THE AUTOCRAT’S DELUSION - PUTIN AND THE "ANTI-IMPERIALISTS”

So-called “anti-imperialists” among the left in the West have supported Putin’s Russia as a counterweight to Washington’s designs as a global hegemon since his first attempts to gain control of Ukraine in 2004, portraying the country as a hotbed of neo-Nazi neo-fascism and white supremacy overrun by “fascist street gangs.” I ended a few old friendships over this in those years.

This is the same political tradition in the west that led to the Western Left supporting the Bolshevik Revolution and the mass murders of Stalinism: the Ukrainian famine and the millions killed in the Great Terror of the show trials, then portraying the Hitler-Stalin Pact that led to the invasion and dismemberment of Poland by both totalitarian dictatorships and an act of opposition to “Western imperialism.” (There’s a funny story about one of the leaders of the CPUSA picketing the White House on June 22, 1941 to stay out of “imperialist wars,” then getting news of the German invasion of the USSR and immediately calling for a”second front against fascism”) They said nothing against the suppression of the East German revolt of 1953, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, or the Czech Spring in 1968; I remember hearing some of them in 1968 defending what happened when the tanks rolled into Prague as “necessary” on the part of the Soviet Union in the face of “NATO provocations.” It was listening to horseshit like this that eventually turned me away from the radical far left. One can hear that same defense applied to Putin’s war in Ukraine now, often by the same people, as well as too many in the “politically progressive” younger generation.

This is also the political tradition that had its supporters believing that Mao Tse-Tung’s murderous “Cultural Revolution,” which was responsible for the deaths of at least a few million during that decade of chaos and anarchy - on top of the famine that was the only result of the “Great Leap Forward” preceding the calamity of the 1960s was the “road to a revolutionary future.” This “anti-imperialist” movement still supports the “revolutionary leader” Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, despite his policies since declaring himself “president for life” 20 years ago that have turned the country into a tighter right wing police state than his former enemies the Somozas were ever capable of.

Today, they can’t quite bring themselves to publicly support the Russian dictator who just yesterday awarded the 64th Motorized Infantry Brigade - the unit responsible for the war crimes documented in Bucha - the honorary title of “Guards,” during which he cited their “mass heroism and valor” in taking and occupying Bucha.

Instead, the “anti-imperialists” now claim the United States does not have the “moral authority” to oppose Russia’s invasion and attempted dismemberment of Ukraine, citing the “bloody history” of the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America - descendants of a political movement that 80 years ago knew a Stalinist was no friend of either democracy or socialism - have taken a position of official opposition to the United States applying sanctions to Russia for the invasion and providing military support to Ukraine because those actions promote the “militarization of foreign policy.”

Some of that “anti-imperialist” leadership, such as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, had no problem in December 2015 visiting Russia to openly sit at Putin’s dinner table and give him support for what he had done in taking Crimea and making his first attempt at dismembering Ukraine with the “little green men” promoting war in eastern Ukraine. Stein was happy to accept Putin’s public support for her candidacy in the 2016 election where she and others like Susan Sarandon claimed that the election of Trump to the presidency would “speed the revolution,” proceeding to claim that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was “anti-progressive” and that she believed in “militarizing” foreign policy since she had called out the man in Moscow who was likely their major financial supporter as well as political supporter, for his support of Trump.

Of course, Stein wasn’t the only American sitting at Putin’s table in December 2015. Retired general Michael Flynn was also there. While Putin’s illiberal politics seem attractive to the “anti-imperialists,” the illiberal religiosity that underlies his autocrat’s strongman rule has also made him a popular figure among American evangelicals and the religious right - who are now essentially the MAGA base.

To me, this only illustrates the circularity of the political spectrum. The far political right and far political left have long had more in common with each other than with any other political groups in whatever country one examines; they differ primarily in the words they use to describe the same beliefs.

Along with Putin “honoring” the butchers of Bucha, yesterday also saw political scientist and member of the Russian legislative body Vyacheslav Nikonov announce that, “in reality, we embody the forces of good in the modern world because this clash is metaphysical…. We are on the side of good against the forces of absolute evil…. This is truly a holy war that we’re waging, and we have to win it and of course we will because our cause is just. We have no other choice. Our cause is not only just, our cause is righteous and victory will certainly be ours.”

Democracy is failing and authoritarianism rising, Karaganov said, because of democracy’s bad moral foundations: “Western civilization has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilization.” It’s important to note that it is not just Russians who are questioning the foundation of Western civilization, but a number of Western “intellectuals,” too. I find it unfortunately unsurprising that the “anti-imperialists” here apply the same reasoning to their arguments about why the United States lacks the “moral leadership” to oppose Putin over the Ukrainian genocide.

I find this moral obtuseness on the part of people who claim to be the vanguard of “progress” particularly galling when I consider they support Putin as a “counterweight” to the evil they oppose in the west, despite the fact he cemented his rise to power in 2013 with anti-gay laws that supporters claimed defended conservative values against an assault of “genderless and fruitless so-called tolerance,” which “equals good and evil.” This is the equivalent of the campaign being pushed here now in Florida with their “don’t say gay” bill and the rest of the right’s assault on intellectual and social freedom and progress.

Russia is fighting a total war with two declared aims: annihilating Ukraine and sending a warning to the entire democratic order. As Karagonov put it, "The real war is against Western expansion...This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest ..."

It used to be that the “democratic left” saw the totalitarians for what they actually were, regardless of what they said they were, and also understood that there has never been in history any country with the “moral purity” demanded by the anti-imperialists as a condition of opposing totalitarian autocracy.

I guess every generation needs to learn some truths themselves, the hard way.

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