this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Real "our glorious empire, their barbarous enclave" vibes here. All nation states and empires suck and are bad for human rights. With the US and Russia both being the worst ones.
the difference here is like that of republicans and democrats; the both do it, but one is significantly worse than the other
Imperial powers are never your friend. Even the less wrong ones.
This type of pseudo christian "everyone is a sinner🤷♂️" analysis stops short of delivering any useful or actionable understanding of what is going on in the world
the same is true for the democrats
Yes, as I said, Imperial powers, which includes the entire US government. Right or center right cause there is no left.
the key difference here is that the hypothetical-democrats actually use their leverage against the hypothetical-republicans on the world's stage and it can result in a felix culpa for humanity if we're lucky enough.
I'm hoping China completes its transition to communism before any extremely business oriented actors get a hold of it. I promise the capitalists that are allowed to exist over there are plotting and scheming. I just want to see something other than capitalism get a true shot. Or something. I'm tired of living in a world where everything sucks.
The sooner you realize that the American capitalists want westerners to irrationally hate Putin (like this meme points out) the sooner that this world can stop sucking.
Understanding how the American capitalists use propaganda and controlled narratives (like how the Russian or Chinese capitalists are as big a problem for the world as the American capitalists for example) is the first step to changing this world.
The fact of the matter is that the Chinese have their capitalists on a leash; the American capitalists have complete control in the United States; and the Russian capitalists are such small potatoes in comparison that they're almost irrelevant to the discussion.
I'm not gonna pretend like any imperial power is good. The sooner people realize that monolithic power structures are the problem the sooner things will get better. States dont exist to protect people, they exist to control them.
I think you'd do very well to study a bit more on how imperialism functions. Eldavi is 100% correct in saying the capitalists in Russia are small potatoes, they don't have imperial power compared to western capitalists. The very fact that Russian capitalists don't have global hegemony and instead are largely kept within their own borders is why Russian foreign policy strategically aligns them with the global south and against the west, similar to Iran.
As for states, they exist to protect the ruling class of a given society. It's why the US is run by imperialists, Russia is run by nationalists, and China is run by the working classes. All 3 have billionaires and capitalists as a class, but the actual results for people both domestically and internationally are dramatically different. The US Empire is horrible for their domestic working classes and international working classes, Russia is generally horrible for their working classes but plays a progressive role internationally, and China is both progressive domestically and internationally.
Reading more on imperialism and the class basis of the state would help a lot with understanding why Marxists take the stances we do.
I just cant say that Russia (and obviously the US is worse) is a force of good in the world. They both display all hallmarks of oppression. I recognize the same social, economic, and political conditions that concentrate power in the hands of the few. Both the US and Russia actively pursue objectives that are a benefit to their ruling class but not their people. they're so similar a country within their own borders. We won't even get into the fact how each of "the big three" have their own small nations they each bully around consistently.
That's why it's important to read about imperialism and how it functions. An extreme oversimplification is that finance capital allows the country with the largest finance capital to dominate the global south, and push out other countries using its hard power. The US is the empire. Russia's ruling class can't oppress the global south in the same manner, and is kept out of doing so by NATO. That's why countries throwing off imperialism like the Sahel states align with Russia and China, since neither participates in unequal exchange. It isn't because Russia is more moral, it's because they're not in position to be imperialist in the first place.
They're never good, but they're useful sometimes and blanket dismissals can be wasted opportunities in a world dominated by capitalism.
They're useful for dividing humans on arbitrary lines to turn us against one another for power and resources.
that too; more than one thing can be true at the same time.