Re: [OPE] Stalin voted third most popular Russian

Dogan, I agree that we have to be careful about the claims and counterclaims regarding the Georgia war; the thing to do is to stand back from this diplomatic froth (essentially, a blame-game) and consider the underlying trends, which grow out of the nature of world capitalism today and Russia's place in it.

Patriotism grows out of the same trends and in that sense it's not silly - it's very serious, real, and dangerous.

Paula

From: dogangoecmen@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 3:27 AM
To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu
Subject: Re: [OPE] Stalin voted third most popular Russian

Paula,
thanks for this. You raise many complex as well as difficult issues.
My point was just to say that Jerry's assertion about the search for strong leadership is right and that I can
confirm this because of my visit to Russia. Not more than that. Now you come up with new issues.

Concerning aggressive policy toward Georgia and Ukraine you have to be careful.
There are lot of international provocation going on around the world. All claims for example that the Georgian president
made seem to have been invented - at least in Germany there were many reports in that regard. Please do not think that I am defending Russia. No. This is not my view of things. We have to be careful by international conflicts because they arise from imperialist competition between imperialist countries. We have to be careful that while we criticise an imperialist country we do not intentionally and unintentionally some other imperialist countries. The conflicts with Georgia and Ukraine are not the first ones and they are going to not the last ones. So if you ask me which imperialist theory that I am referring to to formulate this view is as you may already recognised is Lenin's.

Closely related to this and more importantly is the point you make in the last sentence of your email:

"My guess is that the people of Russia support this strategy because, in the absence of an alternative, they believe (not unreasonably) that it's the only way to defend their jobs and livelihoods in the global competitive race."

I guess you are right about the attitude of Russian people. However, it is to be met all over the world. See Mr Obama. But I think it is not reasonable from working classes's point of view to think like this. It restricts their horizon and view just to one country and make them captives of patriotism. The danger in this is, to come back to what I said at the beginning, that while you criticise one imperialist country you become instrument of another imperialist country.We have to develope therefore a postion that attacks imperialist-capitalism as such. The silliest thing for working classes is that they accept any from of patriotism. This is ideological poison in my view. What we need now is a new international as opposed to all imperialist blocks and institutions - an international of working classes and peoples throughout the world. This will open up a new view of things and political perspective.

So I go back to my work.
Thanks,
Dogan.

-----Original Message-----
From: Paula <Paula_cerni@msn.com>
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 1:14
Subject: Re: [OPE] Stalin voted third most popular Russian

Dogan wrote:
"when I was sometime ago in Russia I realised that people entertain a strong nationalism in Russia."

IMO Russia today is a major imperialist nation. >From Soviet times she has inherited a political and military influence greater than its relative economic weight, which she is now aggressively trying to exploit (witness the recent conflict with Georgia and current wrangles with Ukraine). My guess is that the people of Russia support this strategy because, in the absence of an alternative, they believe (not unreasonably) that it's the only way to defend their jobs and livelihoods in the global competitive race.

Paula
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Received on Wed Jan 28 17:43:39 2009