kravietz 🦇In #Poland there was one interesting figure Iwo Czerniawski that was active on the left-wing scene back in 2000’s but since then largely became disillusioned, cynical and retracted himself from political life. Nonetheless, I’ve recently stumbled upon one of his few public statements made in 2022[^1] and wanted to highlight it, as it’s a textbook example of the mess that long-term exposure to #Marxism historical materialism makes of people’s brains.
There are a number of reasons why this had to happen. Russian intervention in Ukraine was inevitable. This is not a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It is an attempt to establish a new geopolitical order, according to the experts responsible for shaping Russia’s current policy – a measures deemed essential to safeguard Russian statehood.
Let’s hold here - “measures deemed essential to safeguard Russian statehood” – which statehood exactly and “deemed essential” by whom?
“Deemed essential” by Putin in order to protect Putin’s self-perpetuating kleptocracy? That’s the only context where this statement makes sense semantically.
But what exactly laws of physics compel Russian society to live under such a system? Did anyone actually ask Russian society if they want to live under such “statehood” and “protect it”?
Well, obviously there’s no objective reasons for any of the above. This thinking where “Russia is compelled” it is solely the result of the internalisation of historical determinism, which is extremely contagious among former Marxists. In other words, they believe “Russia must” do things because that is what the “iron laws of history” dictate. And this is, of course, pseudoscientific nonsense, a kind of quasi-religious belief with no factual evidence.
In the quoted paragraph, we find plenty of these “musts”. Let me highlight the sheer absurdity of this narrative – on the one hand, Russia is the largest country in the world and Putin the most powerful ruler, and all it takes is for Putin to “raise an eyebrow for Kyiv to fall” (a direct quote from Solovyov).
And at the same time, this omnipotent Putin and this mighty Russia are constantly “having to” do something. First, he “had to” take over all state and public media; then he “had to” kill journalists; then he “had to” violate the constitution by running for a third term; then he “had to” annex Crimea, and so on. Now he has reached the stage where he “has to” put 1.5 million Russians through the meat grinder… for what exactly? To capture Pleshchiyivka in the Donetsk Oblast?
The double think of people who subscribe to this strange brand of historicism lies precisely in the fact that, on the one hand, with a certain masochistic zeal, they admire Putin’s omnipotent, extremely authoritarian system, which is not constrained by all this “democratic drivel”; and on the other hand, in the very same breath, they deny Putin any agency whatsoever, reducing him to the role of a passive pawn of some mysterious laws of history. And they switch between these entirely opposing narratives as they wish.
Well, but when it comes to double think, fans of Marxism and materialist dialectics have never had a problem. 😉
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