In certain circles, there have been attempts to paint the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as a war between two imperialist countries, the United States and Russia. Similarly to the above Chinese example, this is incorrect.
Unlike the western powers, Russia does not have any capital monopolies that control the world market or supply chains. Russia having Gazprom and an extraction industry doesn’t mean they are imperialist. The essence of imperialism is monopolistic on a global scale, which is precisely why Russia is not imperialist, not whether they have capital generally. A perfect example of monopolies that share the world amongst themselves is the West, specifically the United States in their control of the WEF, IMF, World Bank, and UN Security Council, allowing the western powers to enforce this dominance through jingoistic foreign policy, embargoes, and hindering the development of other countries. Neither Russia nor China has anywhere close to this level of global power through finance capital.
Russia lacks finance capital and division of the world’s resources. It only has 4 of the top 100 corporations in the world and 6 of the top 500. 82% of Russian exports are raw materials, including 58% oil, 11% metal, and 6% food. In 2017, Russia imported $106.2 billion worth’ of machine goods and only exported $12.8 billion. Russia does not have any of the top 100 corporations in terms of capital export, and most Russian capital export is capital flight to tax havens. Russia only controls 0.7% of the world’s wealth and has much less wealth per adult than the United States ($8,843 vs $336,528). Russia has intervened militarily in other countries such as Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, but not to seize natural resources like imperialist countries do.
i’m convinced that the russian oligarchy would jump at the chance to become full fledged imperialists since it would help them increase their holdings; i suspect that it’s a bit of a happy accident that the western oligarchs are capable of keeping the russian oligarchs down using those imperial influence mechanism like sanctions and the imf.
Assuming Russia remains a capitalist nation and it continues to grow its economy, it will inevitably become imperialist. But it is still incorrect to call Russia imperialist at this time and doing so creates incorrect narratives, like the one presented in this video. Russia’s presence in Syria may be a self-serving one, but it is in fact anti-imperialist.
yeah, they’re pretty much imperialist wannabe’s at the most and i suspect that russia is better off for it.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
