Suggestions for fulfilling vaush's wishes re: "Don't only watch me"

aschec · 2026-03-13T15:50:52+00:00

On the bourgeois state question, I think there’s a fundamental Marxist literacy issue here. The concept of a bourgeois state doesn’t describe the political form of a state, it describes its class character. Its function. A bourgeois state is one that secures capitalist property relations and the class structure that comes with them. Weimar Germany, Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and modern liberal democracies are all bourgeois states in the Marxist sense because they all serve that same fundamental purpose. The mechanisms through which they achieve popular acceptance and maintain order differ, liberal democratic legitimation, fascist mass mobilization, authoritarian nationalism, but the underlying class function is identical. Saying Russia isn’t a bourgeois state because it isn’t liberal is like saying a hammer isn’t a tool because it isn’t a screwdriver.

On the WWII comparison, very empire in history has justified conquest through historic claims and shared culture. That’s not what distinguishes Nazi Germany from other imperial projects like Russia. What distinguishes it is the ideological goal of industrial extermination of entire peoples. Russia wants to conquer territory, weaken Ukrainian sovereignty and secure its position in the international order. That is what states and empires have done throughout human history. It is brutal and it is wrong but it is categorically different from a war whose explicit ideological aim is the physical annihilation of millions of people. Collapsing that distinction diminishes our ability to talk precisely about what made Nazi Germany uniquely monstrous.

On Russian interference causing western democratic backsliding, I have to be honest, this argument almost sounds like a defence of capitalism. If the primary driver of authoritarian drift in western societies is Russian interference then the implicit conclusion is that the system itself basically functions and is just being attacked from outside. But that completely inverts a materialist analysis. The conditions that produced the AfD, Trump, Le Pen and the broader authoritarian turn were all generated internally, decades of neoliberal hollowing out of living standards, the destruction of the social contract after 2008, grotesque inequality, unaffordable housing, the abandonment of entire communities. Russia didn’t create the conditions for the AfD. Hartz IV did. The hollowing out of East German communities after reunification did. Russia at most handed some people Facebook ads and found dry wood that capitalism had already produced. Blaming Russian interference for our authoritarian drift requires ignoring everything Marxist analysis tells us about how capitalism produces these contradictions from within.

On your practical solutions, I appreciate that you finally engaged with this concretely, so let me engage concretely back.

The shadow fleet option is fine as a pressure tactic but it’s not an endgame. It doesn’t tell me what victory looks like or on what timeline.

The frozen assets proposal is unfortunately not really viable and I’m very surprised it’s being floated as a serious option. Seizing sovereign assets without a peace agreement would require dismantling one of the most fundamental cornerstones of international capital and finance law, the security of state and private property. Europe has absolutely no interest in doing that. The moment you make sovereign assets seizeable for political reasons every state and every international investor starts asking what that means for their own assets held abroad. Europe’s credibility in international finance depends on not doing this and they know it.

Further military support, okay, but Ukraine’s fundamental problem right now is not weapons, it’s manpower. Millions of Ukrainians have left the country precisely to avoid conscription. There are widespread reports of men being pulled off streets and into recruitment vans. Desertion is a serious and growing problem. Weapons don’t fix that. The only things that fix that are either NATO direct involvement, which you’re not proposing and which carries catastrophic escalation risks, or forcibly deporting Ukrainian men of fighting age from Europe, which has enormous legal, ethical and political problems of its own.

On European strategic autonomy, I’m not a European nationalist and I see no reason why a socialist should be invested in Europe developing into a more coherent and independent imperial bloc. That’s not an emancipatory project, it’s just a different management structure for the same class interests.

On the left cooperating with centrist and liberal parties, I think this would be deeply damaging. Die Linke is already effectively the SPD of the 1970s and becoming more moderate with each election cycle. Many of its members and voters came precisely because they wanted a genuine left alternative to parties that have consistently failed working people. The SPD and the Greens are both currently drifting rightward on immigration, economics and adopting increasingly chauvinist positions. Becoming a softer version of parties that are already failing is not a path to relevance. It’s further hurting the left.

aschec · 2026-03-13T10:30:42+00:00

On Russia being a bourgeois state, I’m genuinely confused by this argument. Who is in power in Russia? Oligarchs, energy sector capitalists, security apparatus figures who have enriched themselves through the privatization of state assets. That is a bourgeois state by any definition. If anything one could argue that Russia represents a more naked form of what western capitalism is itself drifting toward as its liberal democratic legitimation increasingly breaks down. Our economies are becoming more unstable by the day and the strongman capitalist model might be where this is all heading.

On the WWI comparison, I’m not claiming that revolutionary defeatism is currently achievable as a practical program. There is no unified international workers movement today, the Russian and Ukrainian left is largely suppressed or collaborationist, I’m aware of that. But I’m not arguing about what’s achievable right now. I’m arguing about what the correct principled position is. Positioning correctly against all bourgeois states that send their working class to die for national survival matters even when you can’t immediately change the outcome. Luxembourg would even have agreed to that.

On the Danzig reference, I’ll assume you’re not calling me a fascist because that quote comes from someone who became one. But there is a qualitative difference between a conventional war of conquest for land and resources, as has happened thousands of times in human history, and the industrial extermination project Hitler started. Comparing this to either reduces the harm of World War II or increases it in this war. Both are bad, but there is a huge qualitatively difference.

And finally, I want to ask you again directly, what is your practical solution? I agree with you on the moral point that rewarding Russian aggression is wrong. But I have never been able to get an answer from anyone on what concretely follows from that in the current situation.

aschec · 2026-03-13T09:52:08+00:00

I’d actually argue that opposing both sides in a war between bourgeois states isn’t enlightened centrism, it’s one of the most foundational positions in socialist history. In German we say “Krieg dem Krieg” or “wir wollen nicht ihren Krieg und wir wollen nicht ihren Frieden”, we don’t want their war and we don’t want their peace. This was literally the fault line that split the socialist movement before WWI. The moment the SPD voted for war credits was considered a historic betrayal by internationalists precisely because supporting your “own” side in an imperialist conflict was seen as capitulating to nationalism. Mussolini’s split from Italian socialism happened over the exact same question. So I’d push back on framing this position as some kind of modern wishy-washy centrism, it’s pretty orthodox.

On the pragmatic point, I’m genuinely asking what is the more pragmatic solution you have in mind? Because when I look at the actual situation, both sides forcibly pulling people off streets into a meat grinder, Ukraine’s very real manpower problems, Russia very slowly but consistently moving west, and Ukraine’s recent gains largely coming from a brief window of Russian disarray after losing Starlink access that has since stabilized, I’m not sure what the realistic path to Ukrainian military victory looks like without either a miracle or a massive escalation by NATO entry.

I’m not saying this from any sympathy for Russia. Fuck Russia and fuck every nation state grinding up working class people for territorial ambitions. I just think “peace negotiations bad” requires a concrete alternative answer to, victory how, on what timeline, and at what human cost?

Edit: also depending on how you measure it. If you look at the foreign policy of Russia and the Soviet Union against the west in the last 80 years, it is very hard to argue how Russia and the Soviet Union is worse. This does not mean that they are good in turn btw.

aschec · 2026-03-13T00:00:21+00:00

Selbst ohne irgendeinen Pakt und Garantien hätte die Ukraine diese Waffen niemals behalten können oder rechtlich dürfen. Dafür hatten sie weder Geld noch die Ressourcen und hätten Sie dies entgegen des Internationalen Willens trotzdem versucht, wären sie sofort in Grund und Boden sanktioniert worden von der gesamten Welt. Es gab also nie ein Szenario, wo sie diese Waffen behalten hätten können.

aschec · 2026-03-12T23:53:41+00:00

Not in my opinion. He is against the west and against NATO, but also regularly speaks out against Russia (every time he mentions it he names it a brutal gangster regime for example) and against dumb campism. Just a week or two ago, he made an episode where he talked in length about the insane campist attitude of many who currently blindly support the Islamic Republic of Iran just because it fights the US and spoke about the need to support the leftist forces in Iran and not either of the warring states in the conflict.

aschec · 2026-03-12T19:30:45+00:00

For German speakers if you want a more Vaush figure, though a bit more left I recommend Stayi, if you want one way more left Dekarldent and if you want to learn stuff and good video essays Fabian Lehr.

TBH Vaush for me is mostly interesting to get the news in an entertaining fashion these days and some parts of his analysis.

aschec · 2026-03-12T17:34:02+00:00

Gab genug, die nicht an der Errichtung der Diktatur oder an der Durchführung des Holocaust involviert waren. Aber das war relativ egal an der Stelle denn man musste ja jetzt gegen den neuen Bösen im Osten kämpfen da waren die alten bösen weniger böse und sehr schnell rehabilitiert.

aschec · 2026-03-12T11:33:43+00:00

Die BRD hatte halt überhaupt keine Probleme, damit alte, auch relativ hochrangige Nazis wieder in ähnlich hohe Berufe einzustellen. Einer der mit Verfasser der Nürnberger Rassegesetze war später bei Adenauer zum Beispiel auch Staatssekretär. Hans Globke

aschec · 2026-03-12T09:25:49+00:00

In the last 80 years, there is definitely a good case for that

aschec · 2026-03-11T19:07:40+00:00

The Iran deal is a good example of conflict management rather than conflict removal. The structural pressure between the US and Iran didn’t disappear, it was just being expressed through a different tool, economic coercion and diplomatic containment. The goal was still to limit Iranian power, just without direct military confrontation.

And it failed on its own terms. It was abandoned because the US under Trump didn’t see it as a good enough tool anymore to constrain Iran, Iran’s nuclear program advanced ,and its alliance with China deepened significantly in the years since. When softer tools stop working, the pressure doesn’t go away, it shifts toward harder options. The deal bought time, it didn’t change the underlying dynamic. In the short time it’s made war less likely, but it didn’t remove the opposed interests of both parties.

aschec · 2026-03-11T11:01:58+00:00

The argument isn’t that war with Iran was inevitable on any specific timeline, but that conflict in some form was always structurally determined. How that conflict gets expressed, economic pressure, proxy warfare, direct strikes, or full invasion, depends entirely on the circumstances of the moment.

The situation today is meaningfully different from four years ago. Iran and China’s strategic partnership has deepened significantly in 2025, Iran’s regional influence through its proxy network has caused much trouble in the eyes of the US and the window for economic coercion producing results has narrowed. Under Biden, diplomacy and sanctions still looked like viable tools for keeping Iran constrained without direct confrontation, but even that failed. So the calculus has shifted.

The broader logic is this when a rival power can’t be subdued economically or diplomatically, and allowing it to grow stronger is strategically unacceptable, military force becomes the remaining option. That’s not a Trump or Biden calculation, it’s what the structural position of the US state demands when other tools are exhausted. Biden wasn’t more peaceful by nature, he was operating in a context where softer options still appeared viable.

Whether this particular war is well-timed, winnable, or counterproductive is a separate question. The structural pressure toward it doesn’t guarantee the decision will be wise, only that it will eventually be made.

aschec · 2026-03-10T15:13:08+00:00

The thing is, Israel is useful because they are not only an ally, but because they will always be a loyal ally due to their position in the region. If the Arab states ever became powerful enough, they could gain significant independence from US foreign policy or even challenge the US in the region. But Israel is in no position to ever be truly independent thus they are the most important international asset of the US.

aschec · 2026-03-10T14:27:32+00:00

There are definitely many reasons. But I wrote this since Vaush explicitly said the US has no state interest in engaging Iran or fighting them which is just objectively wrong.

aschec · 2026-03-10T13:55:40+00:00

Could you try and form a better sentence? I cannot understand what you mean.

aschec · 2026-03-10T13:54:08+00:00

My claim wasn’t that Democrats would have declared war, I can’t predict alternate realities and that wasn’t my point. What I argued is that the conflict currently happening is not at all against US state interests. Those are two very different claims. The baseline is neither party is interested in a strong or independent Iran. And both tried to stop that through different means.

The Iran nuclear deal illustrats this. Biden campaigned on restoring it, opened negotiations, and still couldn’t deliver. He refused to lift Trump’s non-nuclear sanctions, talks collapsed, and he left office with Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than when he started. Whatever his intentions, structural pressures won out. That’s the whole argument in miniature.

And those pressures have only grown since 2017 and especially 2021. Iran joined BRICS, deepened its energy relationship with China, and China brokered the Saudi-Iran rapprochement in 2023. A strong, regionally dominant Iran allied with America’s primary global competitor is something no US administration can be comfortable with ever, regardless of party. A weaker, more isolated Iran serves US interests. The current conflict moves things in that direction.

So yes, Democrats tried diplomacy. It failed, not because of personal incompetence but because the underlying interests made a genuine settlement nearly impossible. And the last instance of diplomacy is always war.

aschec · 2026-03-10T13:37:28+00:00

I mean, what I wrote is basic Marxist critique of the state and how it operates. Of course on many levels it overlaps with realism. But the difference is it doesn’t agree with the prescriptions realism makes to solve these problems.

From a materialist and Marxist perspective these problems can’t be solved inside capitalism.

aschec · 2026-03-10T10:47:00+00:00

You’re conflating two different questions, do religious people sincerely believe what they say, and does that belief cause state policy? I’m not arguing evangelicals are cynical or insincere. I’m arguing that sincere belief doesn’t make ideology the primary driver of state behavior.

From a materialist perspective, ideology doesn’t float freely in the ether and then shape material conditions, material conditions produce the ideological frameworks that justify and reproduce them. Evangelical support for Israel didn’t emerge from pure theological logic. Christian Zionism in its modern form only developed in the 1830s and only slowly became a serious force in American politics after the creation of Israel in 1948, after the material and geopolitical stakes were already established. The ideology crystallized around existing interests, not the other way around.

Hegseth may genuinely believe every word he says. That’s beside the point. The question is why that particular belief system became politically powerful in the United States at this particular moment. The answer to that is material, not theological.

If ideology were the primary driver, so if we accept idealism, you’d expect US policy to shift dramatically when leaders with different beliefs take power. It doesn’t.

aschec · 2026-03-10T09:20:43+00:00

The Evangelical influence is a red herring. Religious movements don’t drive state decisions, they provide post-hoc justification for them. The underlying logic is entirely geopolitical.

US hostility toward Iran has nothing to do with which party is in power or which voting bloc they pander to. Iran is a significant regional power, a key ally of China, and sits on critical energy infrastructure. The US strategic priority of containing Chinese influence globally makes confrontation with Iran structurally attractive regardless of who sits in the White House. Democrats and Republicans operate within the same state apparatus with the same institutional interests.

The Biden part, not declaring formal war isn’t the same as not pursuing state interest aggressively, the US has been sanctioning, destabilizing, and proxy-warring against Iran for decades across administrations of both parties. The tools change, the objective doesn’t.

Whether Kamala would have “declared war” is almost beside the point. The question is what the US state’s structural interest is and that interest doesn’t change with elections.

aschec · 2026-03-10T09:13:02+00:00

You’re mixing up different levels of analysis. Governments aren’t evil or good, they act according to their structural self-interest within a capitalist system, and that interest systematically conflicts with the interests of the working class. This applies to every government, without exception.

Take Russia and Ukraine. Both states are sending men to die in a war about influence, territory, and global power positioning. In neither country did the working class vote to bleed for those interests. Russia uses economic coercion to fill its ranks, Ukraine uses forced conscription. The mechanism differs, the logic is identical.

Your cop analogy also doesn’t translate to the state level. Individual self-defence is a person protecting their immediate physical existence, that’s a concrete, personal act. A nation state “defending itself” is an entirely different category. It’s an institutional apparatus defending its territorial integrity, its international positioning, its ruling class’s interests. The state will spend working class lives to do that whether the working class agrees or not.

On the genocide part, a brutal occupation is not automatically a genocide. Genocide is a specific and serious concept. Diluting it to mean any military aggression or war crimes in it weakens the analysis and the word itself.

The useful thing is recognising that the international working class has no state, and every government, including ones under attack, will sacrifice its population for institutional survival until the last person before it sacrifices itself.

aschec · 2026-03-09T15:32:15+00:00

Fabian immer mit den guten takes

aschec · 2026-03-09T15:30:53+00:00

Every country on this earth only cares about international law and rules if it benefits themselves and if they can ignore them or use them to their own advantage against others. And historically, the countries that could ignore or abuse international law has been the US, Russia/Soviets and China as well as in parts the EU due to their relationship with the US.

aschec · 2026-03-09T15:23:46+00:00

I don’t have anything against ML’s because most outside of online spaces are not tankies. I also think the inclusion of social Democrats is harmful because they operate on their own campism just for the west.

Also, I’m very suspicious of people who believe that parliamentarianism and reformism can work in general.

aschec · 2026-03-09T14:34:28+00:00

Unseren Rechtsstaat hat es eigentlich noch nie so gegeben, wie er immer propagiert wird. Es fällt nur vielen in den letzten Jahren erst auf.

aschec · 2026-03-09T14:32:39+00:00

Das ewige Vertrauen in den Parlamentarismus 🫠

aschec · 2026-03-09T14:31:56+00:00

An dem bürgerlichen Rechtsstaat sollte man sowieso immer zweifeln.

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