я не из калининграда@lemmy.ml (not a native english speaker, I believe)
i do not support the current administrations internal actions, as capitalism has brought nothing but injustice, suffering, poverty, crime and corruption. but i absolutely do support its foreign policy, especially regarding the ukrainian question. the putin government has evolved to become one of the most effective anti-imperialist forces on the planet and even if you ignore the terrible nature of the terrorist zelensky-regime one has to be grateful to our military for fighting the biggest enemy of mankind, america.
so lets detail the happenings that led to the current situation:
(it may be important to note that the current russian administration pushes a slightly different narrative due to sadly being a right wing state)
banderite collaborators parading in front of nazi officers the banderites (see picture), members of the fascist “organization of ukrainian nationalists” led by stepan andreyevich bandera were a gang of rapists and murderers who collaborated with the invading german hordes and assisted them by conducting acts of terror against civilians. It is important to note that popular support for them was close to zero. after the victory of the heroic red army, the majority of those parasites fled to the west, predominantly to canada. they received funding from american and british intelligence agencies, which were more than happy to welcome “former” nazis into their own anti-communist ranks. another subset of the banderites remained in the ukrainian ssr and conducted a campaign of terror and sabotage against the civilian population. their bloody deeds were supported by the cia and its european puppet agencies through the so called “operation aerodynamic”.
spoiler
referendum on the preservation of the ussr. its results were ignored by the anti-communists
After the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the ussr, the leaders of those fascist gangs were glorified by the ukrainian far-right, with support from the cia. efforts to further their “rehabilitation” were primarily directed by nazi expatriates in canada. outlets such as voice of america portrayed them as “heroes”. (aerodynamic, some of these were manufactured in the U.S under Operation Mockingbird like a lot of U.S state dept. bullshit)
election before cia intervention. this division between neonazi northwest and pro-russian southeast is visible to this day
in 2004, the west sabotaged the ukrainian presidential elections and installed their puppet, viktor andreyevich yushchenko, through a color revolution. he was a terrible leader, not only dismantling the remaining aspects of the ukrainian economy and managing to make life even more miserable than it already was, but also granting “hero of ukraine” status to banderite leaders and holocaust perpetrators stepan bandera and roman iosifovich shukhevich.
(not adding picture of 2014 ukrainian nazis since you have already said you believe in that)
in 2014, america and the west orchestrated another coup, this time not even bothering to hide the involvement of neo-nazis. the new regime perpetrated unspeakable atrocities against the russian population, whom it consideres “subhuman,” as well as against ukrainian anti-fascists. in odessa alone, 39 people were burned alive in the local trade union building.
those developments led to the revolution in the predominantly russian populated donbass-area and the creation off the donetsk and lugansk peoples republics, as well as the referendum in crimea that led to the peninsula finally rejoining russia. from 2014 till 2022 the majority of humanitarian aid to the donbass republics came from the cprf.
the reason for the smo is the ukrainian western-aligned nazi regime violating the minsk accords by refusing to demilitarize, trying to join the fascist nato-block and murdering russian civilians for years on end. the russian government showed itself extremely lenient, to lenient even, as any sensible politician would have staged a military intervention much earlier. if you need further proof for the tyrannical nature of the kievan regime just look at the fact that zelenskiy has banned all opposition parties in his country, refuses to hold elections and effectively rules as a military dictator. furthermore he has outlawed the russian language, made any negotiation with the russian state illegal and is currently selling whatever is left of his country to the highest bidder. combine all this with the fact that the west and its puppets need to always be opposed due to them being a cancer of humanity and you’ll get a pretty good picture of why to support the russian military.
[Query: Do communists have to support Russia?]
from @[email protected]
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.
Also, Ukraine really does have a fascism problem and has for a long time, and the coup government has materially supported it.
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- openDemocracy, 2019: Why Ukraine’s new language law will have long-term consequences
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
- Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
- History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
from [@[email protected]] https://mronline.org/2019/01/02/is-russia-imperialist/
It’s a copy-pasta from a Russian citizen that was a regular user here on lemmygrad with some added details by other users. The referendum is used to highlight the division and differences between demographics in Ukraine, but yeah, I’d imagine Ukraine after years of collective clandestine operations and being the major target of most alphabet agencies for operations in the USSR set the stage for this with the collapse of the USSR under Khrushchev’s and Gorbachev’s failure only exacerbated and very apparent in the terminal year of it’s existence.
The majority of Ukrainians wanted to vote for independence but wanted to preserve the union. This was also Yeltsin’s policy (attempted). This is why it’s a referendum on preservation of the specific communist union that Ukraine was a part of, wanting independence and being a part of the union were not mutually exclusive and the graph on the preservation of that specific communist union shows more about attitudes towards communism which was the point rather than just “nationalism/independence” which was surging by that point regardless in multiple ex-SR.
The referendum on preserving the union and being independent does not contradict each-other nor is it “omission” when the point is to highlight demographic differences in Ukraine regarding reactionary beliefs or thoughts on communism. I believe the user was making a point that the Union was voted to stay/preserve and to highlight the differences people thought of that union based on where they lived. Adopting a draft for independence, but still seeking to remain in the union is completely feasible and was generally being discussed until complete collapse.
Where I agree with you is here: >Even if the dissolution of the USSR on 26 December 1991 was illegal, that’s not relevant. If you exercise your legal right to leave an organization and then a few weeks later the organization illegally self-dissolves that has no bearing on you.
This is why the discussions of a mutual union collapsed entirely (sort of, we have one now with modern Russia but it’s just an economic union) and why the referendum didn’t end up really mattering anyways. Where it does matter is pointing out attitudes towards communism based on demographics. Hence why in the copypasta.
Am I misinterpreting anything?