April 13, 2022
By Stephen Gowans
Some radical socialists practice a politics that carries over from the days when to be a revolutionary meant supporting the Soviet Union or China. With the Soviet Union gone, and socialist China a distant dream (and perhaps one never to be achieved under the direction of the current communist party), socialists of this persuasion have cut reality to the Procrustean bed of what being a revolutionary socialist used to mean. If the Soviet Union and socialist China are gone, they’ll be recreated. Russian imperialism is transformed into Soviet anti-imperialism and Chinese billionaires are turned into socialists with Chinese characteristics. The reality of a world of inter-imperialist rivalry is conjured into a world as it once was – divided by a capitalist, imperialist camp, on the one hand, and a socialist, anti-imperialist camp, on the other.
But the latter camp, notwithstanding the socialists’ need to create a nostalgic fantasy, today comprises countries that are neither socialist, however much they once were, nor anti-imperialist, despite their rhetoric. All the same, the socialists’ anachronistic politics demand that they have a state to support, and if a state can’t be supported on the basis of its current actions, it will be supported on the basis of its former actions, or delusions about what its current character is.
The alternative idea that socialists might actually do what they’re supposed to do, namely, promote the interests of a class, the proletariat, is dismissed as anachronistic, an antique idea that may have made sense in Lenin’s day, but is no longer current, or is the refuge of cowards who refuse to take sides in struggles between states. Devotion to the class war is understood to be a distraction from participation in wars between nations.
However much it is difficult for anachronistic radical socialists to understand, Russia is not the Soviet Union, is not socialist, and has not escaped the capitalist logic and raisons d’état that compel large capitalist states to dominate and exploit other states, especially their weaker neighbors, and to engage in struggles with other capitalist states for markets, spheres of influence, investment opportunities, and strategic territory.
And while it may be difficult to understand that China’s growing prosperity has less to do with socialism and far more to do with capitalism, especially the country’s emulation of the mercantilist policies that built the capitalist West, this is the reality. There is no socialist China. There is a capitalist China, which, in its industrial planning and state owned enterprises coexisting with privately-owned business, merely recreates what other successful capitalist countries did to lift their millions out of poverty. If we’re going to talk of a socialist China we might as well talk of a socialist Germany and a socialist Japan and a socialist South Korea, for all of these countries, and more, relied heavily on industrial planning and state owned enterprises to lift their millions out of poverty, as capitalist China is doing today. It’s not by accident that the conflict in the years leading up to WWI between an ascendant Britain, and a rising Germany, whose development was nurtured by a dirigiste state animated by the goal of catching up to the world’s hegemon, is looked to as an historical analogy to understand the current conflict between today’s hegemonic power, the United States, and a rising China.
According to the Chinese Communist Party’s August 2021 statement of its mission, socialism is effectively capitalism (releasing and developing the productive forces, the party says) under the direction of the Communist Party. In other words, to the Chinese Communists, socialism is another word for capitalism, but under Communist dirigisme (emulating mercantilist methods.)
With China now well down the capitalist road, anachronistic radical socialists sing rhapsodies to capitalism in China, while deploring it elsewhere, except in Vietnam. Docilely following wherever their hero state leads, they repeat in celebration of Chinese “socialism” the stock phrases Republicans once reliably used to justify their regular assaults on the working class—phrases such as “a rising tide lifts all boats” and “hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty.” To say they make themselves into laughing stocks is to say more than is necessary.
Deluded that Putin’s Russia is Stalin’s Soviet Union and Xi’s China is Mao’s People’s Republic, the anachronistic radical socialists dream of a multipolar world in which the United States is counterbalanced by China and Russia. Multipolarity, in their fantasy, is a return to the original Cold War, one pitting US-led capitalism and imperialism against Soviet-led socialism and anti-imperialism. But multipolarity in reality means a return to a vigorous inter-imperialist rivalry, one which gave rise to the industrial extermination of WWI, followed by the even greater exterminations of WWII. The praxis of the multipolaristas is solidarity with anti-US poles of attraction for no other reason than they’re anti-US poles of attraction. Baby imperialisms are to be nurtured and supported so they grow up to become big imperialisms that can compete with the one big imperialism, that of the United States—like supporting Germany in the runup to WWI, so it could compete against Britain, in a multipolar world. Somehow, this is supposed to deliver us all to a better place. In Lenin’s view—one which anachronistic radical socialists now scorn—a better place is a nonpolar world free from imperialism, to be achieved, not by supporting one national bourgeoisie against another, but by overthrowing them all.
To help midwife the birth of the emerging multipolar world, the anachronistic radical socialist turns skepticism of US pretexts for imperialist assaults into a need to believe the very same pretexts Moscow recycles for its own imperialist assault on Ukraine. NATO’s humanitarian interventions in the former Yugoslavia and Libya to prevent claimed genocides are scoffed at, for good reason. The proposal to mount a humanitarian intervention in Xinjiang to prevent a claimed Chinese genocide against the Uyghurs is denounced correctly as an imperialist plan backed by a black legend. But Moscow’s pretext of humanitarian intervention in Ukraine to prevent an alleged genocide is accepted uncritically, even though Moscow has not invoked the Genocide Convention, something it would do if it genuinely believed what it claims. The pretext is also accepted without skepticism despite the fact that Moscow has already displayed a manifest willingness to lie to advance its aims in Ukraine; after all, the Kremlin insisted Russia would not invade Ukraine, going so far as to mock anyone who said it would. And then it did what it swore it wouldn’t do. You would think, having been misled once, the radical socialist Russophiles would learn, but their need to have a state (in place of a class) to support militates against their learning of lessons.
Gullible, they turn socialist praxis into Russian information warfare, aping Moscow’s narrative as ardently and faithfully as CNN mimics Washington’s, right down to euphemizing Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine—the supreme international crime—as a mere “crisis”, or a “special military operation”, or worse, not a conflict between Russia and Ukraine at all, but “a hybrid US war.” In their minds, their devotion to radical socialism is proved by their fidelity to the hero state’s message and the zeal with which they propagate its fictions. Questions are discouraged, thought frowned upon, skepticism denounced as betrayal. They are good soldiers, and will not stray from the narrative of the hero state, will not refuse to accept its word on all matters, will not question its mendacities nor deplore its absurdities. In this, their eagerness to make themselves into laughing stocks knows no limits.
Radical socialists used to say that they practiced a scientific socialism. It was scientific because it tried to adapt to reality, not obfuscate it or fit it to a Procrustean bed. But what many radical socialists practice today cannot be called scientific, or indeed, even coherent socialism. Their practice instead is based on a detachment from reality and a construction of a pleasing fantasy of a world that once was but is no longer; in other words, it is little more than mental illness.
What's Left 
“Anachronistic”? You wish 😀
The 90s were just an anomaly in the trend of dying imperialism. The “old” is back in force.
When I used the phrase “mental illness” in the title of my blog post to refer to anachronistic radical socialism, my intention wasn’t to use the phrase literally or for it to be interpreted literally. But I do think, in light of your deranged screed, in which you defend your solipsism and describe Germany as the aggrieved party in WWI, while attributing the quality of one’s thought to the color of their skin, that the phrase “mental illness” can indeed be taken literally in your case.
1. There’s nothing wrong with solipsism, only with the caricature that the absolutists make of that extremely useful scientific paradigm.
2. More to the point, I can SO EASILY find you a billion people who find that “Putin’s views on the LGBTQ community are admirable”. You would be extremely hard pressed to find me 100 left wing people that are actually under the impression, or even that would claim in bad faith, that Russia is the same as the USSR.
Yet I hear this straw-man view thrown by trotskyists, euro-communists and other anti-imperialists all the time. No supporter of China/Russia is confused about them both being communist nations. About nothing having changed since the 90s. So why keep pretending we do?
The closer to that opinion that’s being expressed, I actually share it, is that Russia has kept or later regained many traits that existed under the USSR, even if to a lesser extent. This already is very hard in itself for white leftists to admit.
One of these regained traits, regained after Yeltsin the compradore, and after Russia/Putin realised there was no chance Russia could be on even neutral terms with the white supremacist 1st world, is the struggle against anti-imperialism.
So the view that Russia is struggling against imperialism is indeed a widely shared view, not amongst white supremacists of course, but in the imperialised world absolutely. The view that Russian anti-imperialism is Soviet anti-imperialism, i.e. that Russia is the USSR, no one would even make it, it makes no sense. The only reason for that silly idea even existing is to build a straw-man and berate the people it’s supposed to represent.
> You seem to be very confused
There’s no way I would appear confused to anyone about any of this. So why not drop the smug pretence?
> the rival effort of Russia to dominate the same country
There never was that effort to dominate the country. We know the US financed Maidan, that it is responsible for the sniper shooting and every further escalation up to this war. More importantly, we know that without the imperialists, the fascists of Ukraine would have stood no chance whatsoever, they would have been defeated by the Ukrainians themselves and their “compromise” government right then in 2013.
NONE of this can be said about Russia’s relation with Ukraine. To better illustrate, Russia barely had to do anything in 2008 for Ukraine to revert the prior colour revolution despite all US efforts to maintain it. Because fascism cannot stand on its own, it’s too unpopular and therefore too unstable, too short-lived. When you have this little “effort” to make to keep a nation close to you, you’re barely imperialising. When you “invade” a region like Crimea or Donbass and the “invaded” cry tears of joy and relief, you’re not invading but liberating.
And since you decided to make the task hard for yourself when you attempted to make this grotesque false equivalency between the “2 imperialisms in Ukraine” stand, now follow up and show examples of the US “liberating” anyone anywhere. Examples where people BY themselves chose to side with the US with no coercion. Examples where a people floats the US flag BY itself.
If you had gone with “Russia is a far far FAR lesser imperialist BUT”, we’d be having a more complicated debate. But you went for the equivalence outright, so you can only blame yourself for looking like a liar.
> is precisely the idea that corrupted the Second International
International worker solidarity was corrupted when the workers of UK/France took arms against German workers. Allying with their own bourgeoisies against their peers. Leaving German workers no other choice but to ally with their own bourgeois. This should prove, if it needed proof, that “workers” like you will easily side with their bourgeoisie against another nation. That national interests trump class interests if the workers calculate it’s an easier path to a better or less painful life. That imperialised workers should never count on the good will of the imperialist workers to join them against both their capitalists. This is exactly why Russians are aligning their interests with those of their bourgeois, and why every imperilalised nationalist like Hussein, Peron, the Taliban, etc are all hated by the imperialists however much “communist” they may be, while supported by their people. In a world where imperialism is the primary contradiction, class war comes as secondary.
So international solidarity is up to the imperialist not the imperialised. YOU should be the one advocating for dismantling NATO now, for disarming Ukraine’s junta, for supporting the military coup in Niger, for supporting the victory of the Taliban etc. Every time you do ANYTHING ELSE but anti-imperialist struggle, you convince the imperialised further that you don’t side with them, that there is NO international solidarity, that their bourgeoisie is a better ally than the imperialist worker.
Since you imperialist “communists” are always breaking our balls about Lenin, this is exactly what Lenin did. He helped dismantle the imperialist alliance by leaving the winning side and pactising peace with the losing side. Had he done this in the inverse situation, Lenin would just be the name of some traitor we forgot and 1917 would be a year like another. In addition, had Germany done a worker’s revolution in 1917, would the Brits/French workers have joined in solidarity? Germany would have lost even earlier and the imperialists could have just marched on Moscow while the revolution was barely started.
> Your view of imperialism is that it is the foreign policy of the USA and its allies and nothing more
It is so so clearly THE one imperialist, whoever is not its vassal or its serf is an anti-imperialist to be crushed. I’d even argue that it’s the last imperialist of the Columbian era. This notion of “potential imperialism” you imperialists try impute to nations like Russia is as ridiculous as saying that if women were as strong as men they’d be trying to impose matriarchy on men. “Beware of the feminist witch!”
As long as you’re as little as agnostic about very easy, very uncomplicated concepts like “who’s the imperialist” in a world where no one has any trouble telling so, you’ll be viewed as an ally of imperialism, as breaking internationalist solidarity with the workers of the imperialised world.
> the way Marxists understand imperialism.
True marxists, the workers of the world, we all understand it as I do. White “marxists”, we don’t need your opinion on what marxism is. Check your privilege as liberals rightly say.
> collaborating with Russia is like inviting the robber lurking outside your house to come into your house to help you evict the robber that is already in your house
That’s a terrible quote. Even if he said it in 1993, it’s so bad there are no words to say how objectively wrong it is… To consider even Yeltsin’s Russia as an equal enemy with the US, the nation literally occupying your country, who genocided your people? No way.
So citation desperately needed. Context even more. Can’t find either. Until you give both it comes from your arse.
A few points.
The idea that a point of view does not exist because you haven’t met anyone who holds it, is an instance of solipsism. I haven’t met anyone who believes Putin’s views on the LGBTQ community are admirable, but that doesn’t mean that homophobes and bigots don’t exist.
You seem to be very confused about the nature of the war in Ukraine, what the Third World is, whether Russia belongs to it, and what imperialism is.
The war in Ukraine is a struggle between two powers, Russia and the United States, neither of which belong to the Third World, over a third country, Ukraine, also not part of the Third World.
The imperialist content of the war lies in the effort of the US to dominate Ukraine and the rival effort of Russia to dominate the same country. That makes both Russia and the USA imperialist powers, and their conflict over Ukraine, an inter-imperialist one.
The notion that the contradiction, as you call it, between the bourgeoisie of one country and the bourgeoisie of another, is more important than the conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, is precisely the idea that corrupted the Second International and led Lenin to found the Third International to place the socialist movement back on a Marxist path.
Your view of imperialism is that it is the foreign policy of the USA and its allies and nothing more–a view alien to Marxism. According to this un-Marxist view, the foreign policy of Russia as it respects the the solely designated imperialist leader, the USA, including Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, represent the resistance of Russia against imperialism (i.e., the United States.) It’s easy to see Russia as a state that is targeted by, and is resisting, the imperialism of the USA, if you arbitrarily exclude Russia from the category of imperialism. But this is both logically untenable, and inimical to the way Marxists understand imperialism.
I get it. You don’t like the United States. But believing that Russia is your friend simply because Russia shares your anti-US enmity, is self-defeating. To paraphrase Kim Il Sung, who, unlike Putin, really did represent a Third World country, collaborating with Russia is like inviting the robber lurking outside your house to come into your house to help you evict the robber that is already in your house.
“Russian imperialism is transformed into Soviet anti-imperialism”
No this does not exist. I hear about it all the time, but I never met anyone who held this view. Instead, I’ve heard several of those very people express how much they are NOT confused about Russia being the USSR, while not letting their differences in class take precedent over the primary contradiction of imperialism.
So this whole view is made in very bad faith. The bad faith required not to support the 3rd world in times of its worst struggle against imperialism since WW2. It is very unsurprising that this view should be expressed by a white 1st world man.