I was banned without notice for calling out that supporting Putin is not something we should be doing, check my post history, you won’t easily find people more radicalized than me.
This was my final post:
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To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate.
Like we’re doing with Putin?
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“Like we’re doing with Putin?” in reply to a Mao quote, genzdong’s front page at the time was full of threads and posts defending Putin.
Not defending Ukraine is understandable, attacking the USA is understandable but trying to defend and justify Putin is a direct offense against Mao’s teachings.
Putin has clearly gone wrong, we mustn’t refrain from principled argument because he’s an old acquaintance (is he?).
The issue with communist discussion online is that many, more so the very online ones, place themselves in direct opposition of what liberals bring up, which in this case is that Zelensky is some “freedom fighter” while Putin is evil and genocidal. The liberal thinking is clearly wrong as Putin is not either of those, but the internet doesn’t always leave space for discussion and education; liberals refuse to see anything else and parrot what the capitalists tell them. Paired with internet culture of dunking on them, it’s easy for the very online to counteract it with what you’re describing as it’s a bigger pushback and more inflammatory.
The line should not be “critical support of Putin” but of focusing the argument on the point that the US and especially NATO. Debating whether Putin is good or bad isn’t a good use of time: he’s a product of the material conditions of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the continued push by NATO on surrounding Russia in an attempt to choke them politically and economically. Otherwise it’s a mud-slinging fight of Zelensky vs Putin.
You bring this up, but it’s clear that many still try to lump Putin into the category of anti-imperialist leaders like Assad (to whom critical support makes more sense on anti-imperialist lines). It just shows how important it is to have professional & organized Marxist-Leninist parties that abide by democratic centralism. You have your party line and all members push and follow it, despite whatever internal discussion may be had.