I think Lenin’s framework is interesting, but I would be careful about taking it at face value, because the historical practice of Leninism complicates the picture quite a lot.

The distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations is a useful analytical tool, and I agree that nationalism does not have an identical meaning in every historical context. A national movement of a people trying to escape imperial domination is not the same thing as the nationalism of an imperial power trying to maintain control over other peoples.

However, the problem is that Lenin himself did not always treat the right of self-determination as an unconditional democratic principle. He was quite explicit that recognizing the right to secession was also a political strategy something that could reduce resistance to the new state and make voluntary unity more likely. In other words, the promise of self-determination was not only about respecting national rights, but also about creating conditions where those nations would choose to remain within a socialist framework.

This becomes especially important when looking at what happened after 1917. The Bolsheviks proclaimed the right of nations to self-determination, including the possibility of secession, but when Ukraine and other nations of the former Russian Empire actually attempted to use that right, the situation changed very quickly. Ukrainian independence movements, as well as movements among other non-Russian peoples, were opposed militarily by the Bolshevik government. This suggests that the principle was applied differently depending on whether national self-determination threatened the new central authority.

That is why I think the Norway–Sweden example is more complicated than it first appears. It works well as a theoretical example of how socialists from a dominant nation should behave toward a weaker nation. But the situation of Ukraine in 1917–1921 was different: Ukraine was not simply another independent country seeking recognition; it was part of the territory over which the Bolsheviks were trying to establish a new political order. The question was no longer only about supporting self-determination, but about whether that self-determination could actually limit the power of the revolutionary state.

This does not mean that Lenin’s distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations is useless. I think there is still an important point there: nationalism from a position of domination and nationalism from a position of resistance are not the same thing. But the historical lesson is also that even a theory built around liberation can become a political instrument when the people applying it have their own state interests.

So I would separate two things: the idea that leftists should oppose imperial domination and support the right of nations to decide their own future which is a principle that can be defended independently and Lenin’s own political strategy, where the recognition of that right was often conditional on whether it helped or hindered the revolutionary project.

First of all, I am honestly not answering the question of whether I consider nationalism inherently good or bad. Those are value judgments, and therefore I am not even trying to combine left-wing movements with nationalism. I am only asking myself whether nationalism is, by its nature, a left-wing ideology.

Secondly, regarding the question of whether there are examples of movements that broke away from an existing socialist project under a national banner without becoming fascist or capitalist — there are. The clearest example is Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1948, which broke with the Cominform and Stalin while insisting on its own “national” path to socialism, independent from external dictates coming from Moscow.

There are also examples of this kind of separation within a state itself. The most illustrative case is the Croatian Spring (MASPOK) in Yugoslavia in 1971. It was a movement within the Croatian Communist Party: the reformist wing of local communists demanded greater economic and political autonomy for Croatia within the federation, criticized the redistribution of resources in favor of Belgrade, and advocated a “Croatian path” to socialism. Tito suppressed the movement, its leaders were removed from their positions, and some were imprisoned, but the movement itself was formed as a socialist, nationally oriented movement rather than an attempt to restore capitalism.

And ideologically, one can also split from an existing socialist project, as Trotskyists did, although this does not need much explanation since you already know the example.

Exactly! This is an incredibly important question, and your perspective is quite reasonable. But now try reading the other answers here they seem to come from the opposite assumption: that national self-determination is essential. So they would probably disagree with you.

So, is leaving a socialist project necessarily a bourgeois desire to preserve inequality or restore capitalism? I don’t think that follows. A movement can be motivated by other principles: democratic self-determination, opposition to political centralization, protection of cultural identity, or dissatisfaction with the way power is organized. Rejecting a specific socialist state does not automatically mean rejecting every idea associated with socialism or wanting a return to a class hierarchy. A project can fail not only because people want more economic inequality, but also because people disagree with how that project is implemented.

Moreover, if a state claiming to be socialist becomes highly authoritarian or totalitarian, one could argue that it has moved away from the fundamental principles it claims to represent. If political power is concentrated in the hands of a single party rather than being exercised by workers or society as a whole, then the question is not simply whether people are rejecting socialism, but whether they are rejecting a system that no longer reflects their understanding of socialism. People can oppose such a state while still being committed socialists themselves.

First of all, the fact that a national movement takes place in the context of NATO expansion does not automatically mean that the movement itself is defined by NATO interests. That would be like judging the nature of a phenomenon exclusively by the circumstances in which it emerged while ignoring its own internal logic, demands, and the goals of the people participating in it.

Second, I literally gave an example of an alternative form of nationalism existing within Ukrainian society one that is left-wing, and more importantly, actually mainstream among many younger activists and parts of civil society. It is also, in many ways, an extremely progressive form of nationalism, combining national identity with feminism, decolonial studies, and other progressive ideas. But it seems you ignored this because you approached the topic through your own theoretical framework rather than through the actual context of Ukrainian society. That’s fine, but it does make the analysis rather incomplete.

Third, the comparison with Israel is interesting, and I think there are some aspects worth discussing, but I have to ask: who exactly is Ukraine colonizing? Russia? That would certainly be a surprising interpretation of the situation.

What honestly saddens me is that this seems to come from a very simplified assumption: if the Western world supports Ukraine, then Ukraine itself must somehow become a reactionary or imperial project. But political movements are not defined only by who supports them internationally.

I agree that “left” and “right” are not fixed categories, and I didn’t try to define them in the post because this is a discussion thread, not a 300-page political theory book. We could easily spend a month arguing about what left and right even mean before getting back to nationalism itself.

So I think it’s better to let everyone interpret these terms in their own way and explain their own understanding of the question rather than getting stuck in endless debates over definitions.

I can agree with you that nationalism itself is not always good or bad. It depends on the situation and whether it is used by an oppressed group fighting for sovereignty or by a dominant group trying to maintain power.

But in practice I find this idea difficult to apply. What about nationalism in the Balkans? Croatian nationalists openly collaborated with the Nazis, Serbian nationalists committed ethnic cleansing during the Yugoslav wars, and I do not think I need to explain in detail everything that happened there.

Are the Balkans simply not considered part of the Global South? But these nations also fought against imperial rule and foreign domination. So how do we decide when nationalism is a progressive struggle for freedom and when it becomes a reactionary ethnic ideology?

Yeah, I’d love that! If you can, whenever you mention a channel, could you also add a couple of words about what it’s about or what makes it interesting? I’d really appreciate that

I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that out. Thanks for such a detailed reply.

Where do memes in the Western internet actually come from? Back in the day where I lived, most memes came from VK. There were dedicated meme pages that made original stuff, and then a bunch of other pages that just reposted it. These days, pretty much all new memes come out of small Telegram communities. So where do they come from on your side of the internet?

I’ve heard a bit about how 4chan started, mostly because I know about its Russian counterpart, 2ch. It’s pretty pro-government these days, and the guy who owns it openly supports Putin.

I also remember hearing this theory that 4chan was somehow started with FBI help or whatever, but I never cared enough to actually look into it.

But you mentioned banning anime pedos. Why do these edgelord types always seem to come out of that whole scene?

In Russia, a lot of 2ch’s early culture was tied to this guy, Maksim Martsinkevich. You can Google him if you want. He’s mostly known for hunting down alleged pedophiles, filming himself beating and humiliating them, and all that. I don’t really feel like getting into the details, but those videos are still all over the internet if you’re curious.

There was even one time they went after a Russian government official. There’s honestly a lot you could say about the whole thing.

I just don’t get why this kind of stuff always seems to overlap with the alt-right.

What was your first thought when you read my post?

I don’t know that much about the English-speaking internet specifically, not the internet as a whole. Of course, if at some point in your life you decide to check out what Linux is, you’ll probably end up going down the rabbit hole, then you start digging deeper into stuff like Matrix, Zen Browser, self-hosting, open-source projects, privacy tools, alternative social networks, weird forums, niche communities, etc.

I could’ve obviously asked this on Reddit, but honestly Reddit has never really been a place where I got actual answers neither for my own questions nor for other people’s. Whatever the topic, there are always tons of people who just comment to comment, a lot of edgelords, and a lot of unnecessarily toxic users.

Does a word like “dumbass” even insult any specific group? That was honestly the first thing that came to my mind. We also have words that you probably shouldn’t use because they’re offensive to certain groups, but most swear words in our language are basically just words built around the idea of a “sexual act,” kind of like “fuck” in English. We just have way more of those words. For some reason, English doesn’t really have that many swear words. German is the same if anything, it’s even more boring.

As far as I understand, English has “insults” and “slurs,” with the second one specifically meaning words aimed at a certain group of people. I don’t use those.

Recently I’ve been watching more essay-style content where people analyze different cultural phenomena (but not at all in the popular science/educational sense). For example, critical reviews of shows like The Sopranos, analyses of 90s TV commercials, or discussions about some specific cultural trends or phenomena. I just find it interesting to hear people talk about these kinds of things

Yeah, I figured as much. It’s just that the internet in post-Soviet countries is kind of unique in that sense. It’s really isolated, but at the same time incredibly dense. These days, pretty much all online life revolves around Telegram. The thing is, it’s almost impossible to get into it if you weren’t born here. Not because you wouldn’t understand what’s being talked about you just wouldn’t know where to even start looking.

Blogs are actually still alive here. Pretty much everyone I know has a personal Telegram channel where they just post about their life. It honestly feels a lot more like the early internet. Those channels have everything, and the biggest reason is that Telegram has very little moderation, so you can find literally anything there.

If you’re interested, I can give you an example. In Ukraine there’s this guy named Sasha Fokin. When he was a kid, he appeared on a Ukrainian TV show that basically tried to help struggling families. I’m sure every country has some version of that kind of show. Back then he became known as a “problem child” I won’t get into the details. Fast forward something like nine years (I’m not exactly sure how many), and now he runs a Telegram channel where he talks about his favorite transgender adult performers, posts coprophilia, and argues about politics. Stuff like that is actually pretty common across the post-Soviet internet, especially in Russia. If you’re curious, I can name a few more people.

My point is that there’s very little moderation, so you end up with a lot of fringe personalities, but also a lot of genuinely interesting subcultures and discussions. If all you read is Facebook, I feel like the biggest news you’ll see is that firefighters rescued another cat from a tree. I’m not saying I’m specifically looking for fringe content in the English-speaking internet, but I do want to see the kind of stuff people actually talk about. It just so happens that people in the post-Soviet internet are really into weird, fringe content, so over here it’s basically mainstream.

I mostly added the image just to catch people’s attention. I think I know which word you mean now. I had no idea it was used as a slur against disabled people in English I honestly thought it was just a regular insult. Sorry, I don’t always catch the connotations of certain words since I’m not a native speaker.