yunqihao [he/him]

I dont think its crazy that China could beat the US back in a defensive war off their coast given the fact the PLA has the most advanced and largest rocket/missile force on Earth alongside their currently unmatched capacity in drone and ship manufacturing just to start.

China’s military issue is their lack of ability to meaningfully project power which seems is only temporary as the government has nuclear carrier projects and other necessary force projection measures in the works.

You’re right, I dug back into it and the specific “WWII-level destroyer production” line was me mangling a few different sources that were making related but not identical claims.

What is well documented is that China’s shipbuilding capacity and tonnage output absolutely dwarf the United States today. A 2025 CSIS study cited by Navy Times found that a single Chinese shipyard produced more commercial ship tonnage in 2024 than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has built since World War II, which is where I likely had the WWII comparison stuck in my head. https://www.navytimes.com/global/asia-pacific/2025/03/11/chinas-shipbuilding-dominance-a-national-security-risk-for-us-report/

That same report notes that China now produces over 50% of global shipbuilding tonnage, while the U.S. accounts for roughly 0.1%.

Separately, U.S. Congressional Research Service and Navy assessments estimate that China’s overall shipbuilding capacity measured in gross tonnage is over 200 times larger than that of the United States, largely due to its integrated civilian–military shipyard system. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL33153

In terms of actual naval output, a senior U.S. Indo-Pacific Command admiral has stated that China is currently producing roughly 3–4 times more naval tonnage per year than the United States, even before accounting for its massive commercial shipbuilding sector. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-outpacing-us-shipbuilding-top-indopacom-admiral-says-2025-4

So the WWII comparison was overstated, but the underlying “issue” is arguably more serious for the US. China controls roughly half of global shipbuilding capacity, much of it in dual-use yards that can be partially redirected under wartime mobilization. The United States, by contrast, represents only a fraction of a percent of global shipbuilding and lacks the industrial depth to rapidly replace naval losses in a prolonged conflict. Apologies again I will have to avoid posting so early in the morning without rechecking my sources.

I obviously largely agree with this assessment. It correctly identifies that the expectation of rescue by external powers reflects a lingering ideological inheritance from colonial modernity, rather than a materialist understanding of how emancipation actually occurs. The insistence that sovereignty must be produced internally through class power, state capacity, and concrete struggle is fully consistent with the Marxist Leninist tradition.

Everyone who has properly applied the dialectical materialist method should reach the same position. This is because socialism and Marxism are not belief systems or moral positions but a science. They apply the scientific method of dialectical materialism to the study of history, social development, and class relations. By examining material conditions, contradictions, and historical motion, Marxism allows us to understand how the past shapes the present and how those conditions are likely to shape future developments. As has been emphasized in different formulations by countless marxist scholars, Marxism is a science, and those who apply it correctly to concrete reality will arrive at the same conclusions.

When this method is applied to the contemporary world system, it becomes clear why the question of China or Russia acting as global saviors is wrongly posed. States are not abstract moral agents but historically situated concentrations of class forces operating under specific constraints, including imperial encirclement and the threat of escalation. Genuine internationalism does not mean substituting for another nation’s struggle. It means expanding the material space for oppressed peoples to develop their own productive forces, strengthen their sovereignty, and consolidate their own class power. Anything else risks reproducing dependency under a different flag rather than advancing the real project of anti imperialist emancipation.

That makes sense, except kkkanada and europe are not military peers to the US. Even collectively, they remain heavily dependent on US-controlled systems such as logistics, intelligence, satellites, encrypted communications, and weapons software, which gives Washington enormous leverage over their defense capabilities and limits their ability to operate independently in a high-intensity conflict.

Effort post about the chinese military incoming.

The only true near-peer military competitor the US currently faces is China, and even then only in the context of a US-initiated conflict in East Asia. The PLA is not structured for global expeditionary warfare like the US military, but rather for regional denial, escalation control, and defeating intervention forces before they can establish dominance. That difference in mission profile is crucial for understanding the balance of power.

In terms of current military capabilities, the US still maintains advantages in global power projection, combat experience, nuclear submarine quieting, long-range bomber operations, and alliance integration. The US operates 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers supported by a mature carrier air wing doctrine and worldwide basing network, something China does not yet possess. The US also retains superiority in strategic airlift, overseas logistics, and sustained multi-theater operations.

However, China’s advantages lie elsewhere, and increasingly in areas that matter more in a modern industrial war.

China now possesses the largest navy in the world by ship count, and more importantly, the world’s most powerful naval shipbuilding capacity. Chinese shipyards can produce major surface combatants at a pace the US cannot dream to replicate. Type-055 destroyers (equivalent in displacement to cruisers) are being launched at rates comparable to US WWII production, while the US struggles to replace aging hulls. In a prolonged conflict, this industrial replacement capacity alone dramatically shifts the balance.

This industrial advantage extends across the force. China produces missiles, drones, ships, and aircraft domestically with minimal reliance on foreign suppliers, while the US defense industry has become highly consolidated, slow to scale, and dependent on long supply chains. American production of key systems such as precision munitions, interceptors, and naval platforms cannot currently match the consumption rates projected in a peer war.

China’s missile forces represent perhaps its greatest asymmetric strength. The PLA Rocket Force is the largest in the world, fielding thousands of conventional ballistic and cruise missiles. Systems such as the DF-21D and DF-26 (often described as “carrier killers”) are designed specifically to deny US naval access inside the First and Second Island Chains. China has also deployed the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle, giving it operational hypersonic capability years ahead of the United States. In contrast, the US has yet to field hypersonic weapons at scale.

In the air and maritime domain, China has built one of the densest integrated air defense networks on Earth, combining HQ-9 and HQ-22 systems with early-warning radar, counter-stealth detection research, and layered missile coverage. This significantly constrains US airpower near China’s coastline and forces reliance on long-range standoff weapons.

China’s progress in space, cyber, and electronic warfare is equally central. The PLA treats space as a warfighting domain, not merely a support function. It has demonstrated direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital systems, electronic jamming, and satellite-interference capabilities. The US, which relies far more heavily on satellites for navigation, targeting, and communications, is structurally more vulnerable in this domain.

A major factor often ignored in surface-level comparisons is industrial and economic integration. China’s military-civil fusion system allows civilian industries: shipbuilding, electronics, AI, telecommunications, robotics, and aerospace to be rapidly adapted for military production. Dual-use manufacturing is not an exception but a foundation of PLA modernization. This gives China the ability to surge production during crisis in ways the US system, divided between civilian and defense sectors, struggles to match.

Access to critical minerals and rare earth elements further reinforces this advantage. China dominates global refining and processing of rare earths essential for advanced weapons systems, including: jet engines, radar arrays, guidance systems, precision munitions, drones, and electric motors. Even US weapons production remains partially dependent on Chinese-processed materials, creating strategic vulnerability that cannot be solved quickly.

In emerging systems, China is advancing rapidly. The PLA is heavily investing in autonomous and AI-enabled warfare, emphasizing mass over boutique platforms. Drone swarms, loyal-wingman aircraft, autonomous surface vessels, and underwater drones are being developed to overwhelm defenses through scale. Drones displayed at recent Victory Day parades including stealth UAVs, long-range strike drones, and cooperative swarm platforms indicate a doctrine focused on saturation and system disruption rather than platform-to-platform parity.

Looking forward, several major programs could significantly alter the balance.

China’s navy is expected to transition from conventionally powered carriers to Type-004 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which would eliminate endurance limitations and allow true blue-water operations. While China currently lacks carrier experience comparable to the US, even one or two nuclear carriers would mark a fundamental shift in operational reach during the 2030s.

In the air domain, China continues expanding its fifth-generation fleet with the J-20 and J-35, while credible evidence points toward the development of a tactical stealth bomber or medium-range stealth strike aircraft, filling the gap between fighters and the H-20 strategic bomber program. Combined with loyal-wingman drones and long-range precision strike, this would significantly increase China’s ability to contest air superiority regionally.

China is also modernizing its nuclear forces, moving from minimum deterrence toward a survivable second-strike posture. New missile silos, road-mobile ICBMs, submarine-launched JL-3 missiles, and early-warning systems indicate a maturing nuclear triad, even if total warhead numbers remain below those of the US and Russia.

Taken together, the competition is no longer simply about who has more advanced individual platforms. It is about industrial depth, sustainment capacity, access to resources, dual-use integration, and the ability to replace losses under wartime conditions.

The US still holds decisive advantages in global reach and experience, but China now holds clear advantages in missile warfare, regional denial, shipbuilding capacity, and industrial mobilization. As China’s carrier force, long-range aviation, autonomous systems, and nuclear infrastructure mature, the gap continues to narrow.

My gut reaction to this nonsense article can be quite succinctly summarized in one quote:

What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.

However the marxist in me would die a little if I didn’t explain why i feel this way. This article fundamentally misunderstands China because it approaches global politics from an idealist and Eurocentric framework rather than a materialist one. It treats power as attitude, assertiveness, and spectacle instead of grounding analysis in production, class relations, historical conditions, and the balance of material forces. This is not a minor flaw.

Power does not emerge from bold gestures or rhetorical dominance. It emerges from control over productive forces, industrial capacity, technological development, logistics, energy security, labor organization, and surplus distribution. China’s rise is not a matter of posture but of material transformation. It became the world’s largest industrial producer, built comprehensive infrastructure, lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, and retained state control over finance and strategic sectors. These are the foundations of power. Any analysis that ignores them is not materialist but psychological speculation.

The article also makes a serious theoretical error by equating global leadership with imperial behavior. It assumes that to matter geopolitically China must behave like the United States. Military intervention, regime shaping, and coercive alliances are treated as the natural expression of power. This assumption is the normalization of imperialism itself.

Lenin defined imperialism as monopoly capitalism, finance capital dominance, capital export for profit extraction, and political coercion to enforce those flows. The article never examines capital ownership, surplus extraction, or financial dependency structures. Instead it defines hegemony almost entirely in military terms. By that logic any state that refuses imperialist violence is framed as weak. That is simply imperial ideology stripped of its moral language.

China’s foreign policy cannot be understood without its historical origins. Modern China was born from a century of humiliation marked by colonial occupation, forced trade, famine, invasion, and civil war. The Communist Party emerged from anti imperialist struggle, peasant revolution, and resistance against both Western powers and Japanese fascism. Sovereignty is not an abstract principle in Chinese politics. It is the foundation of survival.

This history directly shaped China’s modern policies such as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Non interference, respect for sovereignty, and opposition to regime change were not invented as public relations tools. They emerged from lived experience of what imperial intervention actually does to societies. To dismiss these principles as naive is to erase the very conditions that produced them.

The article also ignores the central contradiction of the modern world. The primary global divide is not between competing great powers but between the imperial core and the oppressed nations. China’s foreign policy is not aimed at replacing the United States as global ruler. It is aimed at weakening monopoly control that allows imperialism to function at all.

This is why China focuses on infrastructure, trade diversification, development finance, and industrial cooperation rather than military domination. Projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative are not instruments of territorial control. They are responses to a world in which Western capital refuses long term infrastructure investment unless it produces immediate profit and political submission. Global South states engage China not because China forces them to, but because IMF austerity and Western conditionality devastated their economies.

The article treats the Third World as passive terrain where great powers compete. This is colonial thinking. The Global South is not a chessboard. It consists of nations actively seeking paths out of dependency. China does not create this demand. Imperialism does.

Another major flaw is the complete absence of class analysis. China is discussed as a generic state actor identical in nature to capitalist powers. This erases the distinction between bourgeois states ruled by finance capital and a socialist state managing contradictions within a capitalist world system. China operates with state owned banks, long term planning, capital controls, and political authority over private capital. These are not cosmetic differences. They shape foreign policy, investment logic, and strategic behavior.

The article also misrepresents strategic patience as passivity. Dialectical materialism teaches that quantitative accumulation precedes qualitative transformation. China prioritizes technological independence, domestic market expansion, energy security, food security, and military deterrence because premature confrontation under conditions of encirclement would be idealism, not strength. Avoiding war while consolidating productive forces, it’s not weakness it’s 孙子兵法 level strategy.

Multipolarity is also badly misunderstood. A multipolar world does not require China to dominate others. It requires the breaking of monopoly power. When multiple centers of production, finance, and diplomacy exist, imperial coercion weakens automatically. No single hegemon is required for that process to advance.

At its core, the article seems unable to imagine a world beyond empire. It criticizes the United States yet measures success using imperial standards. What it ultimately desires is not the end of domination but a more competent empire to replace the current one. That is why anti imperial restraint appears as failure and aggression appears as leadership.

From a Chinese, Third World and Marxist Leninist perspective, the goal is not a new hegemon. The goal is the erosion of the imperial system itself. China’s approach is contradictory and imperfect, but it has materially expanded the space for national development, weakened Western financial monopoly, and reduced the ability of imperial powers to dictate global outcomes.

The tragedy of the article is not simply that it is wrong about China. It is that it mistakes imperial behavior for historical necessity and cannot conceive of power existing outside domination.

If you are serious about understanding the current world order, you must analyze material conditions, historical struggle, class relations, and the lived experience of the oppressed nations. Without that, analysis becomes commentary. And commentary, no matter how confident, is not theory.

Taking a quick skim through the slammer memes obscure seems to be par for the course so honestly I feel it could go either way hence the second part of my comment.

The Nazis had an obsession with creating a “super horse” to go along with the “master race” which could be a connection given the belt buckle. It could also easily be a “haha this lib ghoul looks like a horse” but the only one who can know for sure is the creator.

I’m sure you mean well but unfortunately a boycott is not going to stop imperialism and its certainly not how Cuba has survived until now. History is clear that passive acts do not change systems only through organized militant resistance can real change be affected, and a boycott is the most passive form of resistance.

A suite of dongfeng missiles next hopefully to secure Cuba’s sovereignty absolutely.

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain everything so clearly.

From my own understanding, it seems that the central government has been trying to gradually correct many of the structural problems that accumulated in the earlier periods. Measures such as tightening regulation on LGFVs, restricting reckless local borrowing, reducing reliance on land-finance, and shifting the focus away from pure GDP growth toward debt control, risk prevention, and long-term stability all appear to reflect a clear change in direction compared with the past. The recent 化债 program, even if limited in scale, also seems to acknowledge the problem more directly rather than continuing to defer the risks.

At the same time, policies aimed at curbing property speculation, expanding rental housing, discouraging excessive real-estate expansion, and re-emphasizing manufacturing, technology, and the real economy seem to reflect an effort to move away from the development model that took shape during the Jiang and Hu periods, when growth, land revenue, and investment expansion were often prioritized above all else.

Personally, although I fully recognize that China still has many real problems and contradictions, I feel the overall trajectory remains good, especially over the past several years. From my perspective, the Xi era appears to represent a clear break from some of the excesses of the previous development path ( particularly the over-financialization of housing, unchecked local borrowing, and GDP-driven competition between regions ) and a conscious attempt to correct course, even at the cost of slower short-term growth. Of course, I also understand that these adjustments are extremely difficult and cannot be completed quickly. I’m curious about your own view on this: do you think the current approach is sufficient to resolve these structural issues? Are we broadly moving in the right direction, or do you feel some policies are inadequate or even misguided? I’d really appreciate hearing your perspective as you seem very well read.

Brother, thank you very much for taking the time to write such detailed explanations. I’m replying to 2 of your comments together here, just for convenience.

Overall, I agree with what you said, especially regarding the massive scale of China’s HSR network, the fact that only a small number of lines are operationally profitable, the connection between rail construction and local government financing, and the real challenges faced by overseas projects like the Jakarta–Bandung line. Your general analysis makes a lot of sense to me.

I only wanted to ask for a bit of clarification on a few specific points, as I may not be fully understanding them.

Regarding the figure of “another 10,000 km scheduled,” I was wondering whether this comes from an official planning document or a specific announcement. I’ve seen different estimates depending on which planning cycle or projection is referenced, so I wasn’t sure which source this number was based on.

On profitability, I completely agree that only a very small portion of the HSR network makes money in pure operating terms. I was just unsure about the estimate of “~2300 km,” since most public discussions I’ve come across tend to refer to the number of profitable lines rather than total track mileage. If there’s a specific source behind this figure, I’d appreciate learning more.

At the same time, I was also wondering (at least on the mainland) whether operational profitability is considered a major issue when weighed against the broader contextual benefits of HSR, such as national connectivity, regional integration, productivity gains, time savings, industrial coordination, and long-term development effects. My understanding was that these wider benefits are often treated as part of the rationale, even when individual lines are not profitable on paper.

Concerning the central versus local investment shares after the 2019 restructuring, the overall trend you describe seems very reasonable. I was only unsure whether the precise percentages mentioned (such as 9–15%) are published as national statistics, or whether they are drawn from individual project disclosures. If you have documentation or examples, I’d be grateful to read them.

Lastly, on the relationship between HSR construction and the real-estate downturn, I agree that the two are clearly connected. I was just hoping to better understand how much of today’s local-debt pressure is directly tied to rail investment itself, versus broader fiscal issues and the wider property-sector slowdown.

Related to that, I also wanted to ask whether the current local government debt “crisis” is truly as severe as it is often portrayed, or whether some of the discussion may be overstated, especially considering the structure of the debt, the role of state ownership, and the central government’s capacity to restructure or absorb risks if necessary.

Please forgive me if any of this comes from misunderstanding on my part. I’m not trying to dispute your points, only hoping to understand the sources and assumptions behind these details more clearly. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge.

I’m going to try to reset the tone and be clearer and without escalating this further.

I don’t support the Russian state, its oligarchs, or its internal politics. I’m Chinese, and my position is not based on liking or defending Russia. The issue is methodological. Disliking a government does not mean we can abandon serious analysis and replace it with moral labeling. Saying “this state is bad” is not the same thing as explaining how global power actually works.

I accept that I responded sharply at points. That said, the conversation deteriorated because any structural analysis I raised was immediately treated as propaganda or bootlicking. That reaction reflects a very common Western tendency to view people from the periphery as illegitimate speakers unless we repeat liberal conclusions. That dynamic matters, because it shuts down discussion before it even begins.

On China specifically: calling it “state capitalism” as a dismissal misunderstands Marxist theory. Lenin was explicit that state capitalism under proletarian political control is a necessary transitional stage in underdeveloped conditions. China has contradictions and real internal problems, but those are not the subject here. The discussion began with your claim that Russia is responsible for the rise of European fascism. Constantly shifting the debate to China avoids addressing that claim directly.

Imperialism is not defined simply by warfare, territorial disputes, or influence. It is a system of global capital accumulation based on monopoly finance, reserve currency power, control of trade routes, sanctions, debt regimes, and international institutions. The US, EU, NATO, and Five Eyes bloc dominate these structures. They can impose structural adjustment, control global payments, freeze assets worldwide, and extract surplus value permanently from the periphery. Russia and China cannot do this. They do not control the IMF, World Bank, SWIFT, global shipping insurance, or the world’s reserve currency. This is a structural distinction, not a moral defense of any state.

Yes, Russia operates regionally. Yes, it funds political actors abroad. That is not disputed. What is disputed is causality. Fascism does not originate from foreign funding. It arises from capitalist crisis. Austerity, privatization, labor precarity, housing collapse, and the betrayal of social democracy create the mass base for reaction. External funding can intensify these contradictions, but it cannot create them. Fuel is not the same thing as ignition.

If foreign money were the cause, Europe would not have produced fascist movements long before Putin, long before modern Russia, and long before 2014. European fascism is not imported. It is homegrown, rooted in European capitalism itself.

I will reiterate our disagreement is therefore not about whether Russia engages in harmful behavior which was never in question. It is about analytical framework. You approach politics through liberal moral reasoning focused on bad actors and state behavior. I approach it through dialectical materialism, focusing on systems, class relations, and global hierarchy.

That is the core issue.

Your response perfectly demonstrates why this conversation is going nowhere. You are arguing in bad faith, constantly negging, and acting like European chauvinist intellectual royalty while showing a complete lack of understanding of imperialism, class, or political economy. You misrepresent my arguments at every turn, expand the scope endlessly to avoid engaging the core issues, and reduce structural analysis to moral outrage and citations.

You insist that Russian funding of far-right groups “proves” something, but you cannot distinguish secondary influence from primary causation. Fascism did not emerge because Russia wrote checks; it emerges from capitalist crisis, austerity, precarity, and social-democratic betrayal. You treat explanation as denial and causation as endorsement, which is a methodological failure, not a factual dispute. Providing links and photos does not replace analysis. Your reliance on these citations shows you mistake evidence for explanation.

Your definition of imperialism is liberal and superficial. Quoting Britannica and reducing it to military aggression, territorial expansion, or cultural influence completely misses the Marxist point: imperialism is structural, rooted in finance, unequal exchange, debt, and institutional control. Russia may act regionally, but it does not control global finance, the reserve currency, or systemic mechanisms of exploitation. Flattening all actors into moral equivalence erases hierarchy and avoids engaging the real causes of global inequality.

You also misinterpret Eastern Europe’s relative growth as a result of democracy or labor law respect, ignoring the fact that integration into EU labor chains relies on exploitation elsewhere Africa, Latin America, and the periphery pay the cost. You conflate comparative development with justice or institutional success. Similarly, expanding the discussion to China, NATO, the USSR, or historical 1939 events is a constant red herring designed to distract from the structural argument about capitalism, class, and imperialism.

You personalize structural phenomena, calling out oligarchs and naming small groups while refusing to address the system that produces them. You repeatedly accuse me of lying, being ad personam, or defending Russia, which is projection. You are emotionally anti-imperialist but analytically liberal: you moralize actors and events while refusing to analyze class relations, capital accumulation, and systemic causation. That is why your arguments collapse into moral equivalence, citation lists, and endless historical trivia.

A third party reading this should understand the real divide here: I explain why crises, fascism, and reaction emerge from capitalism itself. You obsess over who is bad and who “funded” what, never grappling with the system that shapes outcomes. That is the fundamental difference between liberal moralism and dialectical materialism, and until that is acknowledged, no amount of links, indignation, or historical examples will get beyond talking past each other.

This reply perfectly demonstrates the problem. You do not actually understand imperialism, so every time the argument moves into political economy you retreat into vibes, NGO articles, and moral equivalence.

You keep flooding links about Russia funding far-right groups as if anyone denied that. No one did. The point you keep dodging is causality. Funding does not create fascism. It exploits conditions that already exist. Capitalist crisis creates fascism. Foreign money only rides the wave. You are confusing acceleration with origin.

If Russian money alone created fascism, then far-right movements would not have existed before 2014. They did. They existed long before Putin was president. They surged hardest after austerity, privatization, housing collapse, labor precarity, and social-democratic betrayal. That is material causation. Your articles do not refute that.

What you are doing is substituting investigation with courtroom rhetoric. “Here are some links” is not analysis.

You still do not understand what imperialism is.

Imperialism is not “any country with power.” It is a system of global capital accumulation where monopoly finance capital extracts surplus value from the periphery through unequal exchange, debt regimes, trade control, sanctions, and military enforcement. Lenin defined this over 100 years ago. Russia does not control global finance, shipping lanes, reserve currency, payment systems, or international lending institutions. The US and EU do.

That is why Russia can act regionally but not systemically.

That is why Russia cannot impose structural adjustment on Africa or Latin America.

That is why Russia cannot sanction half the planet.

That is why Russia cannot print the world’s money.

Calling every state “equally imperialist” is not anti-imperialism. It is analytical laziness that flattens reality until power disappears.

You accuse me of “skipping” China and the USSR in Africa. Again, you do not understand exploitation. Building infrastructure, providing loans without regime change, and exchanging commodities is not the same as imperial extraction. Unequal exchange means extracting surplus value through pricing power and financial domination. China gains commodities. The West gains permanent dependency. These are not the same relationships.

You keep repeating that Eastern Europe is richer now. Yes. Because you became part of the imperial core’s labor chain. Cheap labor, subcontracting, offshoring, and EU capital inflows integrated Poland upward while Africa and Latin America were pushed further down. Someone always pays. Your growth did not come from “democracy.” It came from position in the global hierarchy.

That is exactly what you refuse to confront.

You talk endlessly about oligarchs but refuse to name the system that produces them. Oligarchy is not a personality defect. It is the inevitable outcome of capital accumulation. That is why oligarchs exist everywhere capitalism exists, including Norway, including Germany, including the US.

Calling China “state capitalism” while praising Nordic capitalism just reveals which ruling class you emotionally trust.

Your hatred of “authoritarianism” is not political. It is aesthetic. You dislike governments that look rough while tolerating governments that politely manage exploitation.

You claim social democracy is closer to socialism. This is historically false. Social democracy preserved capitalism by pacifying labor while imperial extraction funded concessions. When that extraction weakened, social democracy collapsed and immediately shifted right. That is not socialism in transition. That is capitalism in disguise.

This is why social democrats sided with fascists against communists in Germany. This is why they crushed revolutionary workers repeatedly. This is why they manage austerity today. Not accident. Function.

You keep shouting “strawman” because you cannot answer structure with intention. Materialism does not care what you personally support. It examines what systems do.

You are emotionally anti-imperialist but analytically liberal.

You oppose empire morally while repeating its framework intellectually.

You believe imperialism is bad but refuse to analyze who runs the world economy.

You want socialism but reject every historical attempt because it was “authoritarian,” while defending systems that kill millions quietly through debt, sanctions, poverty, and privatized healthcare.

That contradiction is not incidental. It is social-democratic ideology.

You are angry at capitalism’s outcomes while defending its global architecture.

Until you stop replacing class relations with morality and geopolitics with headlines, you will keep mistaking symptoms for causes.

That is why you think Russia explains fascism.

It does not.

Capitalism does.

You are a child who lacks any understanding of the world beyond vibes if you don’t want to be called a liberal try moving beyond being one first before throwing a tantrum at it being pointed out.

I took some time to cool down despite your smug arrogance really pushing my buttons and realized something. We are approaching this from completely different frameworks. You are arguing from a liberal moral viewpoint that looks for bad actors, foreign interference, and individual state behavior. I am using a dialectical materialist analysis that looks at systems, class relations, and material causation. You focus on who funds what; I focus on why those movements gain mass support in the first place. You treat propaganda and foreign money as the source of fascism, while I see them as secondary factors that exploit conditions created by capitalist crisis. You define imperialism as any powerful country acting aggressively; I define it as a structured system of global capital domination based on finance control, unequal exchange, debt, and institutions. Because of this, you reduce politics to morality and geopolitics, while I analyze political economy and class power. Until that difference is acknowledged, we are not disagreeing on facts but talking past each other.

Most of the ruling class in Europe is so embedded in the US order that any change that occurs will never be of their accord or led by them.

It would be so incredible if the EU and US tore each other down through their interimperialist dick measuring. Unfortunately I just dont think Europe has the balls to fight back or stand up for itslef in any meaningful way before rolling over to tongue polish US boots again.

Just to clarify a few thing I don’t support Russia beyond them a pole against us imperialism at this current time. I also never claimed they were progressive please stop strawmanning me you shitlib loser and try engage with what I’m actually saying.

All that being said, you are reciting liberal mythology and pretending it has any weight as serious analysis. “Russian propaganda” is doing all the intellectual labor for you. You invoke it whenever reality contradicts the story you were taught. It just goes to show how deeply invested in western chauvanism you are. You keep pretending the West is some fellow victim of neoliberalism alongside Russia. That is absurd. Western Europe and the US were not passive sufferers. They were the architects and beneficiaries of neoliberalism. IMF structural adjustment, World Bank debt traps, privatization schemes, EU accession shocks, and global financial domination were imposed by Western capital on the rest of the world. Russia and Eastern Europe were looted. The Global South was super exploited. Western corporations made record profits. Your welfare states did not fall from the sky because “democracy was chosen.” They were built on imperial extraction. Western Europe funded its middle class through the super exploitation of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the periphery. Cheap resources, stolen labor, unequal exchange, and military domination paid for your social benefits. When that imperial margin began shrinking, austerity became the name of the game. That alone proves it was never moral capitalism. It was imperial rent-sharing. Social democracy that you seem to hold in such high regard is not socialism. It is capitalism bribing one section of workers with wealth extracted from the rest of the world. That is why your welfare collapsed the moment the USSR fell and anti-imperialist movements were crushed. The money stopped flowing. So the mask came off. You keep saying oligarchs controlling society leads to collapse. Correct. That is capitalism. Not “Russian authoritarian culture.” Capital accumulation produces oligarchy everywhere. The US has oligarchs. Germany has oligarchs. Poland has oligarchs. Elections do not remove them because capital owns the economy before voting even begins. Calling Western capitalism “democracy” and Eastern capitalism “authoritarianism” is childish. You talk about minorities as if hatred originates from Russian propaganda. No. Reaction grows when material security collapses. People turn toward nationalism when housing, wages, healthcare, and stability disappear. Liberal identity rhetoric cannot substitute for bread. When capitalism fails to reproduce life, fascism appears. This is basic historical materialism. You also keep pretending Russia is some unique imperial monster trying to resurrect the tsar. Meanwhile the US maintains 800 military bases, sanctions half the planet, invades countries openly, and dictates economic policy across continents. But somehow Russia is the singular threat to world stability. That belief did not come from analysis. It came from Western media saturation. You are angry at oligarchs yet defend the system that produces them. You want revolution in Russia while defending the same capitalist structure in Europe that would crush such a revolution instantly if it ever threatened property relations. That contradiction is not accidental. It is social democracy. Social democracy is not the alternative to fascism. It is its moderate wing. It preserves capitalism during stability and collapses into repression when crisis returns. Historically, social democrats disarmed the working class, defended private property, and handed power to fascists rather than allow socialist transformation. Germany already taught this lesson once. You are not describing material reality. You are repeating the moral language of the empire. You replaced dialectical materialism with NATO talking points and think that makes you progressive. The far right is not rising because Russians whispered in Europe’s ear. It is rising because capitalism is decaying, imperial privilege is shrinking, and liberalism has nothing left to offer but blame. Until you confront that, you will keep chasing villains abroad while fascism grows at home.

You are replacing real analysis with a boogeyman handed to you by Western media. That is the core problem here. The far right in Europe is not the result of Russian influence. It is the direct outcome of decades of neoliberal restructuring. Deindustrialization wiped out working class jobs. Austerity destroyed social services. Housing became financialized. Wages stagnated while productivity rose. Social democracy collapsed after fully integrating into neoliberal capitalism. When liberal parties administer capitalist crisis, fascists fill the vacuum. That is not theory. That is observable history. The EU itself is a machine for producing reaction. It enforces privatization, bans state planning, attacks labor unions, suppresses national development, and subordinates weaker economies to German and French capital. Greece was economically strangled in full public view. Southern and Eastern Europe were reduced to cheap labor pools. This is what radicalized people, not Russian Telegram posts. In the United States the situation is even clearer. The US state has backed far right extremists for nearly a century. Nazi collaborators were absorbed and given prestigious positions through Operation Paperclip. Anti communist fascists were installed across Latin America. Death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala were trained by the US. Apartheid South Africa was supported until the very end. The Mujahideen were funded and armed, directly creating modern jihadism. None of this was hidden. It was official policy. NATO itself was built by integrating former fascists across Europe as long as they were anti communist. This is documented history. The so called liberal order has never opposed fascism. It opposes threats to capital. When fascists serve capital, they are tolerated or funded. Even today the West openly arms far right formations when geopolitically useful. Ukraine is the most obvious example, where ultra nationalist militias were integrated into state forces with full NATO support. No one in Brussels suddenly discovered a moral objection to extremism then. So the idea that Russia uniquely “pushes far right ideology” while the West defends democracy is fantasy. The far right does not rise because people are tricked by foreign propaganda. It rises because capitalism is failing to reproduce social stability. This obsession with Russian interference serves one purpose only. It shifts blame away from Western ruling classes. It turns systemic crisis into an external conspiracy. It tells people that nothing is structurally wrong with capitalism, the EU, or US empire. The problem is always an outsider. That is not analysis. Russia today is not socialist. It is not progressive. It is a capitalist state formed out of imperial collapse. Its actions are driven by security and market interests, the same as any other capitalist power. Treating it as the prime engine of global fascism is analytically unserious. Fascism is not imported. It is produced internally when capitalism enters decay. If Russia vanished tomorrow, Europe would still face collapsing living standards, demographic crisis, housing shortages, declining energy security, and an economic model that no longer works. Those conditions would still generate reaction. Blaming Russia is comforting because it avoids the real conclusion. The crisis is not geopolitical. It is systemic.