GenZedong is a disagrace to lemmygrad and the communist community
I was banned without notice for calling out that supporting Putin is not something we should be doing, check my post history, you won't easily find people more radicalized than me.
This was my final post:
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To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate.
Like we're doing with Putin?
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"Like we're doing with Putin?" in reply to a Mao quote, genzdong's front page at the time was full of threads and posts defending Putin.
Not defending Ukraine is understandable, attacking the USA is understandable but trying to defend and justify Putin is a direct offense against Mao's teachings.
Putin has clearly gone wrong, we mustn't refrain from principled argument because he's an old acquaintance (is he?).
You seem to have forgotten what the "critical" part of "critical support" means. This is not an opening or request for dialogue, this is a criticism. Do better; because somehow, I highly doubt that you've done any kind of investigation on where the people who "support Putin' by your metrics(which would be ironic for someone quoting the Little Red), actually have criticisms for him. If the rest of GenZedong's postership has the kind of principles and convictions I do, or even just that which is mandated by Marxism, they have oodles of them...
...But he's also one of the only people actually spitting in the eye of Empire right about now. So yeah. 'Critical' support; with extreme emphasis on the 'critical' part of it. Swear to god, we've had this same argument for four or five years now.
Agreed. Critical support means you have qualms about something you support. China, DPRK, Iran, Russia, Belarus fall under my critical support category.
The issue with communist discussion online is that many, more so the very online ones, place themselves in direct opposition of what liberals bring up, which in this case is that Zelensky is some "freedom fighter" while Putin is evil and genocidal. The liberal thinking is clearly wrong as Putin is not either of those, but the internet doesn't always leave space for discussion and education; liberals refuse to see anything else and parrot what the capitalists tell them. Paired with internet culture of dunking on them, it's easy for the very online to counteract it with what you're describing as it's a bigger pushback and more inflammatory.
The line should not be "critical support of Putin" but of focusing the argument on the point that the US and especially NATO. Debating whether Putin is good or bad isn't a good use of time: he's a product of the material conditions of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the continued push by NATO on surrounding Russia in an attempt to choke them politically and economically. Otherwise it's a mud-slinging fight of Zelensky vs Putin.
You bring this up, but it's clear that many still try to lump Putin into the category of anti-imperialist leaders like Assad (to whom critical support makes more sense on anti-imperialist lines). It just shows how important it is to have professional & organized Marxist-Leninist parties that abide by democratic centralism. You have your party line and all members push and follow it, despite whatever internal discussion may be had.
I'm sympathetic. Your heart is in the right place. But like others have said, where you really went wrong is thinking that we support Putin. So far as I know, we don't. I haven't seen anything like that either? I think the best outcome of this war for all involved (except NATO) would be a swift victory for Russia, but I'm also of the opinion that everyone involved sucks.
The only peace solution that makes sense is one where NATO is not involved. But it's not their people dying by the hundreds, so they don't care. They'll keep telling Zelensky to tell "his" people that they need to keep dying for whatever reason, cause prior to the war Ukraine was pretty clear from their actions that they didn't consider the Donbass part of their country so I'm not really sure what they're fighting for here, and I don't think they know either.
Putin retreating is literally not going to happen, because it can't. People think he's the only one who takes decisions, because he's an autocratic leader, and you display some of that thinking when you say that the war would stop if he died. If Putin surrounded himself with loyal followers like the media wants us to believe, then why does it follow that they would follow him if he decided to stop the war? Wouldn't it make more sense that they actually support this war and want it to continue? If they're just loyal yes men and rely on Putin's power for their own, then wouldn't they want Putin to stay in power? I don't know, it's sort of a Schrodinger's Russia where Putin is a malevolent all-powerful autocratic absolute figure who skillfully managed to fill the entire government, armed forces, cabinet, parliament, even the people of Russia who keep voting for him and Medvedev with loyal yes men, but also his grasp on power is so weak that he's at risk of getting couped or assassinated at any point lol.
Russia has committed too much in this anyway, with all the sanctions. Saying "soz everyone we're actually wrong and we're gonna go back home now peace" would be the nail in the coffin for Putin. Well, I don't know the situation on the ground in Russia -- we have some comrades from Russia here who can shed light on that -- but people generally seem to support the war. Getting the news that all of this was for nothing and your dad died in Ukraine for nothing because Putin had a change of heart would probably do more to galvanize a coup than the US could ever hope to achieve lol.
Plus what would happen after they go back home? Their disengagement does not guarantee peace in Russia, which was the primary reason for the war. NATO is not going to say "eh tell you what, you were a good sport about Ukraine so we're not going to invade you now".
Anyway the only realistic peace plan is one where NATO is not involved. The whole war could have been avoided if Ukraine had gone to the negotiations from the get go, but NATO wants this meat grinder. They don't care how many Ukrainians die; Ukraine was never going to get into NATO anyway (they admitted this not long ago). And every missile fired is one more bought from the military-industrial complex. This conflict needs actual solutions, because with the way things are going, with the insistence on NATO's part to not have any sort of negotiations take place, the only way out is to the last Ukrainian.
Patsocs are total scum but I'm fairly sure they all support Putin, tho often uncritically. Maupin works for RT, Haz supports Putin in the war and in the antilgbt bs, Yankie Tankie the same as haz, who else is there? MidwesternMarx is patsoc adjacent and Eddie Liger debated vaush in support of Russias position on the war.