I have a friend who's a actually becoming more and more leftist and lately even communist but not yet fully Marxist. I'm trying to help him shed lib ideas. He specifically asked me if we could have a talk at some point on war. He's confused about the war propaganda. Like just a vague "Haven't things changed maybe because of Russia? Maybe we in Europe need to boost defense now etc."
I want to introduce him to Lenins Idea of revolutionary defeatism, because I think it applies to our historical moment. A revolutionary can not but desire the defeat of his imperialist government. Also Liebknechts line:"the main enemy is at home". The main task for leftists in imperial core countries is to fight the imperialists we can actually effect: the ones right here. You can be happy about any success of comrades in Russia fighting their oligarchy, but don't get roped into supporting western oligarchs' NATO wars.
We both care about trans and queer issues a lot, so he will bring up fears of evil Russia conquering part of Europe and rolling back queer rights. I can contextualize by bringing up the moral track record of western countries (like the ongoing genocide). But is there a more direct answer? Also just in general, I'm not sure if I'm missing an obvious angle or argument. Anything you would definitely mention on war? Suggested reading?
I might have to get into the specifics, of how the war developed historically, but there will be a lot of propaganda to unravel, so ideally, I'm looking for a concise argument, that can pierce the propaganda and illuminate the truth. Hope that's not too much to ask ;)
I'd make a comparison to WW1 and the war propaganda that was spread around at the time - portraying the Germans as vicious apes, theremoved of Belgium, that kind of thing. The German army absolutely engaged in war crimes during their advance - so did basically every army during that war. Does that justify the murder of millions of people and the ruination of entire generations? Of course not, particularly when you consider that every participant in the war was a colonial empire. The same, essentially, is true of the war in Europe today. We should not be sacrificing hundreds of thousands, millions of people to this horrific war just because NATO and Russia, both neoliberal capitalist entities with imperial ambitions, are in a dick-measuring contest where the prize is the right to exploit Ukraine's resources.