Russian Tensions
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“The Russians are in no danger of losing”
But are they in a position to win outright?
I said in earlier posts I expect a protracted prolonged war of attrition but because of demographics, Russia should eventually prevail.
ALB suggests commitment to Ukraine will dissipate in due course as the economic crisis deepens, weakening it.
We see some early evidence of this with those on the right and left uniting in joint protests
A Republican victory in the mid-terms may well lead to the same drop in support for Ukraine in a more internationally isolationist USA.
However, I have not forgotten that TS predicts a swift Winter offensive that will give Russia victory.
Certain military experts suggest a Russian military build-up for such a tactic.
Time will tell which analysis proves the more accurate.
Otherwise, it is all speculation.
Once more, I reiterate the SPGB’s general position.
A speedy ceasefire to have peace talks where Ukraine cedes territory to the Russians if that is what it takes to bring an end to the war.
Workers have no land to fight and die for.
An SPGB principle of anti-nationalism TS scoffs at but one that better facilitates the chance of peace.
And it is a principle that produces also the accusation that we are in favour of appeasement. So damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
BD – “Interesting that TS has not as yet answered any questions about whether or not he agrees with the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to Pol Pot and his gang.”
Truly Scrumptious-“I’m not here to talk Pol Pot, I’m here to talk Russia/Ukraine. You know, the thread topic. The fact Alan is not moderating as he should is not my problem. So suck it up buttercup.”
What a clown🤡🤡🤡
“LOL TS. You are as ever, endlessly amusing.”
You should try having a sense of humor yourself, women dig it.
“But do you seriously imagine the trashy far-right capitalist organs like the racist “Russia-Insider” and others you draw your “facts” from are any different??”
Reading comprehension does not seem to be your strong suit so I shall repeat myself. The Guardian does not tell the truth about official “E-N-E-M-I-E-S”. Got it now? I have linked to one article from Russia Insider that comprehensively refutes false claims about Putin’s wealth. Is Putin an official enemy of Russia? Lol
“They pump out the pro-capitalist propaganda of the obnoxious Putin regime”
How is Putin’s government obnoxious?
“you simp for and you buy it all, lock stock, and barrel, without question and without demur.”
What, one article? Lol. Get a bit of perspective buddy.
“Don’t forget – you were the one that started this daft line of argument that just because the Guardian is a liberal capitalist organ we can safely reject anything it says as false.”
(Yawn.) I never said that. You are putting words in my mouth.
“Facts are to be judged not by their connection with reality but by the political acceptability of the source revealing them according to you.”
(Yawn.)The Guardian doesn’t reveal facts about official enemies. That is not its purpose…zzZZzz
“Now that that argument has boomeranged back on you are trying desperately to backtrack.”
Not bloody likely. Though, like a boomerang, I am running circles around you. Lol
““The Russians are in no danger of losing”
But are they in a position to win outright?”
Yes, they are. Ukraine is a muddy bog right now as the autumn rains have arrived. As soon as the ground freezes the Russians will begin major offensives. Ukraine is running short of weapons and reserves. Russia has unlimited weapons and has just deployed 370k reserves/volunteers.
“I said in earlier posts I expect a protracted prolonged war of attrition but because of demographics, Russia should eventually prevail.”
Ukraine was defeated months ago. It’s only remained in the fight because of NATO largesse.
“ALB suggests commitment to Ukraine will dissipate in due course as the economic crisis deepens, weakening it.”
Weaken Ukraine and Europe, you mean? This is already happening. Ordinary Europeans are getting desperate and hitting the streets. (You won’t though because for some demented reason you don’t believe in revolutionary action during capitalist crisis.) The elites still support Ukraine 1000% though. They see a Russian victory as a defeat for NATO. An outcome too horrible for them to contemplate. But it is going to happen. Will this encourage them to use nukes? Quite possibly.
“We see some early evidence of this with those on the right and left uniting in joint protests”
People on the left, right and center all have bellies that all get hungry. Does that surprise you?
“A Republican victory in the mid-terms may well lead to the same drop in support for Ukraine in a more internationally isolationist USA.”
The Republicans support the war wholeheartedly. But criticising it for the time being harms Biden and helps their electoral prospects in the mid-terms. If you think them isolationist I’ve a bridge to sell you. Buy one, get one free!
“However, I have not forgotten that TS predicts a swift Winter offensive that will give Russia victory.”
Yep, coming soon.
“Certain military experts suggest a Russian military build-up for such a tactic.”
Yep, as we speak. Just waiting for the winter frost.
“Time will tell which analysis proves the more accurate.
Otherwise, it is all speculation.”
Deep Alan, real deep.
“Once more, I reiterate the SPGB’s general position.
A speedy ceasefire to have peace talks where Ukraine cedes territory to the Russians if that is what it takes to bring an end to the war.”
The Russians have always been willing to negotiate but the US, who pulls Ukraine’s strings, won’t allow it.
“Workers have no land to fight and die for.”
Yeah, they do.
“An SPGB principle of anti-nationalism TS scoffs at but one that better facilitates the chance of peace.”
The Palestinians have no land. Where’s the peace? Lol
“And it is a principle that produces also the accusation that we are in favour of appeasement. So damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
Appeasement was the policy of encouraging Nazi Germany to invade the Soviet Union. Thankfully, the Soviets weren’t retarded and understood a military and state apparatus were necessary to defend their revolution against fascist aggression. A fact you will never recognise because you are ideological fanatics.
Jonathan Cook on the media double standards.
“…And in stark contrast to Britain’s whole-hearted support as Ukraine battles to stop Russia’s annexation of its eastern territories, the UK’s prime minister Liz Truss stated only last month that she may reward Israel for its illegal annexation of Jerusalem by moving the British embassy there.
Whereas Palestinians are constantly inveigled to postpone their liberation struggle and wait for their occupier to agree to peace talks, even when Israel openly scorns engagement, Ukrainians are pushed by the West to do the exact opposite. They are expected to delay any negotiations with Russia and focus on the battlefield.
Similarly, those who promote talks between Israel and Palestine that are never going to take place are praised as peacemakers. Those who advocate for talks between Ukraine and Russia – when Moscow has expressed a repeated willingness to negotiate, even if its overtures are disparaged by the West – are rounded on as appeasers.
Russia, meanwhile, faces sustained and comprehensive sanctions imposed by western states to bring it to heel.
By contrast, those proposing a far weaker tool – grassroots boycotts – to pressure Israel to loosen its choke-hold on Gaza are smeared as antisemites and face legislation to outlaw their activities by the same western states sanctioning Moscow.
It is almost as if the “freedom-loving” West has an entirely inconsistent agenda when it comes to the plights of Ukraine and Palestine. Israel’s hold on Palestine is unfortunate but justified; Russia’s over Ukraine is emphatically not.
Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s “unprovoked aggression” is heroic. Palestinian resistance to Israel’s violence – invariably presented as self-defence – is terrorism…”
Whatever criticism can be laid against the SPGB, inconsistency is not one of them.
From 1929 on Zionism
“…Religion and race, national independence and patriotism, are now, from the worker’s point of view, just so many ruling-class devices useful for the purpose, among others, of stirring up hatred when and where they may want it. Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Iraq have no more interest at stake in the independence of the states in which, and by which, their exploitation is carried on, than had British and German workers in 1914. Socialism alone is worth struggling for. That is the message of the Socialist to all the working-class dupes of the closely-allied superstitions of religious, racial and patriotic rivalries. Jewish workers and Arab workers both suffer, but not because they are Jew or Arab, or because they happen both to be in Palestine, but because they are workers and therefore exploited by those who own and control their means of life. The Jewish workers cannot solve their problems by transferring their misery from New York or Berlin to Jerusalem. The world will be fit for Jewish workers and Arab workers to live in when, and only when, the working-class, as a whole, have gained political control for the establishment of Socialism…”
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/11/potash-and-palestine-dead-sea-fruit-1929.html
Moderator notice
Regarding complaints of the failure to keep the thread on topic, long experience has taught me that forum exchanges often take detours, where sometimes they are not productive but at other times, they often are fruitful.
These diversions may appear to side-track the topic but it is the moderator’s personal opinion, they can add broader context to the debate.
Eventually, the discussion returns to being directly relevant to the topic title.
The moderator’s tolerance and forbearance of off-topic messages have applied to all posters but I would say that, wouldn’t I? ;-p
Interesting article here on the support base of Putin’s authoritarian and neoliberal capitalist regime
“And just as the 1990s oligarchs were deeply entangled with the state, so the “siloviki” (securocrats) who have replaced them as the arbiters of political power under Putin are embedded in the capitalist system. For all their superficial differences, both groups turned the apparatus of the state into an instrument for individual enrichment. As business and mafia groups were gradually brought under the control of the security services, the state absorbed and internalized their profit-driven ideology and modi operandi.”
https://jacobin.com/2022/08/russia-liberals-scapegoat-working-class-vladimir-putin-war-ukraine
I think threads are bound to digress. It’s normal conversation.
Locke invited his readers, let’s throw the ideas about; we’ll assemble them later.
On the imperialist ambitions of Putin’s capitalist regime….
“He repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to independent existence – and, at times, that the country exists at all as an independent entity. Instead he appeared to accept the unity of the two countries as historical fact. In doing so, he revealed the structures of an imperial ideology with a chronology and ambition that goes far beyond post-Soviet nostalgia to the mediaeval era.”
It seems to me that imperialism is only the logical expression of nationalist sentiment in the context of modern capitalism with its built-in expansionist dynamic. There is no nation-state anywhere in the world that is not manifestly or latently imperialist. The mistake is to assume imperialism is just military intervention and conquest but there is also an economic aspect to imperialism as well. In every sense of the term, Putin’s Russia is a fully-fledged imperialist capitalist power
“like a boomerang, I am running circles around you.”
He is definitely running in circles. Seems that he is the one who’s bitter and running about. Where to, I don’t know. Running in order to avoid answering any questions.
I doubt very much he knows anything of social history and Marxism, and very little of philosophy in general. I also suspect he is young, reliant on sloganeering and conspiracy-“theory.”
“He repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to independent existence”
Prove it. Quote the pertinent statements.
“– and, at times, that the country exists at all as an independent entity.”
It doesn’t. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the US empire. The empire chose it’s coup government, pays all its government salaries, runs and equips its military and when Zelensky tried to negotiate peace terms overruled him. Ukraine is the US’ bitch. Pure and simple.
“Instead he appeared to accept the unity of the two countries as historical fact.”
It is a historical fact. What, you know more about Russian history than the leader of Russia? Talk about an inflated sense of self importance.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inaccurate_historical_map_of_Ukrainian_borders.jpg
“In doing so, he revealed the structures of an imperial ideology with a chronology and ambition that goes far beyond post-Soviet nostalgia to the mediaeval era.””
BS. Kiev lost its right to ever again rule over ethnic Russians when it tried to exterminate them.
Knobbo, when you don’t know shit about shit, don’t say shit. Lol
The SPGB does know more about Russian history than Putin. We are historical materialists. Putin is a politician, and a nationalist.
You might as well say Boris Johnson knows more about British history than we do.
We’ve been about a lot longer too, and analysed the nature of the Russian Revolution, knowing already by 1918 what it was.
“Running in order to avoid answering any questions.”
Good try. This thread is Russia Ukraine not Pol Pot. I haven’t avoided any questions related to this thread.
“I doubt very much he knows anything of social history and Marxism”
I know you’re not Marxists.
“and very little of philosophy in general.”
You’ve no idea what I do and don’t know.
“I also suspect he is young, reliant on sloganeering and conspiracy-“theory.”
What conspiracy theory would that be? That the US/Uk are responsible for the Nord Stream sabotage? What, you think the pipelines just spontaneously exploded all on their ownsome? There are tapeworms with more intellectual curiosity than you. Lol
“The SPGB does know more about Russian history than Putin. We are historical materialists. Putin is a politician, and a nationalist.”
Putin made a fact claim. Knobbo thought it important enough to quote the claim and a refutation of it. So your crap about being a historical materialist means exactly squat. Knobbo is a big boy, he can speak for himself. Why don’t you run along and play some More with your Thomas?
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