this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
190 points (100.0% liked)

news

24117 readers
814 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today/ . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.


Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.

Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).

Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.

I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 24 points 9 hours ago (6 children)

Can we talk about the liberal reaction here to the statements put out by the ICP, Tudeh, and Maki?

The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War read fully

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 3 points 1 hour ago

I see this mistake so often with Communist parties in the United States. And you have clown's on Hexbear who repeat it.

This isn't an inter-imperialist war. The Ukraine War isn't an inter-imperialist war. Western Communists are good at copying and pasting analysis without doing any thinking of their own. And I can't tell you how many times Ive heard that the Israeli and Palestinian workers should unite against their "common enemy", or the Russian and Ukrainian workers should do the same (to fight off Russia, what!?). They lack a materialist analysis and just copy what Lenin said as if what it applies to all situations. They don't actually understand the principal contradiction of Imperialism. They don't understand how a more general contradiction can articulate itself in particular contradictions. Hence why they can't understand that a reactionary theocracy/plutocracy, etc. can play the role of an anti-imperialist. They dont think dialectically. They don't understand dialectics.

Hell I've tried playing their game where you just slam quote after quote, but they cherry pick and close their ears. Convinced that Iran must be destroyed to bring us closer to communism, or Hamas must be crushed to truly free the Palestinain people. Shame.

Lets play the game of quotation. From the big man Stalin himself, in The Foundations of Leninism

Hence the necessity for the proletariat of the "dominant" nations to support - resolutely and actively to support - the national liberation movement of the oppressed and dependent peoples.

This does not mean, of course, that the proletariat must support every national liberation movement... It means that support must be given to such national movements as tend to weaken, to overthrow imperialism

And for the part that is hard for liberals masquerading as communists to understand.

This is the position in regard to the question of particular national movements, of the possible reactionary character of these movements - if, of course, they are appraised not from the formal point of view, not from the point of view of abstract rights, but concretely, from the point of view of the interests of the revolutionary movement

And again, the more general contradiction of labor vs capital, proletariat vs bourgeoisie may express itself in particular and concrete ways that may not appear like worker vs capitalist. A contradiction between settler and colonized may not have the apparent form of worker vs capital, but is local expression of this general contradiction. The principal contradiction of imperialism may articulate itself in ways that don't appear to align with a worker vs capitalism binary. And this lack of basic Marxist knowledge plagues so many groups I've encountered. So they becomes clowns with clown ideas. They are lazy bones, as Mao says, who don't want to study the particulars, and only know to look for "worker vs capitalist* in the most basic, unoriginal, and frankly useless of ways.

To drive the point home with quotes as this type loves to do:

The unquestionably revolutionary character of the vast majority of national movements is as relative and peculiar as is the possible reactionary character of certain particular national movements. The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions imperialist oppression does not necessarily presupposes the existence of proletariat elements in the movement, ..., the existence of a democratic basis of the movement.

The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views.

Stalin, who understands dialectics better than these people, are reminding you to inspect concrete reality, and that you can support even a monarchy, if it weakens imperialism.

Understanding dialectics and especially contradictions makes this a no Brainer. Calling for defeat of Iran isn't some big brained revolutionary defeatist a la inter-imperialist war. It is calling for the defeat of actually existing anti imperialism. It is calling for the victory imperialism because one is too foolish and egotistical to understand otherwise. Sometimes these views come from a childish and impatient understanding of socialism as an era of global transition. Sometimes these people want communism right now and stomp their feet and think that removing the Ayatollah now will bring us one step closer. Or taking out Hamas and the IDF both will do it. Idk fully what goes through the minds of clowns

Imperialist aggression against Iran is how the general contradiction between labor and capital articulate themselves right now at this time and place, i.e. via imperialism. Arguing for Iran's defeat is to argue for victory of imperialism. Which does not advance the cause for communism.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 11 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Lenin would be correct if this were an inter-imperialist war.

This is not an inter-imperialist war. The imperialist faction is the US/Israel. The other faction is a reactionary state that has consistently demonstrated that they are radically anti-imperialist, having armed and supported anti-imperialism their entire existence.

Is the Iranian islamic regime good? Nah. Would it being overthrown in favour of imperialist rule be a good thing for the left? Also nah.

Taking Lenin's position here is an analytical mistake. The end of Iran strengthens imperialism and weakens anti-imperialism, this is the primary contradiction in the world today, communists must side against imperialism in all cases. Regime change in Iran is not going to lead to a communist regime either so the fantasy of such can be disregarded.

[–] LoveYourself@hexbear.net 6 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

A salute from the revolutionaries of Palestine to the revolutionaries of Iran

تحية من ثوار فلسطين لثوار إيران

درود انقلابيون فلسطين به انقلابيون إيران

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

please read https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/05.htm

wait it's too much to expect that. you can just read point 11

[–] Bolshechick@hexbear.net 4 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Yes, Iran getting the Syria treatment would be very good for the Iranian proletariat I'm sure /s

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago

because expecting communists to read is too much i'll feed one more of you people a quote from what is assumed to have been read:

The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) But Trotsky regards this as the “methodology of social-patriotism"! To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution (Sotsial Demokrat No. 40)[1] made it clear, that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win” (Izvestia No. 2).

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 0 points 3 hours ago

yes, russia getting the poland treatment would be very good for the russian proletariat i'm sure /s

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 25 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (3 children)

the ICP is not a communist party, it's not demcent

This isn't an inter-imperialist war, this is an anti-imperialist defensive war against a genocidal empire. you are the liberal here, supporting the statements of CIA infiltrated color revolutionary groups with no mass backing and no demcent organization

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 12 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

thought they meant juggalos for a second

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 12 points 7 hours ago

might as well be markkks-juggalo

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 1 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

Since the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition to imperialism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries.

lenin himself calling you a kautskyite

In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the “anti-imperialists,” the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy who declared this war to be “criminal,” regarded the annexation of foreign territories as a violation of the Constitution, declared that the treatment of Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipinos (the Americans promised him the independence of his country, but later landed troops and annexed it), was “jingo treachery”, and quoted the words of Lincoln: “When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer self-government; it is despotism.” But as long as all this criticism shrank from recognising the inseverable bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the foundations of capitalism, while it shrank from joining the forces engendered by large-scale capitalism and its development, it remained a “pious wish”.

lenin telling you that you are simply recreating capitalism </3 (who knew supporting the bourgeoisie meant supporting capitalism!)

question? why does war happen - in a marxist framework? is it because of the heckin wholesome antiimperialists standing up to evil monopoly capitalists? relevant:

The superiority of German imperialism over British imperialism is more potent than the wall of colonial frontiers or of protective tariffs: to use this as an “argument” in favour of free trade and “peaceful democracy” is banal, it means forgetting the essential features and characteristics of imperialism, substituting petty-bourgeois reformism for Marxism.

(hint: why did ww2 happen)

anyway, "anti-imperialist" posturing at the expense of the proletariat in all the belligerent states is simply the reverse-side to kautskyism, or tailism for the petty bourgoeisie

[–] Sebrof@hexbear.net 1 points 6 minutes ago

You are a silly person

[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 9 points 4 hours ago

spray-bottle Go sell your newspaper somewhere else

[–] sodium_nitride@hexbear.net 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

lenin himself calling you a kautskyite

No he isn't. He explains why a petty-bourgeois opposition arose in the paragraph you have quoted without giving any judgement of it.

lenin telling you that you are simply recreating capitalism

The quote you have posted says that challenging imperialism without challenging the trusts and monopolies is a "pious wish", a far cry from the statement that one would somehow be recreating capitalism in countries that didn't even stop being capitalist!

We are to believe that the collapse of the American wouldn't be the single greatest opportunity to advance the positions of the international working in the past 3 decades. Why? Because if we said that then we would be accused of adopting petty-bourgeois viewpoints (never mind that regime change is significantly more popular amongst the bourgeoise)

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

No he isn't. He explains why a petty-bourgeois opposition arose in the paragraph you have quoted without giving any judgement of it.

You people have no interest of actually studying. I quote it here because HSC is assumed to be read. But here you go, since you need me to babybird you

The questions as to whether it is possible to reform the basis of imperialism, whether to go forward to the further intensification and deepening of the antagonisms which it engenders, or backward, towards allaying these antagonisms, are fundamental questions in the critique of imperialism. Since the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition to imperialism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries. Kautsky not only did not trouble to oppose, was not only unable to oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition, which is really reactionary in its economic basis, but became merged with it in practice, and this is precisely where Kautsky and the broad international Kautskian trend deserted Marxism.

The quote you have posted says that challenging imperialism without challenging the trusts and monopolies is a "pious wish", a far cry from the statement that one would somehow be recreating capitalism in countries that didn't even stop being capitalist!

calm down self fashioned preacher. this is exactly what I mean when the kautskyite position is the flip side to your antiimperialist position. you recognize that you are simply supporting camps, likewise the liberal supports the opposite camp and yearns for peace, meanwhile you yearn for the return to the premonopoly capital time, the "multipolar world"

We are to believe that the collapse of the American wouldn't be the single greatest opportunity to advance the positions of the international working in the past 3 decades. Why? Because if we said that then we would be accused of adopting petty-bourgeois viewpoints (never mind that regime change is significantly more popular amongst the bourgeoise)

believe what you want, your belief has no bearing on the material conditions same with your "critical" support. the revolution will come when sufficient number of workers gain consciousness - and not "consciousness" as in sitting watching the news and hoping for their bourgeoisie to beat the other bourgeoisie. the critical piece is for them is to know which "marxism" is really materialist and which is idealist bullshit that proclaims the collaboration between the national bourgeoisie as the end-all-be-all with the same petty nationalism.

you can disengage until you read (and I mean, really read) this piece https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jul/26.htm since hsc is too much for a communist to read nowadays ig

[–] sodium_nitride@hexbear.net 4 points 2 hours ago

you can disengage

Sure, why not. You aren't arguing in good faith to begin with and making bizzare leaps of logic to accuse me of shit I didn't say.

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

silly liberals don't they know calling for the overthrow of an imperialist country's bourgeoisie during war is anticommunist cia bullshit? three cia parties. calling for an overthrow of the bourgeoisie without the support of more than 50% of the proletariat. and definitely not demcent. i, definitely a communist, think that the proletariat should rally to the two bourgeois nationalist theocracies, famously because ~~national liberation~~ ~~anti-imperialism~~ a kinder form of imperialist bourgeois rule will make my new vanguard (built entirely in my phone) poised to start a revolution. something these three liberal parties couldn't do.

i'm not in the business of picking my favourite flavour of theocratic bourgeois nationalist rule, lenin had the right of it, and the proof is in the success of the russian revolution, which is unique in history.

[–] RomCom1989@hexbear.net 9 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Quick,what's your take on Rojava interviewer

[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 0 points 5 hours ago

your "anti-imperialism" is exactly the same as liberals supporting rojava because they're le wholesome smolbean socialists, just that you "anti-imperialists" understand that rojava is cringe because it is petite bourgeois larpers who don't wield the power of the state, whereas you wish to elevate yourself to the level of the state while maintaining your petty bourgeois status.