[Rei Murasame]

So I guess there's no chance of this group being necromanced? Now that the NU splitters have gone (many for good) it shouldn't be too hard to put together a list of more 'reliable' people that roughly fall into the Third Position. I'm sure there must be some interest... Or a new group. Why let a few bad eggs spoil everything, after all?

You might be right. Anarchist23 is attracting so much attention to this that it's making me wonder if it could actually fly again. But we'll see.

I'd have anarchist23 in SNRF, and it does worry me that some on the left would easily ally themselves with the likes of Rei and Ombra

I don't see why they wouldn't overlap with me from time to time.

Stuff that the left on PoFo actually agrees with me on:

• Maoists (read: actually Prachanda Path - which is a special variant of Maoism designed for South Asia, but whatever) running Nepal.
• Third Front in India, of which the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is a partner.
• Venezuela existing.
• The Communist Party of Vietnam continuing to be awesome.
• EZLN in Mexico!
• and some other stuff.

Anarchist23 would have to actually try joining SN-RF, before he gets to draw up lists of people like if he's some kind of auditor around here. It's possible for Third Positionists to agree with leftists on stuff. It doesn't happen often these days (since we seem to spend more time arguing about what we disagree on), but it is known to happen.

[ComradeTim]

Would I be allowed in as a non-aligned Syndicalist?

[Rei Murasame]

Yes, you would be allowed to join, even if you were already a member of another group.

(Bulaba's post on this issue is correct, the opening post really does mean what it says.)

[Conscript]

I asked for an explanation. You haven't given me one. You've offered no sort of explanation, at all, and have just thrown labels at me. How are socialist, syndicalist and communist, in any way, mutually exclusive terms.

As for whether, "we abolish all states and borders", that's a laugh; did Lenin "abolish all states and borders"? Is he not a communist?

Jesus Christ!

I think you are fucking confused.

Lol, I'm just telling you the way it is. You won't be accepted in any communist circles as the nationalist you are, neither will anyone who shares opinions with a literal nazi, really. The Marxists tend to frown on the anti-immigration, pro-Assad (though this is a bit more understandable, but you're supporting Ba'athist scum and butchers of reds), anti-West/neoliberal, pro-Russian crowd. Rightly so, you're nigh indistinguishable from the Euro far-right aside from the red flag (which you apparently don't even use, instead your sig has the flag of one of the most reactionary & imperialist nations to exist yet).

Hopefully that's what PFTP gets used for, a place for our resident Nazi-sympathizing, Russophobic 'right-socialist' to gather these chauvinist 'communists'. Also, they're mutually exclusive as soon as you inject Marxism, and you aren't really much of one (the anarchist Goldberk is more so, actually). Communism and syndicalism have been mutually exclusive at least since WW1 and 1917. It and nationalism have always been mutually exclusive.

Does 'the workers have no country' sound familiar to you? What about the proletariat being the true international class? There's no real arguing world socialism doesn't abolish the state or nation. If you disagree with that, you're just not a red. But what the hell is so bad about that, for you? Why do you want to have the label so badly?

Also no offense but, you can rest assured the 'national communist' with a Trotsky quote, is probably the one that is confused.

I hardly think calling it alliance is warranted. Also I think you're the only one who would have let A23 into SNaRF.

Honestly dags, I think you have a thing for Rei. You almost seemed betrayed when she revealed her true colors with Ukraine.

I guess it's understandable, I've liked plenty of her posts and in particular her latest engagement with DrSteveBrule over the real nature of liberalism. Of course at the end of the day whatever left wing character she has is pretty irrelevant since she'd kill slavs and communists, and try to bring the liberal-democracies in on it. Sound familiar?

[Demosthenes]

If this thread is just going to be about partisan bickering and oddball provocations simply for their own sake I see no reason not to lock it and be done. The OP has already stated that this is dead and it appears to have only been resurrected in the first place to start trouble.

Either end the near-flaming, and return to the topic, if there even is such a thing at this point, or continue as things are going and accept that consequences will likely be just around the corner.

[fuser]

Yes, you would be allowed to join, even if you were already a member of another group.

Nope, we had our first of upcoming many purges.

[Dagoth Ur]

Honestly dags, I think you have a thing for Rei. You almost seemed betrayed when she revealed her true colors with Ukraine.

It was that I believed in her anti-liberal leanings and then, yes, I felt betrayed when she clearly turned against them (while keepng the rhetoric). I'd hardly say I have a "thing" for her though, Simply bring up Middle East solutions and we differ entirely. I support national liberation as a solution to Islamism, she supports liberal Imperialism as a solution to Islamism. Needless to say I fail to see how more liberalism will solve anything.

And while we are in the spirit of criticism: you were overly harsh on Cromwell. He has made a lot of progress.

I guess it's understandable, I've liked plenty of her posts and in particular her latest engagement with DrSteveBrule over the real nature of liberalism. Of course at the end of the day whatever left wing character she has is pretty irrelevant since she'd kill slavs and communists, and try to bring the liberal-democracies in on it. Sound familiar?

Yeah it sounds like my criticism of her.

[Cromwell]

Blah, blah, blah.

I'm not interested in wasting space on Rei's thread (having seen how much length had been covered by me attempting to deal with the two of you). She's, apparently, interested in reopening the group and, so, if you wish to continue this line of argument, you can take it this thread, which I've recently updated:

Here.

[Rei Murasame]

Also, just by way of commenting on this 'Russophobia' business, none of the people who do not want me to praise actions that are taken against Russia, can explain to me why it would make any sense for me to support Russia's longterm interests against Central and East Asia.

Obviously I'm not going to support Russia. It would be ridiculous to even expect me to.

The fact that this is even an argument, is just proof that 'internationalism' was always a lie anyway, because Communists seem perfectly happy to support Russian imperialism, even while lecturing everyone on how 'bad' it is if we support NATO imperialism to check Russian imperialism. Obviously this is bullshit, so why even bother being against imperialism?

I think that people should stop regarding leftists as some kind of rarefied beacons of total purity or whatever. Everyone makes strategic decisions to provisionally support forms of imperialism if it benefits them. Leftists do it too, it's just that when they do it, they pretend that they are not doing it, and this makes them appear to be the most 'honest'.

[anarchist23]

She's, apparently, interested in reopening the group.

Nothing will come of it. So RM will be taking applications for the PFTP soon. I doubt it...don't hold your breath.

[Cromwell]

Also, just by way of commenting on this 'Russophobia' business, none of the people who do not want me to praise actions that are taken against Russia, can explain to me why it would make any sense for me to support Russia's longterm interests against Central and East Asia.

Obviously I'm not going to support Russia. It would be ridiculous to even expect me to.

I think there was/is a split of opinion amongst your detractors on that issue:

Those who support Russia, as a consistent matter of ideology; which is to say that they support the Eurasian Project, the Putin Regime and all that implies.

Those who support Russia, in this specific instance; which is to say that they support the right to self-determination of Russophones in Ukraine.

Your accusation, I think, is that the former are operating contrary to the interests of Europe (though their idea of what constitutes Europe, actually, differs from your own) and that the latter, which I fall into, are being needlessly sentimental.

I may have that entirely wrong, however.

[Rei Murasame]

Your accusation, I think, is that the former are operating contrary to the interests of Europe (though their idea of what constitutes Europe, actually, differs from your own) and that the latter, which I fall into, are being needlessly sentimental.

There was also the fact that the pro-Russia position harms Asia, because Russia is retarding the development of Asian lands while imposing itself onto those lands. But that didn't get much discussion overall, because the people in the former group don't care about what happens in Central Asia or in Siberia in the first place.

And also, yes, the latter group I don't even understand, since what would be the purpose of defending Russian-speakers in Ukraine?

[Goldberk]

because Communists seem perfectly happy to support Russian imperialism,

Communists on this forum? There are some who express sympathy and understanding for Russia's actions in Ukraine, but none of the consistent communists (myself included) on this forum support Russian imperialism.

[Conscript]

Please, unless you want to dismember the federation and give Siberia to Asia, you support Russian imperialism. If you support the national self-determination of anyone the West and the anti-soviet nationalists hate, you support Russian imperialism.

Really says a lot about the state of 'imperialism' in the supposed end of history, being quite one-sided.

Everyone makes strategic decisions to provisionally support forms of imperialism if it benefits them.

Not at all. We provisionally support certain progressive nationalists, 100 years ago anyway, but not imperialism. Every communist worth their salt practices revolutionary defeatism, just you think considering the greater enemy at home makes us supporters of Russia. Or Islam, for that matter.

You once told me even the communists are ethnically-driven. This just isn't true, and I think you need to believe this for your positions to make sense.

[Goldberk]

Please, unless you want to dismember the federation and give Siberia to Asia, you support Russian imperialism. If you support the national self-determination of anyone the West and the anti-soviet nationalists hate, you support Russian imperialism.

I support the right to self determination and self governance of any group of people, that includes people within the Russian federation, and also the people within Ukraine, but Russia does not support the self determination of those people.

[Rei Murasame]

Every communist worth their salt practices revolutionary defeatism, just you think considering the greater enemy at home makes us supporters of Russia. Or Islam, for that matter.

Which is an entirely reasonable thing for me to believe, because objectively speaking, that is what it is. You don't want Russia to lose any of the land it has occupied. You also don't want to NATO to actually defeat the Islamist groups in Mesopotamia, because you think that a total NATO victory there would be worse than what is presently happening.

[Conscript]

I support the right to self determination and self governance of any group of people, that includes people within the Russian federation, and also the people within Ukraine, but Russia does not support the self determination of those people.

Russia by fortune of today's state of imperialist rivalries, is indeed supporting the self-determination of various people (because that's all it really can do as an imperialist). The Russian areas the Bolsheviks integrated into Ukraine as part of Korenization, autonomous oblasts the Georgian nationalists wanted to destroy and annex, and even it offers citizenship to stateless former Soviet citizens treated like second-class people by Baltic etc. national chauvinists.

It is, of course, not an ally and ultimately the enemy. Putin is trying to forge a reactionary national narrative on Bolshevism and Russia itself represses a former autonomous oblast: Chechnya. Of course, Russia's enemies are doing the same, to an even larger extent.

I don't see the contradiction is opposing both though, and I just find it amusing watching a dilapidated nation the West is keen on making a Weimar out of, strike back.

You don't want Russia to lose any of the land it has occupied. You also don't want to NATO to actually defeat the Islamist groups in Mesopotamia, because you think that a total NATO victory there would be worse than what is presently happening.

I don't concern myself with irredentist land claims and prefer people accept things as the way they are, and identify with humanity and the international working class. Otherwise, we doom ourselves to an endless cycle of war and imperialism, trying to trace back in history what belongs to who when all nations are built on the corpses of others.

The land will be commonly held anyway, there wouldn't be any national monopolies for your kind to feud over. Also no, I don't support NATO destroying a monster it unleashed after annihilating the Arab socialism & nationalism you incidentally once supported, to protect Zionists you hate.

You have to understand you're the one injecting a national angle to this. Yes, there are plenty of stalinists that are just supporters of Russian imperialism. Actual Marxists, especially Western ones and left wing communists, do have that honesty you scoff at. We have no national loyalties. Destroy all nations.

[Goldberk]

Russia by fortune of today's state of imperialist rivalries, is indeed supporting the self-determination of various people

I don't see any evidence of this, where do you think this is happening?

[Conscript]

South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh/Armenia, and Donbass/Crimea. Russia's issue with the West and the anti-soviet nationalists, has the side effect of preserving Bolshevik gains for national minorities (ones incidentally financially dependent on it, of course, Russia still is an imperialist).

This is getting a little off-topic, though.

[Far-Right Sage]

If I may interject, let's put this all back into context. The position of some on the left - and here I am obviously referring to more of the strategic long-game communists who fall into the transitional "national communist"/"socialism in one country" or "Stalinist" camps versus the extreme internationalism-NOW zealots and the Trotskyites - regarding Russia and the Ukrainian crisis isn't really any more inconsistent than their positions of supporting Ba'athist/left-nationalist movements in the Arab world or Latin America in the face of invasion/external attacks. It just appears that way because Russia is a large white/European country, one which is a world power and former superpower and obviously far more influential than any Arab, Hispanic, or other country in the global-south.

If one is an untainted pure anti-imperialist, then it would be impossible to support any Arab nationalist/pan-Arabist government either, like those in Iraq or Syria, or even previously in Libya, as these governments extended their rule over non-Arab national groups and forcibly excluded, attacked, or assimilated others (everyone from Turkmen to Berbers, but the most prominent example being Damascus and Baghdad ruling over ethnic Kurdish land).

So every movement which has any national component at all likely has committed or continues to engage in some manner of policy of imperialism at least on a small level and likely within their borders, but the leftist position has been to largely support the underdog as opposed to the larger dog, not out of some romanticized fascination within the weaker party (although that is probably the case for some naive youth who misunderstand and wrongly assign values to their own ideology), but because the larger more well established materially superior party is for all intents and purposes in the position to do far more damage, and their imperialism is anything but local.

There is a major disagreement over these policies, policies of support for governments which either agree with the communists on some issues and cooperate with them tactically but are not communist themselves or just explicitly non-communist governments (including if not support for Iran, then absolute opposition to Western attacks on it) in the left camp, it underscores a lot of their internal conflicts, and it's similar to the disagreement between many in the far-right here over the EU, the Ukrainian crisis, Atlanticism, the level of allegiance to domestic capitalist regimes, Middle Eastern military campaigns against undesirable factions, and how these issues are tackled.

I would reiterate again though that the position of many leftists on Russia I don't think is hypocritical or borne out of some misguided Soviet nostalgia, because they would equally defend a country like India in a similar position with no past of national communist governance to speak of. Sure, Russian moves in Ukraine can be considered "Russian imperialism", but so what? Russian imperialism is local, doesn't go across oceans to conquer countries, largely today draws upon areas already filled with ethnic Russians and Russophones in their immediate near abroad, is capable of doing less global damage, and is a little more palpable based upon the lack of ideological exclusivity and fanaticism behind it which strikes a more optimistic chord for other smaller nations who wish to trade with Russia as they do with the U.S., EU, or China, without having an alien value system shoved down their throat at gunpoint. Russia actually abolished its own system, which failed, and is currently almost in a post-ideology state of searching for itself again. Russia today is not on an ideological crusade, but more concerned with its survival into the next century. The exact opposite is the case for those who attacked Russia directly through Ukraine. And it's largely understood that Russia's actions there are not borne out of a spontaneous desire to gobble up territory or throw their weight around, but from a very pressing need to respond to an encroaching threat looming closer and closer to their nation. They would have been perfectly happy to allow Crimea to remain within Ukrainian territory and to trade extensively with a Ukraine which is guaranteed to exist as a neutral buffer state rather than a spear pointed at their heart.