredibly regressive in almost all aspects, and the decline has been a depressing view of the consequences of the fall of the Union.
Good clarification. The better way to think about it is probably that Russia plays. on the level of international relations, an imperfectly progressive role. Everything you’ve said about internal affairs in Russia seems true, and is echoed by comrades living in Russia.
most people arent struggling to figure it out, most movements are supported by a wide range of people and they dont all agree on everything it is an unfortunate reality that some small percentage of people who are on the right side of history on something are also reactionary on other things, thats just life. And the atrocities carried out by isntreal are so bad that even a lot of reactionaries support Palestine
Because pink imperialism generate queerphobia.
The west hijack queer struggle and weaponize them to justify imperialism by advertizing some of their imperialist institutions as queer so they can call queerphobe any crackdown on said institutions and distract the public’s attention away from the fact that it’s about fighting imperialism.
In response, the actual genuine queerphobes in nations dealing with western imperialism use pink imperialism’s weaponization of queer struggle against actual queer struggle by pretending that queer struggle is a genuine part of western imperialism and saying that those are western values that the imperialists are trying to impose on them.
This is a common trope of middle eastern queerphobic rethoric, they say all the time that the west is trying to impose homosexuality on the muslim world.
I heard from someone on here that it’s also a big reason why china is still very lacking in lgbt rightscompared to the 4 others ML countries: chinese boomers distrust the lgbtq+ movements because they have seen first hand the west weaponizing it against china, most notably with the west’s strategy of sometime using gay bars and other lgbt spaces as base for spying on purpose so that they can screach seeseepee lgbt discrimination when china crackdown on them.