this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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Russia isn't imperialist. Imperialism isn't when invasion or when big country is bad
Authoritarian is a useless pejorative as every nation that has been or currently is is "authoritarian".
That's a laugh. Putin and his political machine have expressed a desire to return to the days of the Russian Empire and has engaged in acts of conquest to that effect.
Russia is a mirror image of the US. While Anglo-Saxons were pushing west across North America, conquering indigenous peoples, Russians were pushing east out of Europe into Asia conquering indigenous peoples. They're both dysfunctional countries with dysfunctional world views.
I never claimed that modern Russia is progressive, socialist, or something to be defended. I am a communist; Russia today is a capitalist oligarchy. Russia being imperialist and if I support them are separate questions.
Imperialism is not “when a country invades” or “when a big country has bad politics.” Imperialism refers to a specific stage of capitalism characterized by monopoly capital, finance capital dominance, export of capital, and systemic exploitation of dependent nations. By that definition, Russia today does not function as an imperialist power in the same way the US or the rest of the imperial core does. This is a simple statement of facts, not an endorsement.
Pointing to the Russian Empire’s historical expansion is irrelevant to whether the Russian Federation in the 21st century is imperialist. History alone does not determine a country’s position in the current global capitalist system. By that logic, nearly every existing state would be “imperialist” forever and the term would be rendered useless for meaningful analysis.
Likewise, saying Russia “mirrors” the US ignores material reality. The US sits at the core of global finance, enforces dollar hegemony, maintains hundreds of overseas bases, and systematically dominates entire regions. Russia does not occupy that structural position (even if they may wish to). You can criticize Russian nationalism or militarism without flattening all distinctions or redefining imperialism into a catch all for when big countries do bad things or when invasions.
Then you've redefined the term Imperialism.
Imperialism
No. You just don't know what the word means.
The term imperialism was coined by ~~Lenin~~ Hobson, and it's definition has remained constant for over a century. It's actually liberals who have tried to flatten and bastardize it's definition to hide the inevitable systemic nature of their crimes against humanity. The fact that you were introduced to the wrong definition first doesn't make it the right one.
Imperalism wasn't coined by Lenin, he built off of Hobson and used Marxist analysis. Just a minor correction.
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Might need to reread that
Show me. Pull up a shred of evidence for this obvious propaganda. Show me Vladmir Putin expressing the desire to reform the pre-1917 Russian Empire.
How do you define imperialism if invading other countries with the same explicit intent to annex them isn’t it?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch01.htm
Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, and doesn't run their economy based on export of capital and plundering the surplus value of the global south, like the US and EU do.
Imperialism is characterized by the following:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, the US and Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours. Russia does not do this, it has a paltry sum of the world's finance capital, and this is proven by just how low their nominal GDP is compared to their GDP adjusted to PPP.
Imperialism is characterized by one political entity conquering or annexing thru coercion other political entities to bring new land, population, wealth, and natural resources under their control. No need to muck up or stretch out the definition.
In this case, the Statesian North imperialized the Statesian South, the Soviet Union imperialized Nazi Germany, etc. The definition you're using is absurd and reductionist, the one I'm using is consistent, explains why it exists, how it functions, and how to end it.
If you're truly using "annexation" as a definition of imperialism, then communists don't have a problem with this "annexationist imperialism," as it can absolutely be a good thing. Communists oppose the definition I explained, let's call it "economic imperialism," because it's always bad and is the biggest obstacle to socialism globally.
Changing the name of the process doesn't change the nature of it. Why are you getting so tripped up on what we call it, rather than the process itself?
Did you just make that up
If you pay attention to what Russia does internally and externally, Russia fulfills every one of those requirements except the last one (because they can’t, but they would be very happy too)
Nope, not really. Let's see:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
Somewhat true domestically, Russia has many monopolies as a holdover from the socialist system. However, internationally, this isn't true at all, only 4 of the top 100 companies in the world are Russian. Considering having monopolies on the world stage is necessary for imperialism, this is false for Russia.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
Similar to the first one, somewhat true domestically, but internationally Russia only has one of the top 100 banks. Same as the first, this is therefore false.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
Russia primarily exports raw materials and resources, so no, not at a significant scale. There's more capital flight than export.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
Again, Russia has no international monopolies, the closest is that they can make a lot of nuclear reactors. No.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
No neocolonialism is going on. Russia is annexing the 4 oblasts, but these are not colonies for Russia.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, no "territory" to claim.
Overall, Russia likely would be imperialist if it was financially more developed and capable of imperialism, but it can't because it isn't.
One of the reasons for this war was that the Russian Federation did not want NATO weapons and forces on their permanent border. If they were to annex Ukraine, they would have NATO weapons and forces on their permanent border. I understand why this narrative that they want to has spread, because it's an easy to understand "bad guy" thing that makes it simple to frame this war as some kind of random medieval war of conquest, but when you think about it for five minutes, annexing Ukraine would go completely against their goal, which is to either dissuade the coup government from it's NATO ambitions (now irrelevant) or, if they wont agree to a peace treaty, establish a buffer zone in the form of a Ukranian rump state. In no scenario does a full annexation serve their interests, and the pragmatic thing from their perspective is to let the basket case that Ukraine has become be Europe's peoblem.
Cowbee means economic imperialism - using the resources / wealth of another country for yourself. So invading another country would not, by itself, be imperialism.
I think this definition is a bit reductionist, but it's a good starting point to ask 'is this war for profit or some other reason?'.
Always an important question to ask but if Cowbee does mean that, then they should use the modifier to signify that they are talking about economic imperialism and not about Imperialism Imperialism.
All imperialism is economically motivated.
I am talking about what most leftists understand to be imperialism, which is why I called it as such, and explained it so there's no room for doubt. The vauge concept of influence along international lines popular among apologists for imperialism as I describe it isn't inherently a bad thing, while imperialism as I describe it is, and is the biggest obstacle to socialism globally.
If you want to rename imperialism to something else, and call imperialism "economic imperialism" then we can do that, I'd rather talk about the actual process itself than argue about nomenclature.
I do think your wording is causing some confusion. Of course, the aim of most imperialists is economic exploitation, but there historically there have been other drivers of conquest such as religion and racism.
Religion and racism were more justifications for the same base economic motivations, to be clear.
I'm sure they originate in economic pressures. But it's like letting a genie out of a lamp - you can easily whip up religious / racist hatred, but once out, it takes a life of its own and can turn even on its own creators.
Sure, but we must still understand their utility exists to justify the base, ie the economic structures.
I think it's not too much to expect to know basic terminology in a leftist space. In Argentina I've met plenty of social democrats who understand imperialism in its leftist sense, because being in the periphery means you see the consequences of imperialism, and this is a country where like 99% of the media is owned by the comprador class or international capital making propaganda for austerity, meritocracy and other bullshit.
If somebody doesn't understand why their definition of imperialism doesn't seem to be the one we use, maybe they can ask questions rather than interpret us in bad faith and so on.