We’re starting off with a very short one for the first week. This text was published in 1915, two years before the October revolution, and is sadly still highly relevant in the imperial core.
This reading group is meant to educate, and people from any instances federated with Lemmygrad are welcome. Any comments not engaging in good faith will be removed (don’t respond to hostile comments, just report them).
You can post questions or share your thoughts at any time. We’ll be moving on to a new text next week, but this thread won’t be locked.
You can read the text here.
Organization is an ongoing project, but taking power without the support of the army would likely lead to a civil war, and now is not a good time for Russia to be destabilized
This is exactly the position Lenin critisises in this text. Lenin is quite clear:
Yes but the global context is different, the imperialist hegemon would benefit from a civil war in Russia, a communist revolution in Russia at this moment could very well be found itself fighting for the globally reactionary class war. In fact, the US would absolutely fund such a group, just like in Syria with the SDF.
Again this is exactly the kind of thinking Lenin is railing against in the very text we’re discussing.
Again, this is not the same context of the WW1, this is not one imperialist state fighting another imperialist state, this is an imperialist state trying to subjugate another state through their proxies Ukraine and NATO.
Let’s bring this back to the text, it’s the reading group after all:
*I changed “possible” to “impossible” because that’s what Lenin wrote in Russian! The quote makes no sense otherwise. Russian sources: one, two, three.
So point by point:
1: I find it revolutionary since it challenges the status quo of the uni-polar world. it is revolutionary in the current world context, just like bourgeois revolutions were revolutionary in their context.
2: i agree that the conditions are prime for a revolution, but where is the organization? revolution doesn’t happen spontaneously by itself.
3: i can agree with this but it’s non-important if there is no organization to cooperate with.
Was Iraqi invasion of Kuwait revolutionary because it went against US interests?
I am not knowledgeable on the topic but i do not have any simpathies toward the gulf monarchies, which are known US protectorates.
Edit: adding to this, as i mentioned before “Class Struggle” dives more deep into the nuances of class struggle and the forms it cant take in the local/regional/global scale. Seemingly reactionary conflicts can be globally progressive while seemingly progressive conflicts can be globally reactionary, just like oppressed classes like the proletariat can be the oppresor in the family context with the exploitation of the women in the household, and even the oppressed women can be the oppresor in regards with the children.
I can’t believe we are having to have this struggle session again on Lemmygrad. I thought this had been settled a long time ago.
No, it’s not. It’s a proxy war between the global imperialist hegemon and a capitalist country defending itself against imperialist encroachment.
In that sense yes, it is about geopolitical power. About the power of one state to remain sovereign and defend its people in the face of imperialist encroachment.
The argument that it’s primarily about resources falls apart when you look at the terms that Russia was willing to agree to with Minsk. That would have returned control to Kiev over the entire Donbass, except in an autonomous form and with protections for the Russian speaking population enshrined into law.
It also falls apart when you consider the terms that Russia was willing to agree to at the Istanbul peace talks. Again if it was all about resources, Russia would not have been willing to return all occupied territories to Ukraine (except for the now irreversibly separated DPR and LPR) in exchange for permanent neutrality.
(To clarify: I’m not saying resources don’t play a role, but it doesn’t appear to me like they are the primary motivation. If Russia was after resources they would have had a much easier time invading resource rich and sparsely populated Kazakhstan. And why would they invade Ukraine in 2022 after it had already built up a massive military instead of 2014 when its military was in total shambles? This explanation just doesn’t add up.)
It does because Russia is not just “the underdog” it is acting defensively and not as an imperialist power. Today’s Russia is not the Russian empire. The geopolitical situation is completely different. There is only one imperialist pole and Russia has been forced into alignment with most of the anti-imperialist forces in the world today, from China and the DPRK to Iran, the AES (Alliance des États du Sahel) states, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
And that’s on top of the fact that for the people on the ground in Eastern Ukraine who identify as Russian this very much is a war of national liberation. For the Russian people and the Russian soldier this is an anti-fascist struggle. That makes it a progressive struggle.
Completely delusional. Maybe in Ukraine (still highly unlikely due to the high levels of brainwashing and the complete destruction of any worker organization and communist movements) but not in Russia. I wish that was the case but it just isn’t. Unless you consider a color revolution to be a revolution. That is the only kind of “revolution” you would potentially get out of Russia’s defeat. That or an up-swelling of extreme nationalism leading to a strengthening of reactionary forces in Russia and potentially a repeat of the Chechen wars on a much bigger scale.
What are you even talking about? International co-operation from who? The imperial core? An absurd proposition considering how chauvinist the Western proletariat is. We have seen vastly more “international co-operation” from fascists and mercenaries going to fight for the Ukrainian Nazi regime.
It’s true that there were a few Westerners who went to defend the DPR and LPR when they were alone in fighting the fascists until Russia started the SMO but that was very much the exception. Most Westerners simply bought into the narrative their mainstream media bombarded them with. The same would be the case if a civil war broke out in Russia.
Who then? Non-interventionist China? Cuba, Iran, the DPRK, all of which are under severe siege themselves by the imperialists and which if they lost Russia would be in a much more exposed and vulnerable position than they already are? The world can’t even muster up enough solidarity to stop the Palestinian genocide, do you seriously think they would go to bat to defend Russia from imperialist aggression, neo-colonial plundering and local warlords taking over as imperialist comprador puppets if the Russian state were to fall? You are living in a fantasy world.
Edit: Looking back at how i formulated this response i think i am guilty of somewhat losing my patience. My tone was overly hostile and i apologize. I should not have taken this tone with a comrade on a discussion thread. We are here to discuss and learn.
No worries at all, this reads completely civil. :)
Great points about control over resources, I think you’re right here, this is clearly not the priority for Russia.
CPRF is bigger than Social-Democrats were in Lenins times. I know they won’t try and bring the war home to turn it into a revolution, but I think they absolutely could if a Lenin shows up (cause Zyuganov is evidently not it).
OK this is a bit much. Russia has been a hotbed for Nazism since the 90s putting even the likes of Poland to shame. Travel guides to Russia have to warn people of colour to stay in hotels on Adolf Hitlers birthday cause Russian neonazis murder people year after year to celebrate the date.
Ukraine somehow managed to out-Nazi Russia after Maidan but still, the idea that Putin invaded Ukraine to fight Nazism is laughable cause he never had any issues with Nazis in Russia.