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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

Bahnhof Strasse said:
Do you think they would be attacking it if their fascist neighbour wasn’t occupying it?

Seems to me they didn’t attack it before Russia came raping and murdering and I would guess they won’t do so once Russia fucks off.

TopCat doesn’t have the bollocks to answer honestly, do you? What do you think would be the best way for this situation to end?
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It doesn't really matter what anybody thinks is the "best" way for it to end. What's relevant is how it's likely to end which will be a ceasefire that neither side has any long term intention to honour. The only variables at this point are the exact position of the line in the mud and how many more thousands of people have to die before that's established.
 
DownwardDog said:
It doesn't really matter what anybody thinks is the "best" way for it to end. What's relevant is how it's likely to end which will be a ceasefire that neither side has any long term intention to honour. The only variables at this point are the exact position of the line in the mud and how many more thousands of people have to die before that's established.
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If neither side has any long term intention to honour a ceasefire, what's the point in having one unless you think it gives you some tactical advantage?
 
DownwardDog said:
It doesn't really matter what anybody thinks is the "best" way for it to end. What's relevant is how it's likely to end which will be a ceasefire that neither side has any long term intention to honour. The only variables at this point are the exact position of the line in the mud and how many more thousands of people have to die before that's established.
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Of course, however some posters have taken a pro-fash position here and need calling on it, yet they do not have the guts to actually come out and say it, so they are asked, repeatedly questions such as this and they outright refuse to answer. Really, to think of this place tolerating that shit is remarkable, to say the least.
 
I'd say some people have ended up leaning too heavily on what Russia-friendly sources have to say and focusing on Ukraine's failings to the exclusion of Russia's - and I've criticised that extensively where I think it's happened - but no-one here is "pro-fash." Tbh I think the root of a lot of it is an overcorrection to the other side of the coin where people interpret every incident through a lens of "what did Russia do now." I do think the left has a lot of people in it who have ended up actively pro-Russia through a weird interpretation of anti-imperialism with a dash of USSR nostalgia, but it doesn't evidence very often here. That's not to say people haven't said silly shit, but there's no monopolies on that.
 
Rob Ray said:
I'd say some people have ended up leaning too heavily on what Russia-friendly sources have to say and focusing on Ukraine's failings to the exclusion of Russia's - and I've criticised that extensively where I think it's happened - but no-one here is "pro-fash." Tbh I think the root of a lot of it is an overcorrection to the other side of the coin where people interpret every incident through a lens of "what did Russia do now." I do think the left has a lot of people in it who have ended up actively pro-Russia through a weird interpretation of anti-imperialism with a dash of USSR nostalgia, but it doesn't evidence very often here. That's not to say people haven't said silly shit, but there's no monopolies on that.
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Some people seem to have forgotten the part that the fucking awful Wagner Group - a government-funded paramilitary and private military company - played in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This includes the Rusich Unit, a far-right extremist, neo-Nazi unit with a logo featuring a Slavic swastika.

en.wikipedia.org

Wagner Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
editor said:
Some people seem to have forgotten the part that the fucking awful Wagner Group - a government-funded paramilitary and private military company - played in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This includes the Rusich Unit, a far-right extremist, neo-Nazi unit with a logo featuring a Slavic swastika.

en.wikipedia.org

Wagner Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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On that “analysis” you need to own the actions of your Azov Brigade.
 
Bahnhof Strasse said:
Of course, however some posters have taken a pro-fash position here and need calling on it, yet they do not have the guts to actually come out and say it, so they are asked, repeatedly questions such as this and they outright refuse to answer. Really, to think of this place tolerating that shit is remarkable, to say the least.
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Pro fash position. It’s bullshit. Like me calling the Azov brigades your comrades.
 
Rimbaud said:
Sorry for the delayed response, I've had a busy few days.

1) The vast majority of systems of government in this world are based on systems inspired by modernist enlightenment ideals such as democracy. There are very few absolute monarchies or theocracies in this world and even Iran has democratic window dressing. Yes some of them may have been set up by colonial powers, but enlightenment language and ideals were also used as weapons and tools by the colonised in independence movements and other revolutions. So it is not eurocentric to refer to the rejection of enlightenment ideals. They originated in Europe but they have influence around the world to some degree.

2) The term "neo-medieval" may not be perfect but what I mean by it is the trend towards a global repudiation of modernist democratic ideals (including, and in fact especially, socialism). The various forms this takes more not be uniform but it doesn't mean that it isn't a real trend worthy of attention and explanation just as the rise of various forms of fascism was in the interwar period.

3) Throughout the 20th Century we had (more or less) a spread of democratic systems away from military dictatorships (much of Latin America, Greece, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines...), a general increase in voting franchise (Europe and US) and in the mid century the emergence of Social democracies. You also had the collapse of pre-modern dynastic systems (Qing Dynasty, Tsarist Russia) in favour of modernist socialist projects which at least had stated democratic goals rather than the old aristocratic ones and the end of Empires with new, often imperfect but aspirationally and nominally democratic states independent states.

4) Whereas in the 21st Century "Democratic waves" like the Arab Spring amounted to little; China's much anticipated democratisation has gone into reverse, reversing not just the "reform and opening" era but in many ways looking back to imperial China and repudiating much of the revolutionary content of the early CCP; Russia has followed a similar trajectory and now repudiates not only Gorbachev but Lenin, looking back to imperial Russia; and then you have the rise of political Islam. Nowhere is this contrast more obvious than in Afghanistan which in the 70s had a modernist reforming government and now you have the Taliban refusing to allow girls to attend school.

5) This isn't about "us" or "them" because the same process is happening in the west as well. Faith in electoral governments is at rock bottom and far-right populist movements are on the rise, with a real possibility of the US being taken control of by openly anti-democratic "Christian nationalists" allied with a narcissistic wannabe tyrant.

6) Within the EU, you also have Orban working with Putin and the US right to have a victory for "illiberal Christian democracy" or whatever he calls it across Europe, with potential allies in AfD, Reform UK, Le Pen et al.

7) I would explain the decay of democracy as a product of globalisation and neoliberalism. Market Reforms in Russia led it to become a resource based economy and decimated their manufacturing base, and you have the formation of an elitist clique of oligarchs ruling over a disenfranchised and socially atomised population as a consequence. The same process has led to a decline in quality of western democracy in which elected governments have limited power to raise taxes on corporations or increase labour's share of national income due to the threat of offshoring and capital flight. Such a set of circumstances favours authoritarian states so it's no surprise we see a rise of authoritarianism and a kind of rejection of democracy. I'd also suggest that Israeli behaviour in Gaza is part of a similar process of the rise of authoritarian nationalist movements which repudiate the enlightenment.

8) On top of that, there's a certain cultural reaction to the rapid changes caused by a globalising world and a retreat into cultural "sovereignty" as a response to the decline of democratic sovereignty over global market forces.

9) So I think it is in fact you who are seeing things in terms of "us" and "them"; what concerns me about Russia is not that it is a "them" as opposed to an "us" but rather that Russia under Putin IS us - that is, it is an image of our future. Democratic structures and norms are under pressure from the strains of market globalisation and the decline of state sovereignty. The crumbling of European democracy is coming and Putin's invasion of Ukraine is part of the form that this takes.

10) A victorious Russia in Ukraine (annexing Ukraine and perhaps de-facto annexing Belarus as part of the revived "Union State" idea), combined with a Russia-friendly Christian nationalist victory in the US under Trump, combining to boost and support far-right "traditionalist" movements across Europe is the future we have in store. To avoid this, it is absolutely essential that Russia does not succeed in Ukraine.

E2A: in fact I'd say that those on the left who defend Russia are trapped in an outdated Cold War era "us vs them" paradigm. Those on the left who recognise Putin as a serious threat and a mortal enemy of their ideals are those who are not thinking in those terms and treat Putin's fascism or whatever you want to call it the same way they would a revanchist far-right government in the UK invading Ireland and sponsoring far-right movements around the continent.
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1/2 i've numbered your paragraphs to make it clear which bits i'm responding to through this post.

1) while governmental systems may be based on things inspired by the enlightenment, that does not mean that those countries subscribe to the enlightenment ideas behind them. as you no doubt recall, the united states intended to spread democracy to iraq and afghanistan and it's a really big ask to suggest that either country has imbibed the enlightenment ideals behind democracy. the democracies in europe, to say nothing of ostensible democracies outside europe, vary in their democratic quality. while the enlightenment may have inspired democracies it didn't inspire them particularly hard in europe (see the length of time it took for universal male suffrage to be granted, let alone women to receive the vote, in countries like the united kingdom - the franchise extended after prolonged struggle in 1867, 1884 and 1918 while the famous great reform act of 1832 actually reduced the electorate). as time has gone by democracy has receded and diminished from actual political participation to the occasional trip to the polling station to register an opinion. the form of 'democracy' does not therefore guarantee adherence to the enlightenment ideals which so stirred people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

2) i don't know about the term 'modernist', which to me does not refer to the contemporary world but the world of virginia woolf and james joyce - being kind, it relates to the world of about a century ago. and i'm not sure whether the famous book on modernism, 'all that is solid melts into air', would even trace modernism that far forwards. i'd reject modernism as it is no longer modern. i've addressed the term 'neo-medieval' in my previous post on the subject and don't see anything here to make me alter my opinion, not to mention that it is being used for too much to be useful even as a shorthand - barring a shorthand for 'people we don't like'.

3) this paragraph is historically illiterate. the military dictatorships of latin america, for example, were predominantly after the second world war - so there wasn't this move away from them to democracy 'throughout the twentieth century'. I'm sure, too, we all know of the great civil rights campaigns in Ireland and the United States in the second half of the C20, where in the six counties one person one vote wasn't conceded until the 1970s and the gains made in the United States under Johnson have been rolled back ever since. The USSR and its satellites might have proclaimed themselves democratic but no country calling itself eg the German democratic Republic was ever a democracy. Are we to admire the democratic people's republic of North Korea? So many dictatorships were facilitated by countries like the UK and USA in countries like Iran, Chile, Spain and so on that any commitment to democracy the UK and USA might have proclaimed should have been accompanied by a health warning. Indeed, the struggle to safeguard democracy in South Vietnam saw the Americans stick so strongly to the democratic ideal that they gave the green light to the coup which toppled Ngo Dinh Diem and his replacement by a military junta - not to mention the coup in Iran which saw the Shah come to power.

4) You talk of Afghanistan as tho the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s had never happened. The United States played such a role in creating, funding and arming Islamist organisations there to oppose the Soviet Union that that great democracy and the United Kingdom must accept a great part of the blame in how things turned out. Political Islam did not grow in a vacuum, it was in many places fostered by democracies which authors like Mark Curtis have covered in some detail (MC at least as regards the British contribution). China's democratisation was only ever a pipe-dream. And after 4.6.1989 democracy is the thing the CCP have most desired to avoid.

5) The lack of faith in elected governments in the West is probably due to those governments refusing to act democratically. Our government, for example, refuses to act for the great majority of the population. The Labour government which preceded it was really happy to engage in wars of choice which did nothing to secure the national interest. The unilateral tearing up of the post-war social contract by people like Margaret Thatcher broke the link between people and government. Western governments preside over the crisis of global warming without doing anything much about it - how the fuck can anyone have confidence in such governments? The growth of Christian lunacy in the United States hasn't happened in a vacuum - it's the filthy rich who have driven much of that. Democracy in the United States, like democracy here, has been bought, the agendas driven by a few very wealthy people. Social media plays an important part whereby, as we all know, the algorithms of sites like Facebook actively promote the most reactionary politics. And moving on to your 6) Russia too has been involved with Russian gold going not to socialist or communist parties in western Europe but to far-right parties. Not just Putin, of course, but also people like Jim Dowson, who funded then broke the BNP and Britain First and not bankrolls the peculiar Knights Templar. The people who bankroll Labour and the Tories are in many cases no better, like that man who said Diane Abbott should be shot.
 
2/2
So moving on to your 7) I'd agree with at least some of your claim about neoliberalism and globalisation. But something you miss is the way the class basis of MPs has changed, where since at least the 1997 election in this country MPs who have never done a day's work now dominate the Commons. People like Jim Callaghan, like Dennis Skinner, would no longer get into Parliament these days - they'd not be selected, never mind facing an election. It's like acting and music, so few working class actors and singers make it onto our screens or into the charts these days. The middle and ruling classes have come back with a vengeance after the flourishing of working class actors and musicians in the second half of the twentieth century. Anyway, as I have said British and American democracy has never had a problem with authoritarian states, as long as they're our authoritarian states. And it's not like Britain or America has ever been really democratic, although the veneer is perhaps deeper in the United States. The work camps in Britain in the last century for example. The war on the disabled in this country. The attacks on benefits claimants, leading to many suicides we have documented on these boards. The playing to nativism by the likes of Theresa May with her hostile environment. But these come from a long history of dividing the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, the 'good' and 'bad' demonstrators, 'hardworking' families and 'freeloaders', like anyone chooses a life on benefits. The miners' strike and the Tory reaction should have shown what the future would be like, with the politicisation of the police, the judiciary and the benefits system - not that things were by any means perfect before. This country benefited hugely from the Empire and left to its own devices has rather struggled since then. The failure by successive governments to share out largesse from the City's financial sector, to invest in large parts of the country, is as much to do with derision for the working class as much as anything else. For me the enlightenment has nothing to do with it, it's class conflict which is a rather larger driver for the way the British ruling class behaves.

8) I'm not really sure where you're going with this but it would be nice if you put a bit more flesh on the bones of this cultural and political sovereignty.

9) As far as I can see, Putin's Russia is not Hitler's Third Reich nor even Mussolini's attempt at a new Roman Empire. Russia does not seem to me to desire to conquer the world, nor even everything which the Soviet Union once claimed. And even if he did desire this, Putin at 70+ isn't really with us for the long haul, not like Hitler who was a mere whippersnapper of 50 at the start of the Second World War. While people here sneer at the thought of NATO expansion having caused the second episode of Russian expansion in Ukraine, it's strange how it followed the signing of the US-Ukraine strategic partnership of November 2021. We see things very much from London and don't seem quite so good at seeing things from the perspective of Moscow. While so many of us poo-poo the very notion that NATO expansion might have caused any concern in Russian government circles, many things I have seen very much suggest they did. I don't know how the current conflict will be treated by historians of the 2030s or 2040s but I suspect that they will give rather more weight to causes which are now treated so lightly here. I've made a number of references to Seth Jones's 'Three Angry Men', and would recommend it here again. I don't believe that Putin desired the conflict as it has turned out, having had a rather more ambitious move designed to seize Kyiv. But so few people get the war they plan, as the Kaiser, Hitler and now Putin can aver.

But for me this isn't an existential war between 'democracy' and 'authoritarianism'. The war for democracy here has imo been largely won by reactionary forces within the ruling class, so that now, whoever triumphs in our festival of democracy in October, nothing much will change with both parties now the party of business. It is the inability or refusal of what passes for democracy in Europe to actually deliver for the people of Europe that is largely causing its crumbling.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
tbh I think my money would be on 'fuck up' with this incident, whoever did it. In many ways that is the scariest option, the idea that a nuclear disaster could easily happen by accident.
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Three separate drone strikes on the reactor vessel is hard to explain as a mistake. Waiting for some sort of enquiry seems ridiculous. Similar to those on the right who demand we wait for Israeli enquiry into the aid workers deaths.
 
TopCat said:
You chose a side. You are there on that side with waffen SS supporters
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This is totally unacceptable, vile personal abuse that totally crosses the line of decency. You should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

The Waffen-SS was the military branch of the SS. Units of the Waffen-SS took part in most of the major military campaigns of World War II. They were heavily involved in the commission of the Holocaust through their participation in mass shootings, anti-partisan warfare, and in supplying guards for Nazi concentration camps They were also responsible for many other war crimes.
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Jfc neither of you are in bed with fascists, this bit of teenage-level argument was tedious af 1,000 pages ago and it's gotten no more enlightening since.

Yes fascists fight in both camps, it'd be ridiculous to pretend they don't it's a war between nation-states ffs. Neither of you are comfortable with fascists being in the combat zone, there's fuck all either of you can do about it, and they aren't the defining or even a particularly important decision-making factor in the respective leaderships. Now pack it in eh?
 
Rob Ray said:
Jfc neither of you are in bed with fascists, this bit of teenage-level argument was tedious af 1,000 pages ago and it's gotten no more enlightening since.

Yes fascists fight in both camps, it'd be ridiculous to pretend they don't it's a war between nation-states ffs. Neither of you are comfortable with fascists being in the combat zone, there's fuck all either of you can do about it, and they aren't the defining or even a particularly important decision-making factor in the respective leaderships. Now pack it in eh?
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Only one of these nations is rampaging through its neighbouring nation killing and raping as it goes. Russia is beyond the pale and stating that editor is on side with SS supporters is well past anything that is decent and can not imagine for a moment any other site where saying that about a mod wouldn’t get you slung out immediately.
 
Russia being the aggressor has precisely fuck-all to do with the number of Nazis in their army or indeed Ukraine's. TC and Ed have both been accusing the other of tolerating fascists here and in both cases it's bloody childish. In fact I know actual children who'd not shout fascist-lover at each other willy nilly.
 
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