Counter point: Current-day Russia is many things but socialist certainly isn't one of them. Inequality is massive and health care is drinking yourself to death.
Yep, ignoring the 'shock therapy' from the 90s entirely that allowed a bunch of criminals to gain control of former state assets is anything but socialism.
Has Muscovy been anything other than backwards; wearing a cape of ideology? I see the threaded simulacra from the con of khans to Putin as a consistent parade of the Terrible'.
There is no exercise which occupies the average tanky's mind more than explaining why a literal oligarchy run by a guy who sees himself as the fascist messiah envisioned by the guy who invented christian fascism, is actually totally socialist and critical support and shut up liberal america bad!
It's because these spaces have just been infested by Russian trolls and it's super blatant. Lemmy.ml, at times, feels like it's legitimately an intro course for shitty Russian trolls before they get moved on to Facebook and reddit.
I dont think most tankies would say Russia is today socialist. 30% of employees in Russia work for the state in 2016 compared to 70-90% in 1985. And the biggest predisessor parties of Putin´s party United Russia were hard supported by the CIA and the US(because the parties were right wing and for capitalism and free markets etc. .) to win the russian 1991 and 1996 election before they started to rig election results.
They won't say it's socialist, but they still defend anything Russia does because it's anti-western, which is more important for the current generation of tankies.
I'm under 30, but I remember when Russia was the big bad in western politics. Now our fascist parties are aligning themselves with Russia? It's very odd to me.
I hate that "soviet MLs" is used as a label here, because the failure of the USSR is down to the undermining of the soviets.
The economy being centralised and then destroyed is why post-USSR states are disfunctional, and it's the same vulnerability the EU faces.
Were the economies actually managed democratically, they might have been able to weather the storm instead of getting fucked over by the world bank and IMF.
Instead of cooperating to sort out their affairs post-empire, countries are expected to play monopoly and somehow magically not have the same end game as monopoly.
I hate that “soviet MLs” is used as a label here, because the failure of the USSR is down to the undermining of the soviets.
I mean, yes, but when most people use 'Soviet', especially in context of Russia and its history, they mean 'The Soviet Union', not the people's soviets it got its name from and then subsequently neutered. It's an unfair quirk of etymology or language development or whatever, but 'Soviet' as in 'Of the Soviet Union' is in far wider use than 'soviet' as in 'of workers' councils'.
This is a bizarre take, even by PugJesus standards.
It would be like saying, "Oh, you claim to hate Nazism, yet you like West (or East) Germany which is still recovering from the effects of Nazism. Curious."
Russia isn't socialist to anyone who has developed object permanence. There's no hypocrisy in someone hating socialism and liking Russia, because Russia isn't socialist.
The only reason I can think why anyone would call Russia socialist is if their worldview still revolves around Cold War anti-communism and they haven't figured out how to adjust or adapt their mental frameworks or rhetorical points since then. Which seems to include a fair number of confused liberals, apparently.
Chuds typically say the Nordic Social Democracies are nice, but can only exist because they are small, and nearly ethno-states, because "they care strongly about helping their like-minded neighbors." Hardly anyone thinks the Nordics are Socialist. Chuds are usually nationalists, so this fits neatly into their worldview, for why others can have it nicer while they currently cannot.
As for the Russian Federation, I think anyone can agree that it's far from Socialist, and Shock Therapy absolutely destroyed Russia as Capitalists brutally plundered the remains of the USSR. Chuds like the Russian Federation because it is socially reactionary and highly Capitalist.
"MAGA hats have no real reason to mistake the Nordic countries as socialist, but do; and every reason to mistake Russia as the product of 'socialism', including a number of still-nationalized industries and high public sector employment, a former KGB member as leader who constantly praises the Soviet Union, and a still-active Communist Party, yet (correctly) identify it as the kind of non-socialist traditionalist shithole they'd love to live in. To them, 'socialist' just means 'gives LGBT people basic rights'."
Worse actually. They like the Romantic-era aethetic of Vikings used for nationalist propaganda, not the actual ancient Norse peoples. Their characterizations of the Norse peoples are little more than ahistorical racist stereotypes.
It is pretty weird to call them "recovering from M-L" when M-L is how they industrialized and their current leaders economically looted the country into a state that can only be described as a kleptocracy with designs on restoring the Tsardom.
Especially when it's been over thirty years since the collapse.
But, on the other hand, if it makes conservatives mad...
This is the dumbest shit right here. Literally nobody, left or right thinks Russia is socialist today. Fuck MAGA dummies, but you are out of your mind if you think they like Putin or Russia because of 'socialism'. Like, what are you even trying to say? Rednecks hated Russia in the 50s-80s so they aren't allowed to like it now either? Was it good to hate Russia in the 50s-80s?
"Fiscal conservatives" like the system of degenerate kleptocracy that dismantled the holdings of the Soviet Union and created some of the wealthiest oligarchs on earth. The rest see kinship with Russia in their dismal views on LGBT/sexual liberation, women's rights, people of color, and the use of violence to pursue goals.
There’s an idiot that drives up and down the beach drags here in San Diego with russian, Z, trump, maga, and don’t tread on me flags flying from the back of his truck. Every weekend for at least the past year and a half