No, the west coup’d Yanukovych for rejecting their IMF loan in favor of a Russian loan, then supported the Banderites.

From davel’s compilation, again:

• BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
• Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
• The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
• The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
• WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
• Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
• The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
• openDemocracy, 2019: Why Ukraine’s new language law will have long-term consequences
• Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
• Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
• Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
• History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

Groups like Azov have been folded in officially. The Kiev regime upholds Stepan Bandera and uses likeness for propaganda. Nazis infest Ukrainian leadership:

The east supported Yanukovych, and that’s why the far-right Banderites couping him kicked off the war.

Except the west coup’d Kiev and installed Banderites that caused Donetsk and Luhansk to secede, and ask Russia for support.

Well, yes, they are ethnic Russians. I didn’t mean to say that they were Ukrainians that saw themselves as Russian, but residents of Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine was historically Russian, and only given to Ukraine in the 20th century, so it’s a bit messy.

Eastern Ukrainians absolutely do view themselves as Russian, that’s the crux of why they seceded from Kiev in 2014, and voted to join the Russian Federation after 2022.

I understand plenty, you can drop your wholly unearned smug superiority complex.

I’ve read anarchist theory, please explain how communalist cells interconnected in a decentralized fashion is the same as one system with collectivized production and distribution. I’m not “drunk in authoritarianism,” I just understand that hierarchy isn’t axiomatically bad, and that in many cases it exists by necessity.

Trying to make a smartphone without hierarchy is a recipe for rampant deaths in mining accidents, missed shipping times for raw materials, shoddy fabrication of semiconductors, disasters at air and sea, and huge differences in material wealth for the different parts of the supply and production chain leading to class distinctions and a new state.

Communes/cooperatives are neat in the context of capitalism and socialism in certain applications, but aren’t the basis of communist society, socialized/collectivized production is, because only that forms the basis of classless society.

You haven’t really responded to my points, just insulted me or told me I’m wrong without elaborating on why. This is extremely unconvincing.

Communalization is not the same as collectivization. When individual cells only own what’s internal to them, this perpetuates petite-bourgeois structures, not collectivized production and distribution across all of society. I was an anarchist prior to becoming a Marxist-Leninist, I know what I’m talking about regarding the driving distinction.

Secondly, socialist countries are going strong, and none of them are imperialist. They of course have class distinctions, the elimination of class permanently is a global phenomenon in the context of an international market. Marxism doesn’t posit states will “give-up” authority, or that the masses don’t already have the authority in socialism, but that state structures will wither. Hierarchy very much persists in communism, as administration is a necessity for large scale production and distribution, but what we recognize as the state does not.

The state is a tool of class oppression, and withers with respect to its basis being eliminated, that being class. Collectivizing production and distribution erases the basis of class, and thus the state. Communalism, as in creating distributed cells that only own what’s internal to their cells, does not collectivize production and distribution across the whole system, but instead perpetuates class distinctions and therefore keeps the basis of the state. You can see this in action in Catalonia, where the anarchists were forced by necessity into forming statist structures in order to actually combat the fascists.

You’re arguing against a strawman. Fanon was a resistance fighter that successfully helped Algeria overthrow the French in a progressive nationalist movement against colonialism, not a simple theoretician that never engaged with practice. For Vietnam, the effects of liberating from France and adopting socialism as the mode of production both contributed to their success. The era of national divisions eroding is something for after the end of imperialism, in the meantime a people should be able to chart their own course free from the domination of the west.

The reason this is sloganeering and not a valid point is that this is also an argument against buildings, screwdrivers, the internet, trains, etc. The fact is, tools depend on who uses them, and the state is not outside of class struggle but within it, meaning the proletariat can run the state to its own ends as it withers.

The USSR didn’t “decide” to do so, it was couped and hollowed out by Yeltsin and co. These are the new “oligarchs.” While the economy had started to slow, the combination of the devastation of World War II resulted in the deaths of 27 million soviets, many of which were some of the most dedicated to socialism and defending it. This was also combined with growing nationalist movements, often supported by the west. This complicated mish mash gave favorable conditions for a coup, despite popular support for retaining the soviet union.

You’re placing far too much importance on the potential excessive actions taken by a state under constant infiltration and siege against a scientist. As we showed, the soviet space program, without said scientist, took numerous firsts over the US. The soviets weren’t incompetent and needed a super-scientist to save them, they had an extremely competent team that took them to space before the US while being a semi-feudal backwater 50 years prior. If anything, the fact that they took so many firsts despite their dramatic hinderances, including recovering from World War II, is an excellent showcase of the effectiveness of soviet science.

Again, having a shared land, history, culture, and language is enough to form a distinct nation. Simply claiming that imperialism shouldn’t exist doesn’t mean that it doesn’t, and national liberation using Vietnam as an example is progressive in the context of freeing Vietnam from colonialism. Nationalism in the US perpetuates imperialism, nationalism in Vietnam works towards ending it. It doesn’t matter how much you don’t want nations to exist, they will until imperialism is ended and global socialism is achieved, and as such we need to first end imperialism, where nationalism in the imperialized countries is a useful tool.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a Romanian anti-communist organizer has a bad opinion of socialism, nor do I think it especially worth reading over better books.

The majority of people who lived in the USSR want it back. This is increasing over time, a desire for socialism is on the rise, especially in Russia and Belarus.

Socialism isn’t safety nets, it’s a mode of production characterized by public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy with the working class in control of the state. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production by which all of production and distribution have been collectivized, are oriented towards satisfying the needs of everyone, and the state, class, and money have withered away. States like the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the former USSR, etc are socialist, not communist yet, even if most of those are governed by communist parties.

Socialism was never a blight, while capitalism in the 20th century absolutely was, and had already reached the imperialist stage.

Overall it was indeed pretty good, and got significantly worse after the dissolution of socialism and restoration of capitalism.

Socialism did work in the USSR, yes. They doubled life expectancies, ended famine, passed prison reforms, dramatically expanded democracy, nearly eliminated homelessness, transformed a semi-feudal backwater into a modernized industrial country, passed free universal healthcare and education, and plenty more. There were problems and struggles, and obviously it no longer exists, but socialism absolutely worked for the soviets for neaerly a full century.

The dissolution of socialism in Eastern Europe was multi-faceted and complex, and had more to do with conditions particular to the soviets as compared to universal to socialism. Today, the CPRF is rising in popularity and is the most significant opposition to United Russia, and the majority of Russians wish to return to socialism.

You can definitely launch a coup without the public supporting you, that’s largely the difference between a coup and a revolution. Allende was couped despite being popular. Sure, some Ukrainian nationalists were upset with Yanukovych, but it wasn’t a universal reaction (as the DPR and LPR show).

Secondly, saying slavic peoples share a lot in common is similar to saying Chinese ethnicities have a lot in common. It’s true, there are commonalities, but there are also distinct differences. Targeting one group for their unique characteristics is the basis of ethnic cleansing, no matter the similaritied otherwise.

As for your views on nationality, you speak as though imperialism and national liberation movements don’t exist. There’s no double standard in play, the basis of eliminating national divisions is national emancipation. Read Fanon.