Yo, so unrelated question for you. I see this community is always hyper fixated on calling Ukraine Nazis (glad you specifically pointed out Azov instead of broad gesturing). Calling out Nazis is always a good thing to do, however my understanding is Russia also has a significant Nazi problem particularly in their military as well.
So for real, I’m actually curious here and asking a genuine question so no need for intense emotions to anyone who replys, but why does hexbear not seem to care at all about Russian Nazis, or atleast I haven’t seen anyone in this community criticizing or brining it up.
My best guess is that Ukraine is supported by the west and that’s the only reason it’s fixated on here, but I don’t know everything and could be totally wrong (that’s why I’m asking)
In Russia, Nazis like the Wagner group were used as cannon fodder, given poor supplies, and had their leader assassinated. In Ukraine, Nazis like the Azov battalion are directly integrated into the military command structure, given the best equipment, and are the ones using other people as cannon fodder. Some non-nazi Ukrainians sign up with the Nazi factions because it’s more likely to survive than if they were snatched off the street and conscripted into a meat grinder regiment. No one in Russia is doing that, which shows how differently they are treated in each country. These Nazis are also celebrated by the west, like how Canada had a standing ovation in parliament for a literal SS veteran because he “fought against Russia in WW2.”
Russian nazis aren’t in positions of power, whereas in Ukraine they run the intelligence branch, they’re mayors, they’re police chiefs, they’re in the cabinet. Azov wasn’t like a “kind of” nazi militia, they were explicitly nazis and the Ukrainian government has taken them into the military and use them as elite troops. Russia’s militarized nazis were in the Wagner group, which you might remember were used in brutal and unforgiving ways which conveniently liquidated of a bunch of them. It’s impossible to identify why the Russian government chose to use them as expendables, but it sure seems like a decision based on not valuing the lives of nazis whatsoever. Furthermore, Russia never had a fascist government engaging in pogroms and ethnic cleansing, whereas Ukraine has the Banderite fascists in their history and they officially venerate them. They are systematically renaming things with Soviet names to name them after Banderite scum. In 2014, the US backed fascist factions who overthrew the government and murdered opposition party supporters en masse.
Then there’s my “favorite” CIA-related detail about this, Project Aerodynamic (link intentionally broken because it’s linking directly to the CIA website) cia dot gov/readingroom/docs/AERODYNAMIC%20%20%20VOL.%201_0118.pdf
CIA started relocating nazis and banderites to Ukraine in the 1950s with the explicit intention of empowering a fascist opposition with the ultimate goal of destabilizing the USSR and creating a fascist breakaway state. They never stopped this type of thing, that’s why Azov were acting as the CIA’s pawns on the ground as early as 2014.
I don’t know much about monarchists in Russia but I’m absolutely willing to believe that everybody who venerates tsarist Russia is probably within a stones’ throw of being as shitty as banderites and Nazis at best
Posts like yours make me really uncomfortable with hexbear as they give a false impression that the Russian government isn’t almost exactly the same as the Ukrainian government. We don’t have to whitewash Russia to criticise Ukraine.
If you think the Russians are the same as the Ukrainians, who venerate literal fascists who explicitly liquidated ethnic groups they hated, you’re insane. Nothing I have said whitewashes Russia, everything I have said is literal fact. Russia isn’t some great nation of equality, but they’re not run by a nazi coup government like Ukraine.
I am not the ableist slur you used. Beyond being uninformed of the political climate in Russia, I can’t believe you even dare to suggest that using barely trained convicts as “expendables” while giving out the most venerated medals to their Nazi commanders is not a very Nazi thing to do and then follow that up with claiming you’re not whitewashing anything. It’s surreal to see takes like this on a left-leaning forum.
Nah, I only read Russian language sources when it comes to Russian internal matters. In the Russian ML communities, the unfortunately sometimes prevalent hexbear thinking about the Russian government being anything but Nazi would be met with confusion at best, yet certain users here like to educate me despite never having been to Russia, not being able to speak Russian, and not trying to learn what is actually happening in Russia beyond RT and Kremlin press releases.
Thanks for your response as well, you mentioned a lot of stuff I should read and learn more about. Had no idea about the CIA Nazi project.
I have one mild critique not really related to the bulk of your comment because I’m just not educated enough to reapond to the rest as of now.
but it sure seems like a decision based on not valuing the lives of nazis whatsoever
IMO, there is significant evidence to support the idea that the Russian government doesn’t value the lives of anyone, what so ever. Particularly anyone in the army, nazi or not.
IMO, there is significant evidence to support the idea that the Russian government doesn’t value the lives of anyone, what so ever. Particularly anyone in the army, nazi or not.
What evidence is that, other than the smears of western propaganda? Do you know why Russia moves so slowly across the battlefield, and why Ukrainian troops relate never ever seeing a Russian soldier? It’s because softening up Ukrainian defenses with artillery and other ranged weapons prevents the loss of Russian lives at the cost of significantly slowing down battlefield progress. Do you know how many civilians have lost their lives in this conflict? The answer is about thirteen thousand, total. Can you tell me how three years of war with 13k civilian casualties compares to the American invasion of Iraq? Syria? Afghanistan?
It’s quite clear that America does not value human life, but that isn’t clear about Russia when you actually examine their tactics and how many civilians die.
America certainly doesn’t value human life either, and I didn’t claim that. I’m not really educated on civilian casualties in different wars, I was mainly referring to all their military personnel.
Russia routinely sends in waves of poorly equipped soldiers just like the earlier mention of them using Wagner in “meat waves”, however this isn’t exclusive to Wagner and Nazis, its just how the Russian armed forces operate.
A recent example I can recall is north Korean troops being used in the exact same manner, being sent In unprepared, poorly equipped, with no real heavy equipment support, where they promptly die by fpv drone.
Training conditions for new soldiers is also extremely poor before they’re shipped out, at least it appeared that way in the past when I viewed many videos from new soldiers in Russia being trained. However that was a while ago, and who knows maybe it was all us/Ukraine propaganda videos.
I’m not gonna pretend to know everything, or claim I’m immune to propaganda. I certainty consumed a lot of western propaganda especially earlier in the war, I appreciate hearing all your differing opinions but at least on this point it seems comical to me to suggest Russia cares about the lives of their soldiers.
When I left the comment I almost said “meat waves” (propaganda term?) lol.
I say it because early in the war I was quite into watching combat videos of people dying (unhealthy) and meatwave was a very good description for a significant portion of the videos I watched.
Early in the war, when the LPR and DPR paramilitary troops were the front-line soldiers, not Russians? Russian troops were operating artillery, support, radar, missile, etc - not fighting on the front line.
America certainly doesn’t value human life either, and I didn’t claim that. I’m not really educated on civilian casualties in different wars, I was mainly referring to all their military personnel.
Okay, if you’re not willing to do a little bit of research, here’s a paragraph from Wikipedia, which is exceedingly forgiving to the West:
Population-based studies produce estimates of the number of Iraq War casualties** ranging from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006** (per the Iraq Family Health Survey)** to 1,033,000 excess deaths** (per the 2007 Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey). **Other survey-based studies covering different time-spans find 461,000 total deaths (over 60% of them violent) as of June 2011 (per PLOS Medicine 2013), and 655,000 total deaths (over 90% of them violent) as of June 2006 **(per the 2006 Lancet study). Body counts counted at least 110,600 violent deaths as of April 2009 (Associated Press). The Iraq Body Count project documents 186,901 – 210,296 violent civilian deaths in their table. All estimates of Iraq War casualties are disputed.[4][5]
You should also just read about Operation Iraqi Freedom. NATO troops started that war out destroying civilian infrastructure, directly. Water purification, sewage plants, power generation, they took Iraq back to the stone age. Here we are in 2025 and Russia has shown it has the ability to hit pretty much anything in Ukraine that it wants, but curiously it’s only targeting substations rather than destroying power plants. I guess Russians are too stupid to understand how electricity is generated, it certainly can’t be that they’re making an effort to not completely delete Ukraine’s electricity.
Russia routinely sends in waves of poorly equipped soldiers just like the earlier mention of them using Wagner in “meat waves”, however this isn’t exclusive to Wagner and Nazis, its just how the Russian armed forces operate.
Can you please cite this? The usage of Wagner was notable explicitly because Russia doesn’t use human wave attacks and never have - that’s just a straight up fabrication. You can read West Point white papers about Soviet military tactics - the reality is they have always valued human life and empowered officers at the unit level to use creativity and make their own decisions. “Meat waves”, the idea of rigid top-down command structure - this is all entirely made up by the west.
A recent example I can recall is north Korean troops being used in the exact same manner, being sent In unprepared, poorly equipped, with no real heavy equipment support, where they promptly die by fpv drone.
Please provide evidence of this. Ukraine and the west have been crying about NK soldiers and their only evidence has been showing Russian nationals who look asiatic and calling them Koreans. Russia has finally announced the participation of NK troops in the recapture of one single town in Kursk - they have not been used extensively or even within Ukraine.
Training conditions for new soldiers is also extremely poor before they’re shipped out, at least it appeared that way in the past when I viewed many videos from new soldiers in Russia being trained. However that was a while ago, and who knows maybe it was all us/Ukraine propaganda videos.
Russia uses a conscript military. This is the nature of a conscript military. Russia does not ship people with poor training to the front. DPR/LPR did because they were rebels without the resources or infrastructure to do long formal training. Russia pays out big bonuses for conscripts who volunteer to be part of the SMO.
I’m not gonna pretend to know everything, or claim I’m immune to propaganda. I certainty consumed a lot of western propaganda especially earlier in the war, I appreciate hearing all your differing opinions but at least on this point it seems comical to me to suggest Russia cares about the lives of their soldiers.
It seems that way because you have been fed lies about Soviet and Russian military tactics and actions for the entirety of your life. If you’re American, you probably think that American troops liberated Germany and won the war, but if you look at actual troop deployments it was something ridiculous like 9/10 Germans being fielded to the Eastern front where it was only the Soviets who stopped them.
So I read the adl page on Western Chauvinism and this wiki page Chauvinism and don’t understand how it relates to me saying Russia doesn’t value human life. I don’t think America values human life either, am I misunderstanding?
Chauvinism means heavy in-group bias and bigotry. Tribalism, jingoism, selfishness are related terms.
Within leftist circles, the term originates from the more formal use of “Social Chauvinists” who were the so-called socialists who sided with their own individual nations when WW1 started and cheered on the war, instead of siding with international workers and opposing the war across the board. It’s basically the worst insult that could be levied by a leftist outside of fascist, it’s stating that one has completely abandoned internationalist principles and solidarity for selfish warmongering short-term gains.
So a “western chauvinist” is a westerner who holds heavy pro-west biases and anti-global south biases. They don’t even have to be conscious or purposeful. Simple holding the generic American worldview is sufficient to be a chauvinist. Just passively absorbing the dominant racist, imperialist, colonialist ideology of the West will make one a chauvinist if one doesn’t introspect and cleanse oneself of it.
It’s been show through history that the leftist groups that tend towards chauvinism are almost always the most “Liberal” and reformist of the lot. The “Social Democrats” like Bernie Sanders always side with international capital and zionism because they are traitors. It’s generally the more radical communists who maintain their principles of internationalism. This is a major source of conflict between the reformist and revolutionary lefts, whether to maintain ones empire or not.
In poor and oppressed and colonized nations this divide is not as prominent. Everyone who supports decolonization or is on the left is easily united under a single banner of liberation. In imperialist western rich countries though, the left splits apart into the true comrades and the sell outs who really believe in their own superiority.
You see this chauvinism among the left manifesting in a lot of ways. The most common is that we (as in white rich nations) are the only people who can do revolution peacefully and correctly - that the “others” did socialism wrong and we know better than them. Another common strain is the nihilistic trend of “well everyone is evil and imperialist so who even cares”. This lazy both-sidesism projects what the western left knows is bad about their own society onto other societies they know nothing about, to create false equivalence and make it ok to just sit around doing nothing. Another kind of chauvinism is just unironically believing American propaganda about the “authoritarians” of the East.
You’re assuming Russia doesn’t value human life because you’ve been fed that idea your entire life, and the reason you’re certain is that you know America doesn’t so Russia must not either. That is chauvinism.
The reason I’m certain is not because America doesn’t care so Russia doesnt. I said “don’t think America values human life either” because the documentation I read about Western Chauvinism sums up to “unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one’s own group or people,” so I highlighted In my reply I don’t think America is better or values human life either because I thought they were suggesting I thought America was better.
I am certain from the hundreds of videos I’ve seen of russian life being thrown away to gain no ground. Sure Ukraine possibly does similar tactics and I’m just not aware cause I’m only fed western approved combat videos from one side. But I didn’t say that because
the reason you’re certain is that you know America doesn’t so Russia must not either
Echoing Z_Poster’s response to your earlier comment, western chauvinism doesn’t necessarily manifest as a belief that the imperial core countries are better than (semi)peripheral countries: it can also be the projection of how bad the (in this case) US is to all of its enemies, or believing false or wildly distorted narratives spread by the US about those countries.
Regarding the videos you saw, what platforms were you seeing them on? Are they being shared by others who have (usually unconscious) western chauvinist biases? These are things worth considering when looking at information about enemies of western civilization, especially considering how virtually all mainstream social media platforms are owned by US companies.
I really don’t have much to send over since my phase of watching Russians die was ~2 years ago and on telegram it is nearly impossible to search for these 2+ year old videos. But I can just look at top posts on r/UkraineWarFootage.
I could keep going on but I assume you probably wont watch the videos or care at all, and you will still tell me I’m wrong. Plus I don’t really like watching people die at this point in my life so I sorta wanna stop looking as well. Point being, since the invasion its very common to see videos of ~15 - 50 Russians pushing a front with no or very little support, usually meat Armour style where they ride on top of the a BMP that flings them off and than trys to run away before its killed. Maybe thats changed in the past year, but I dont know. Again I stopped following this kind of content a while ago.
I personally do bring up Russian Nazis whenever I see that the tone of the conversation crosses into buying Russian propaganda too much, even if ironically, which can be an issue on hexbear.
Ukraine being backed by the most powerful fascist government in the world – the US – is indeed part of the reason why people tend to emphasise Ukrainian Nazis. Another part is that Ukrainian nationalism is often uncrititically accepted and propagated by Western media. An example you’ve probably seen is the widespread use of the “Slava Ukraini” slogan, which has a history of being used by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators.
Comrade john_brown comment in the adjacent thread has some good examples – generally the denial of how much Russian nationalism permeates every level of the Russian society, including the highest echelons of the government, all while wearing the corpse of the Soviet Union for pretense.
Just to add to what others said another reason we don’t really bother focusing on Russia is that the entire western media sphere is intensely focused on demonizing Russia already, we are here to provide people larger context and alternate perspectives based on our historical and materialist analysis rooted as best we can in the way things are and not an ideal of what ought to be.
Totally valid point, a perspective from an outsider though is that exclusively focusing on one while ignoring the other pushes outsiders away from hearing and learning your perspectives. However if you don’t really care about interacting with outsiders it doesn’t matter really I suppose.
I like interacting on hexbear because I think having your opinions and views challenged is healthy, and doing this has actually pulled me out of a lot of western propaganda and I’ve taken to sharing some views with users here, however a lot of other people just block this instance and are locked away forever In their little echo chambers.
This instance is for leftists, not for leftists to cater to liberals. We do not care if you find us talking amongst ourselves distasteful. You have the entire rest of the Western media and social media to cater to you.
You see, it’s about power dynamics. Also, stick around long enough and you’ll see plenty of folks calling out Russian Nazi’s. They just aren’t at the leading edge of this conflict in the way Ukrainian Nazi’s ala-Banderites and Azov are, so you’re pretty close there I think with your reasoning.
Edit to add: you should be overwhelmingly seeing support for Ukrainian and Russian citizens equally, I don’t think anybody here is intentionally painting all Ukrainian’s as Nazi’s, just the ones that are actual proud Nazi’s.
Yo, so unrelated question for you. I see this community is always hyper fixated on calling Ukraine Nazis (glad you specifically pointed out Azov instead of broad gesturing). Calling out Nazis is always a good thing to do, however my understanding is Russia also has a significant Nazi problem particularly in their military as well.
So for real, I’m actually curious here and asking a genuine question so no need for intense emotions to anyone who replys, but why does hexbear not seem to care at all about Russian Nazis, or atleast I haven’t seen anyone in this community criticizing or brining it up.
My best guess is that Ukraine is supported by the west and that’s the only reason it’s fixated on here, but I don’t know everything and could be totally wrong (that’s why I’m asking)
In Russia, Nazis like the Wagner group were used as cannon fodder, given poor supplies, and had their leader assassinated. In Ukraine, Nazis like the Azov battalion are directly integrated into the military command structure, given the best equipment, and are the ones using other people as cannon fodder. Some non-nazi Ukrainians sign up with the Nazi factions because it’s more likely to survive than if they were snatched off the street and conscripted into a meat grinder regiment. No one in Russia is doing that, which shows how differently they are treated in each country. These Nazis are also celebrated by the west, like how Canada had a standing ovation in parliament for a literal SS veteran because he “fought against Russia in WW2.”
Russian nazis aren’t in positions of power, whereas in Ukraine they run the intelligence branch, they’re mayors, they’re police chiefs, they’re in the cabinet. Azov wasn’t like a “kind of” nazi militia, they were explicitly nazis and the Ukrainian government has taken them into the military and use them as elite troops. Russia’s militarized nazis were in the Wagner group, which you might remember were used in brutal and unforgiving ways which conveniently liquidated of a bunch of them. It’s impossible to identify why the Russian government chose to use them as expendables, but it sure seems like a decision based on not valuing the lives of nazis whatsoever. Furthermore, Russia never had a fascist government engaging in pogroms and ethnic cleansing, whereas Ukraine has the Banderite fascists in their history and they officially venerate them. They are systematically renaming things with Soviet names to name them after Banderite scum. In 2014, the US backed fascist factions who overthrew the government and murdered opposition party supporters en masse.
Then there’s my “favorite” CIA-related detail about this, Project Aerodynamic (link intentionally broken because it’s linking directly to the CIA website) cia dot gov/readingroom/docs/AERODYNAMIC%20%20%20VOL.%201_0118.pdf
CIA started relocating nazis and banderites to Ukraine in the 1950s with the explicit intention of empowering a fascist opposition with the ultimate goal of destabilizing the USSR and creating a fascist breakaway state. They never stopped this type of thing, that’s why Azov were acting as the CIA’s pawns on the ground as early as 2014.
Well I think the tarist government had some of that.
tsarist russia wasn’t fascist though, and this is in regards to fascist factions
Fair.
I don’t know much about monarchists in Russia but I’m absolutely willing to believe that everybody who venerates tsarist Russia is probably within a stones’ throw of being as shitty as banderites and Nazis at best
Putin likes to quote this guy btw.
Posts like yours make me really uncomfortable with hexbear as they give a false impression that the Russian government isn’t almost exactly the same as the Ukrainian government. We don’t have to whitewash Russia to criticise Ukraine.
If you think the Russians are the same as the Ukrainians, who venerate literal fascists who explicitly liquidated ethnic groups they hated, you’re insane. Nothing I have said whitewashes Russia, everything I have said is literal fact. Russia isn’t some great nation of equality, but they’re not run by a nazi coup government like Ukraine.
I am not the ableist slur you used. Beyond being uninformed of the political climate in Russia, I can’t believe you even dare to suggest that using barely trained convicts as “expendables” while giving out the most venerated medals to their Nazi commanders is not a very Nazi thing to do and then follow that up with claiming you’re not whitewashing anything. It’s surreal to see takes like this on a left-leaning forum.
Thanks for putting words in my mouth, useful tactic.
Someone’s drunk the western made kool-aid, and it ain’t john_brown
Nah, I only read Russian language sources when it comes to Russian internal matters. In the Russian ML communities, the unfortunately sometimes prevalent hexbear thinking about the Russian government being anything but Nazi would be met with confusion at best, yet certain users here like to educate me despite never having been to Russia, not being able to speak Russian, and not trying to learn what is actually happening in Russia beyond RT and Kremlin press releases.
Thanks for your response as well, you mentioned a lot of stuff I should read and learn more about. Had no idea about the CIA Nazi project.
I have one mild critique not really related to the bulk of your comment because I’m just not educated enough to reapond to the rest as of now.
IMO, there is significant evidence to support the idea that the Russian government doesn’t value the lives of anyone, what so ever. Particularly anyone in the army, nazi or not.
so here’s the thing about the CIA and nazis…
What evidence is that, other than the smears of western propaganda? Do you know why Russia moves so slowly across the battlefield, and why Ukrainian troops relate never ever seeing a Russian soldier? It’s because softening up Ukrainian defenses with artillery and other ranged weapons prevents the loss of Russian lives at the cost of significantly slowing down battlefield progress. Do you know how many civilians have lost their lives in this conflict? The answer is about thirteen thousand, total. Can you tell me how three years of war with 13k civilian casualties compares to the American invasion of Iraq? Syria? Afghanistan?
It’s quite clear that America does not value human life, but that isn’t clear about Russia when you actually examine their tactics and how many civilians die.
America certainly doesn’t value human life either, and I didn’t claim that. I’m not really educated on civilian casualties in different wars, I was mainly referring to all their military personnel.
Russia routinely sends in waves of poorly equipped soldiers just like the earlier mention of them using Wagner in “meat waves”, however this isn’t exclusive to Wagner and Nazis, its just how the Russian armed forces operate.
A recent example I can recall is north Korean troops being used in the exact same manner, being sent In unprepared, poorly equipped, with no real heavy equipment support, where they promptly die by fpv drone.
Training conditions for new soldiers is also extremely poor before they’re shipped out, at least it appeared that way in the past when I viewed many videos from new soldiers in Russia being trained. However that was a while ago, and who knows maybe it was all us/Ukraine propaganda videos.
I’m not gonna pretend to know everything, or claim I’m immune to propaganda. I certainty consumed a lot of western propaganda especially earlier in the war, I appreciate hearing all your differing opinions but at least on this point it seems comical to me to suggest Russia cares about the lives of their soldiers.
The « meat wave » myth came from nazis in ww2. It doesn’t reflect reality.
When I left the comment I almost said “meat waves” (propaganda term?) lol.
I say it because early in the war I was quite into watching combat videos of people dying (unhealthy) and meatwave was a very good description for a significant portion of the videos I watched.
Early in the war, when the LPR and DPR paramilitary troops were the front-line soldiers, not Russians? Russian troops were operating artillery, support, radar, missile, etc - not fighting on the front line.
Okay, if you’re not willing to do a little bit of research, here’s a paragraph from Wikipedia, which is exceedingly forgiving to the West:
You should also just read about Operation Iraqi Freedom. NATO troops started that war out destroying civilian infrastructure, directly. Water purification, sewage plants, power generation, they took Iraq back to the stone age. Here we are in 2025 and Russia has shown it has the ability to hit pretty much anything in Ukraine that it wants, but curiously it’s only targeting substations rather than destroying power plants. I guess Russians are too stupid to understand how electricity is generated, it certainly can’t be that they’re making an effort to not completely delete Ukraine’s electricity.
Can you please cite this? The usage of Wagner was notable explicitly because Russia doesn’t use human wave attacks and never have - that’s just a straight up fabrication. You can read West Point white papers about Soviet military tactics - the reality is they have always valued human life and empowered officers at the unit level to use creativity and make their own decisions. “Meat waves”, the idea of rigid top-down command structure - this is all entirely made up by the west.
Please provide evidence of this. Ukraine and the west have been crying about NK soldiers and their only evidence has been showing Russian nationals who look asiatic and calling them Koreans. Russia has finally announced the participation of NK troops in the recapture of one single town in Kursk - they have not been used extensively or even within Ukraine.
Russia uses a conscript military. This is the nature of a conscript military. Russia does not ship people with poor training to the front. DPR/LPR did because they were rebels without the resources or infrastructure to do long formal training. Russia pays out big bonuses for conscripts who volunteer to be part of the SMO.
It seems that way because you have been fed lies about Soviet and Russian military tactics and actions for the entirety of your life. If you’re American, you probably think that American troops liberated Germany and won the war, but if you look at actual troop deployments it was something ridiculous like 9/10 Germans being fielded to the Eastern front where it was only the Soviets who stopped them.
Well that’s just not the case and I would encourage a little more reflection on that. Perhaps considering ideas of Western Chauvinism.
So I read the adl page on Western Chauvinism and this wiki page Chauvinism and don’t understand how it relates to me saying Russia doesn’t value human life. I don’t think America values human life either, am I misunderstanding?
Chauvinism means heavy in-group bias and bigotry. Tribalism, jingoism, selfishness are related terms.
Within leftist circles, the term originates from the more formal use of “Social Chauvinists” who were the so-called socialists who sided with their own individual nations when WW1 started and cheered on the war, instead of siding with international workers and opposing the war across the board. It’s basically the worst insult that could be levied by a leftist outside of fascist, it’s stating that one has completely abandoned internationalist principles and solidarity for selfish warmongering short-term gains.
So a “western chauvinist” is a westerner who holds heavy pro-west biases and anti-global south biases. They don’t even have to be conscious or purposeful. Simple holding the generic American worldview is sufficient to be a chauvinist. Just passively absorbing the dominant racist, imperialist, colonialist ideology of the West will make one a chauvinist if one doesn’t introspect and cleanse oneself of it.
It’s been show through history that the leftist groups that tend towards chauvinism are almost always the most “Liberal” and reformist of the lot. The “Social Democrats” like Bernie Sanders always side with international capital and zionism because they are traitors. It’s generally the more radical communists who maintain their principles of internationalism. This is a major source of conflict between the reformist and revolutionary lefts, whether to maintain ones empire or not.
In poor and oppressed and colonized nations this divide is not as prominent. Everyone who supports decolonization or is on the left is easily united under a single banner of liberation. In imperialist western rich countries though, the left splits apart into the true comrades and the sell outs who really believe in their own superiority.
You see this chauvinism among the left manifesting in a lot of ways. The most common is that we (as in white rich nations) are the only people who can do revolution peacefully and correctly - that the “others” did socialism wrong and we know better than them. Another common strain is the nihilistic trend of “well everyone is evil and imperialist so who even cares”. This lazy both-sidesism projects what the western left knows is bad about their own society onto other societies they know nothing about, to create false equivalence and make it ok to just sit around doing nothing. Another kind of chauvinism is just unironically believing American propaganda about the “authoritarians” of the East.
You were doing a mix of 2 and 3
You’re assuming Russia doesn’t value human life because you’ve been fed that idea your entire life, and the reason you’re certain is that you know America doesn’t so Russia must not either. That is chauvinism.
The reason I’m certain is not because America doesn’t care so Russia doesnt. I said “don’t think America values human life either” because the documentation I read about Western Chauvinism sums up to “unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one’s own group or people,” so I highlighted In my reply I don’t think America is better or values human life either because I thought they were suggesting I thought America was better.
I am certain from the hundreds of videos I’ve seen of russian life being thrown away to gain no ground. Sure Ukraine possibly does similar tactics and I’m just not aware cause I’m only fed western approved combat videos from one side. But I didn’t say that because
Echoing Z_Poster’s response to your earlier comment, western chauvinism doesn’t necessarily manifest as a belief that the imperial core countries are better than (semi)peripheral countries: it can also be the projection of how bad the (in this case) US is to all of its enemies, or believing false or wildly distorted narratives spread by the US about those countries.
Regarding the videos you saw, what platforms were you seeing them on? Are they being shared by others who have (usually unconscious) western chauvinist biases? These are things worth considering when looking at information about enemies of western civilization, especially considering how virtually all mainstream social media platforms are owned by US companies.
Link literally anything you keep referencing. Everything you say is “I heard” or “I saw” without any attribution. You’re a western chauvinist.
Snip below are from a Russian military blogger/service man called Vozhak Z describing how his company is used in meat wave assaults, translated by Wartranslated (link to orginal post translation post, warning its shitter. Link to original telegram post by the Russian military blogger)
While Wartranslated does support Ukraine he is reputable and posts accurate information. Obviously biased coverage but still accurate. Provide sources proving otherwise if you want to protest. LDPR (so not true Russian) complain of very poor conditions and leadership/support/care if they live or die
I really don’t have much to send over since my phase of watching Russians die was ~2 years ago and on telegram it is nearly impossible to search for these 2+ year old videos. But I can just look at top posts on r/UkraineWarFootage.
All following links NSFL 3 Russian service memebers walk in no mans land with no support of any kind, get hit by FPV drone and likely bleed out and die Lone Russian pushing by himself, dies by drone Unarmored jeep like vehicle pushes the front with too many people onboard, hits antitank mine and everyone dies BMP with “meat Armour” carrying ~15 service members on top with no Armour or protection at all, they all die violently Pushing the front line in completely unarmored vehicle, hit by FPV drone More meat Armour, ~15 soldiers riding on top of BMP, hit by FPC
I could keep going on but I assume you probably wont watch the videos or care at all, and you will still tell me I’m wrong. Plus I don’t really like watching people die at this point in my life so I sorta wanna stop looking as well. Point being, since the invasion its very common to see videos of ~15 - 50 Russians pushing a front with no or very little support, usually meat Armour style where they ride on top of the a BMP that flings them off and than trys to run away before its killed. Maybe thats changed in the past year, but I dont know. Again I stopped following this kind of content a while ago.
hundreds of videos!
I personally do bring up Russian Nazis whenever I see that the tone of the conversation crosses into buying Russian propaganda too much, even if ironically, which can be an issue on hexbear.
Ukraine being backed by the most powerful fascist government in the world – the US – is indeed part of the reason why people tend to emphasise Ukrainian Nazis. Another part is that Ukrainian nationalism is often uncrititically accepted and propagated by Western media. An example you’ve probably seen is the widespread use of the “Slava Ukraini” slogan, which has a history of being used by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators.
What is the Russian propaganda line that we need to be wary of, to be clear?
Comrade john_brown comment in the adjacent thread has some good examples – generally the denial of how much Russian nationalism permeates every level of the Russian society, including the highest echelons of the government, all while wearing the corpse of the Soviet Union for pretense.
Nationalism isn’t fascism
Thank you! I appreciate the response and better understanding it has given me
Just to add to what others said another reason we don’t really bother focusing on Russia is that the entire western media sphere is intensely focused on demonizing Russia already, we are here to provide people larger context and alternate perspectives based on our historical and materialist analysis rooted as best we can in the way things are and not an ideal of what ought to be.
Totally valid point, a perspective from an outsider though is that exclusively focusing on one while ignoring the other pushes outsiders away from hearing and learning your perspectives. However if you don’t really care about interacting with outsiders it doesn’t matter really I suppose.
I like interacting on hexbear because I think having your opinions and views challenged is healthy, and doing this has actually pulled me out of a lot of western propaganda and I’ve taken to sharing some views with users here, however a lot of other people just block this instance and are locked away forever In their little echo chambers.
This instance is for leftists, not for leftists to cater to liberals. We do not care if you find us talking amongst ourselves distasteful. You have the entire rest of the Western media and social media to cater to you.
You see, it’s about power dynamics. Also, stick around long enough and you’ll see plenty of folks calling out Russian Nazi’s. They just aren’t at the leading edge of this conflict in the way Ukrainian Nazi’s ala-Banderites and Azov are, so you’re pretty close there I think with your reasoning.
Edit to add: you should be overwhelmingly seeing support for Ukrainian and Russian citizens equally, I don’t think anybody here is intentionally painting all Ukrainian’s as Nazi’s, just the ones that are actual proud Nazi’s.