Why Support Russia?

Russia is in essence a non-socialist but anti-imperialist power at this stage; similar to India under Indira Gandhi or Indonesia under Sukarno. It has a pseudo capitalist economy and a national burgeois, but (despite the best efforts of its slavishly pro western national bourgeoise) said capitalists were never accepted as equals by the West who wanted Ukraine or Georgia style compradors who’d let the West own Russia’s resources and extract super profits. 

This vacillation between western slavishness and reticence to surrender their wealth and sovereignty to the West weakened the national bourgeoise and allowed the Siloviki (security and military elites) and the central bureaucracy gain ultimate control over the country, albeit always in an uneasy coalition with the capitalists. This is the faction that Putin has represented since at the latest 2014, though it may have occurred earlier. 

The reason why it is clear that the national bourgeoise aren’t the ruling class is straightforward — they lost from this war. Their assets in the west got seized en mass, their tax havens were erased, their ability to fund liberal opposition or pressure for privatisation kneecapped, and their connection to American dominated global finance capital severed. They didn’t want this war, it’s part of why the state refused to intervene to defend the people of the Donbas between 2014-2022 despite heavy communist pressure to do so. 

Eventually the siloviki determined that the Ukrainian crisis and march towards fascism is a greater threat to Russia than the misfortunes of their national bourgeoise and took the step of the SMO. 

Hence, the nature of this war is one of national liberation and Russia must be supported by communists and anti-imperialists in a united front formation. 

Any analysis of this war as an ‘inter-imperialist war’ is theoretically and practically nonsense. Imperialism isn’t just ‘big country attack small country, EEEEEVIL’ as liberals portray. It has a scientific definition as laid out by VI Lenin. 

Specifically, in brief, it is when the monopoly finance capital has to expand to foreign markets in order to keep their profits high, exporting not actual goods but now finance capital. 

Russia completely fails this definition. It simply doesn’t have finance capital in the sense needed for imperialism. The largest banks are nationalised. Russia exports raw materials, not treasury bills or predatory loans. Vast swathes of its industry is state owned and run for the common good (winning the war). 

The accusation of ‘inter-imperialist war’ is a tactic by liberal infiltrated ‘left’ parties is to demoralise and demobilise workers by convincing them that they have no side in a war where ‘both sides are equally bad’. Which is nonsense since NATO is objectively much worse. It is the primary contradiction of the era and the greatest priority of a Marxist-Leninist today is to oppose NATO, the collective west, and western finance-capital and support the united anti-imperialist front. 

Therefore, having dismissed the ‘inter-imperialist’ smears and confirmed the national-liberation nature of the war, the only sensible path for a Marxist-Leninist is to support the Russian Federation. 

Слава Росси! Слава союза!