HAVANA (AP) — Four Russian warships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, will arrive in Havana next week, Cuban officials said Thursday, citing “historically friendly relations”…
I don't. Not if it necessitates an alliance with distinctly and vocally anti communist and fascist regimes. I will not "critically support comrade Hitler."
Thats so sick, Cuba should also reject all aid from Russia because they have different ruling ideologies? With comrades like these, who needs the fascists?
It’s called an analogy. Zionism is colonial imperialism, America is colonial imperialism. But sure, tap out with your moral superiority intact and your communist movements splintered and useless
What fucking communist movement are you talking about. Putin is not a communist, the current ruling party of Russia was built in the fucking forges of US neoliberalism, they are shaped directly in the image of the Chicago boys and influenced by American conservatism including adoption US culture war bullshit and American Clintonian thinktank liberalism.
Comparing them to opposition to genocide is farcical, calling them communists is downright insulting to any communist. What the hell.
Even the USSR allied with England and the US to defeat Hitler, and the CPC allied with the KMT to defeat Japan. So what is your point here? I trust the Cuban leadership on Cuban military affairs way more than some guy with an internet connection.
This analogy doesn't work unless you believe Cuba is currently close to being invaded. This is a geopolitical alignment, not an alliance of desperation against a genocidal threat.
Cuba sees aligning with Russia as preferable to isolation, it is not gearing up for a potential war with the US.
You know what's gonna improve Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Palestine, North Korea, and all the other places liberals hate? Being pillaged by American and western European capitalists (in the case of Russia, being pillaged again). That definitely won't create the type of crisis that's perfect for promoting fascism.
You're right, if you're worried about fascism you should definitely oppose an alliance between Russia and Cuba.
Less sarcastically, I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to remember seeing what the west did to the people of the Soviet Union. I know what they're up to and the people of Russia, regardless of they're government, do not deserve to go through that again. This is a world the US made, not Russia. If you don't like capitalist restoration Russia you seriously need to ask if anything else is realistically possible in a world where they have to coexist with the US.
I'm learning that this place will excuse anything, including the violent suppression of communist by fascist movements and the US state department, as long as they can own the libs on the internet.
The Russian state did not have to turn out this way. This was not an inevitability. It took work and years and years of effort by the shittiest human being imaginable to make it the way it is now. It is not excusable to spend 30 years suppressing workers and building yourself into exactly what the US wants you to be because the US has a lot of power to make communism difficult. If the Cubans right now gave up on the workers movement and embraced anti communism, neoliberal capitalism and reintroduced limits on minority rights, that would be a tremendous loss, not some kind of inevitable thing we should just shrug off because "well it's easier to do that and you don't want them to face what they did when the US was more actively suppressing them do you".
This whole thread has been most garbage take I’ve ever seen a Hexbear user account of any significant vintage make. It’s like you have almost no understanding of imperialism/colonialism or of “critical support” for bourgeois nationalist movements against them. Almost everyone here disagrees with you, as do many people of the Global South, who also align with and significantly support Russia against the imperial core.
This whole thread has been most garbage take I’ve ever seen a Hexbear user account of any significant vintage make.
bud you should've seen the wild shit that's been said here in the past 4 years, this is somewhat mild in comparison. Like slightly underripe jalapeño spicy.
See, I keep most people who shill for CPUSA blocked based on having grown sick of arguments over that org's predilection for tailism and how preachy about assimilationism some of its Black cadre have been-- what the hell's been going on this time?
The embrace of fascism by its ruling political party, the fascist political structure, the fact that it's built in the image of another fascist state (Namely the US), its embrace of anti-communism, anti-minority (whether those be gender and sexual minorities or religious and ethnic minorities), all the fucking nazis and fascists involved with or connected to the ruling party.
Is this place doing a bit right now?
When did it become fascist?
Somewhere around the time Yeltsin took power, did away with the soviet union and any communist project, suppressed left wing resistance to this. And I would say the fascist didn't end when he then handed power over to the guy who is still in charge being a fascist and basically doing the exact same thing more competently.
I'm not going to hide the ball. My point is that fascism is more than just "country has a long-term ruler the U.S. doesn't like."
The embrace of fascism by its ruling political party, the fascist political structure, the fact that it's built in the image of another fascist state
These are circular -- "it's fascist because it's fascist" --
and the last two are the same point. It's not the formal structure of a government that makes it fascist, either; the actions of the government matter more than the words in the constitution.
its embrace of anti-communism
Getting closer, but this doesn't fit the facts. Russia's second-largest party is the Communist Party. While Russia, as a capitalist state, is hostile to communism, it's less hostile than any Western European state, to say nothing of the U.S., and it's nowhere close to your classic examples of fascism like Nazi Germany, Pinochet's Chile, the ROC, the ROK, etc.
anti-minority (whether those be gender and sexual minorities or religious and ethnic minorities)
Painting with far too broad of brush. Every country on the planet has work to do on treating all minority populations fairly, and most have had explicitly anti-minority policies in the recent past. These are reactionary policies and bad, but there's a far cry between that and fascism. Was Cuba fascist before its new Family Code was passed? Is the U.S. not fascist if a queer woman can become a drone pilot?
all the fucking nazis and fascists involved with or connected to the ruling party
There are Nazi elements present in every capitalist country. Is every non-AES state fascist? Seems reductive.
I'm not going to argue this unless you can provide me a definition of fascism (I.e. not "Must call their ruling party "The fascist party") that is useful and doesn't include the Russian government.
Actually let me rephrase:
Come up with a definition that includes Chile, the RoC under the KMT, South Korea, et al, but does not include Russia.
Such a definition does not exist, and cannot exist. Classic definitions of fascism promulgated by people like Robert Paxton fit Russia, definitions of fascism like a decaying capitalist state run by a bourgeois lashing promulgated by people like Clara Zetkin fit Russia, definitions like Dmitrov's definition of fascism as the most reactionary forces of finance capitalism having control over the capitalist state fit Russia.
But apparently Russia isn't fascist because fascism is more than just being fascist.
The problem with most definitions of fascism is that they apply in one degree or another to virtually every capitalist country. This is especially true if one plays a little loose with the facts, or isn't careful about what governmental actions are common vs. exceptional. And reducing it to fascism = capitalism is unhelpful for a half dozen ways.
I'd define fascism by two characteristics:
The state is ran nominally on behalf of capital, but capital is ultimately subject to the whims of the state. Contrast this with socialism, where capital is similarly under state control, but the state is ran on behalf of the people, and also with capitalism, where capital is both the main beneficiary and is completely running the show. Imagine a wealthy capitalist who displeases the state. Under fascism, the state is ultimately in charge: it can arrest or even execute the capitalist on any or no charges, seize property, etc. Under capitalism, capitalists have strong protections against the state -- rich guy justice -- and unhappy capitalists can and do depose unsatisfactory state actors. A capitalist state has to please its capitalist masters; a fascist state may play nice with capitalists, but the state is the master.
State repression is at an advanced, ubiquitous stage, where it's more of an affirmative policy than a response against opponents. This is the "imperialism fully coming home to roost" part of fascism. Internal repressive institutions aren't occasionally dipping into grotesque tactics; it's now standard operating procedure. Seeking out and destroying (not merely harassing) internal enemies is an affirmative, constant mandate of these institutions, not something they kick into high gear during a crisis. The mandate to destroy (again, not merely harass) internal enemies far exceeds the legitimate police functions of the state (e.g., pursuing crimes that nearly any state would prosecute).
For 1, I think Russian capitalists still have plenty of power and control over the Russian state. For 2, I don't think internal repression in Russia is anywhere near the scale and severity of, for instance, the White Terror under the ROC or the disappearing of prisoners in the Southern Cone regimes of the Cold War.
That would be an interesting definition of fascism, but it fails the test of including regimes that were listed as fascist.
Pinochet's Chile was very clearly in a situation where national and international capitalists were making decisions and where much of Pinochet's power was reliant on the support of international (Particularly US) capital interests and national capitalists who could and did flaunt the laws of the state.
I'm more shaky on the RoC but from my understanding there basically was no state power except sending in the military to knock heads occasionally, parts of that country were entirely run by corporations, parts of it were run by regional warlords, parts of it had functionally no government. Very few people were actually subject to the state, and the forces of capital in particular were not subject to much state power. Ownership of production, military power and state functionary tasks blended together and were often held by the same people who tended towards embracing profit motives. Although I will admit my knowledge of the RoC is limited and I might be misunderstanding.
As for the RoK, that was fully a subject state to US capital interests.
I'm also pretty sure the US is considered fascist in this particular discussion (Or at least that was my understanding), and I think the US capitalist class is kind of uniquely powerful.
If we are to set up a very restrictive definition of fascism, that one would be a worthy one to consider. But I don't think it's a correct or useful one for this particular discussion given our previous inclusions of other regimes that do not fit within it.
It is certainly one that would fit for a lot of traditional 20th century fascist powers, and one with a very clear outlook on what is being discussed.
Minimizing the holocaust with frivolous and unwarranted comparisons to Hitler are generally frowned upon. I'm not even sure you could compare Putin to Yelstin.
Ikr? I Googled it yesterday because I though "oh what a neat Italian name, I wonder who it belongs to" and the wiki rabbithole slowly had me go from straight to