EDIT due to the recent feedback of @AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
There are three important context that needs to be understood here:
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There is currently an antifascist war going on Ukraine.
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Both groups in the picture are fighting this war provoked by NATO.
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The saying “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes” means that events may not occur again in exactly the same way but there often are enough similarities to make it seem like a spot of deja vu. The similarity here is with the Second world war which in Russia is called the Great Patriotic War.
If you all need more information regarding any of these, please refer to AnarchoBolshevik sub c/capitalismInDecay or this sub.
This post is to remind everyone that the Russian SMO and the Ukraine war are antifascist.
What is the first picture from?
Both are from the Russian SMO.
My head explodes looking at that picture. Does anyone have comprehensive (marxist?) analysis to look at for someone who tries to get away from western prop?
Do you mean about the first picture or the second?
About the first picture: there is an increasing amount of nostalgia in Russia for Soviet times, for understandable reasons. Also they still celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany, and this leads their soldiers to adopt Soviet imagery and symbols sometimes as symbols of anti-fascist resistance. To get into why the bourgeois Russian state not only tolerates but feeds into it by embracing the May 9th celebrations as a big state holiday would be a longer discussion. The short of it is, there are a huge amount of contradictions in modern Russia.
About the second picture: fascism and Nazism have been resurgent in virtually all post-socialist Eastern European states since 1989, but nowhere as much as in Ukraine and the Baltics (and perhaps Croatia). This is because these countries had historically the largest Nazi collaborationist and homegrown fascist movements. In Ukraine’s case the Banderite ideology was essentially officially adopted as the new state ideology and national identity after the 2014 coup. Since 2022 the Kiev regime’s military has widely adopted Nazi insignia and Nazi unit names.
The reason for this and why these groups and this ideology were so heavily sponsored and encouraged by the US and EU is fairly obvious, it’s because they create fanatical anti-Russian sentiment which is useful for getting the populations of these countries to willingly sacrifice themselves in service of the imperialist West’s anti-Russia crusade. These are also the groups most willing to use brutal force to suppress socialist and pro-communist sentiment, the resurgence of which has always been a huge threat to the plans of the imperialists for Eastern Europe.
Some more useful links and summaries of the history of Ukrainian Nazism in the comments of these two posts here:
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7112898 https://lemmy.ml/post/26654686
How to read this war then? Does ML have to support Russia while Russia is being capitalist not socialist one? (I’m just asking really I have no judgement on this issue)
All anti-imperialists should critically support Russia in this conflict. A defeat of NATO and their Nazi proxy army is a major win against the Western imperialist hegemony, which in turn is a win for socialists everywhere in an era when imperialism is the primary contradiction and main obstacle to socialist movements.
From Redsails, Why Marxism
Also, this other post talks in detail what critical support means and responds to your second question. Having this clear you can probably find the answer to the first question.
To help you our regarding your first question, this post might help -> https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7357678
do you know what critical support is?
No
Critical support for Russia means supporting the resistance against imperialism (NATO, US etc), while acknowledging the problematic aspects of Russian government. This ties into ML theory centering imperialism as the primary contradiction.
No, we shouldn’t support Russia, but Russian victory would be significantly more beneficial (or rather less harmful) for communist movements worldwide.
On the contrary, we should critically support Russia. Russia at this moment in time is fighting an antifascist anti imperialist war against West’s NATO forces. NATO are the ones that prop a big army full fascists from all over the world including Latin America to invade and kill Russians.
As for the benefit, it is really a lot. The Ukraine war is draining plenty of fascists milicia and resources that will not be used to harass communist organizations, indigenous people, activists and so much more. If you are a westerner, you probably won’t see this due to the intense anti russian propaganda and pro NATO war that are currently pushing but in the Global South we are seeing plenty of benefits.
Fascist logos in the Ukraine army including the International mercernaries have abundant logos like this one:
spoiler
About Ukraine?
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Huh? But I am not. The point of the post is not to equate both but to show that we are seeing another anti fascist war like the one in the past.
Is the quote “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes” means equating both groups to you? If so, then this is might be cultural thing in your country because the saying has a different meaning to me 🤔
All that you did was post an image of two decontextualized photographs—one of undefined soldiers holding up a communist flag, and a similar one of undefined soldiers holding up a neofascist flag—and vaguely captioned them with ‘History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes’.
What will other people think?
Well, I thought the context was pretty clear if I added this post with the quote in c/deathToNato which is the sub that works for posting news about NATO’s wars. 🫠
TIL, I gotta make it more explicit next time with a definition of the quote to avoid any misunderstandings.
I gotta make it more explicit next time with a definition of the quote to avoid any misunderstandings.
That’s not what I fucking said. Your image is a photograph of soldiers holding up a communist flag. The photograph below is a similar one of soldiers holding up a neofascist flag. What will people think?
What will people think?
If people understood the quote and see that picture, I thought people will see a repeat of history and then they will think that this is happening right now at this instant which is the point of the post. This will help plenty of people clear confusions with the NATO provoked war in Ukraine. That’s it and there is NO need to get angry about this, Anarcho-Bolshevik.
Also, I am not downvoting you.
deleted by creator
Have you seriously never before seen lazy comparisons like that?
In reddit, yes but here is not very common. In great part, it is thanks to mods like you and the admins that do a great work at education. You also go beyond in the education by keeping the sub c/capitalismInDecay updated.
You didn’t explain anything in your opening post.
Well, I thought that the quote will be enough to contextualize both pictures but now I stand corrected. Thanks.
I just left a group because two people in it called me stupid and accused me of insulting their tradition, and now I’m trying to reason with you telling you that your vague, cryptic bullshit thread doesn’t do anything but make you look boneheaded, and you keep missing the obvious. I would just delete your shitty thread if I didn’t think that somebody else would restore it. Fuck this shit.
I am sorry, Anarcho-Bolchevik.
Honestly that’s not at all how i interpreted this post. I thought that OP’s intended message was pretty clear. However i will admit that you may be right about how some “normies” would interpret this image without any additional context…maybe something like: “80 years later and the Hammer and Sickle is still fighting against the Swastika” should be added.
So yes you’re right to point out that perhaps this needed a sentence or two of clarification. I’m sorry that you have had such negative experiences recently, you don’t deserve that, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this post. I feel you are being needlessly hostile toward the OP here who obviously meant well. Maybe offer polite constructive criticism next time?
