(in a similar vein)
There is a third choice, where you say both are bad (ie. anarchists and pure marxists). But most people on lemmy.ML are Marxist Leninists (ML) who simp for authotarian states that call themselves socialist, like Russia, China, and North Korea.
Pure Marxist, Classical Marxist, Orthodox Marixst, whetever you want to call people who follow Marxism without Leninst or other authoritarian leaning interpretations.
They are the only countries who resist the western bourgeoisie imperial order
By trying to create their own imperial order. Nazi Germany also resisted the western imperialist order by trying to create their own imperial order.
Your point about Russia not even pretending to be socialist is very much true. Which makes it more baffling that some people on ML support it. Do they just support anything that isn’t western even if it’s arguably worse?
The number of Marxists who explicitly reject Lenin make up a tiny minority of the overall number of Marxists globally, and the ones who do so reside almost exclusively in Western Countries. Trying to uphold rejections of Lenin’s expansions on Marx’s original writings as “pure” doesn’t really fit with that.
Secondly, no Marxist supports the Russian Federation, they see it as a horrible Capitalist regime that is temporarily working against the United States out of desparation. The concept of “critical support” is accepting that someone you entirely disagree with ideologically can be fighting a shared enemy, no more and no less.
Do they just support anything that isn’t western even if it’s arguably worse?
Critically support, somewhat, and the argument is that in a geopolitical context the US is more dangerous to Socialist movements than countries opposing US hegemony at the moment, and that once US hegemony is toppled these countries that once had “critical support” can be turned into the next enemy to be fought, assuming they don’t come to Socialism before then. The very fact that you say which is worse is “arguable” lends validity to the concept of critical support, as the alternative is further US domination of the Global South.
Even then, Marxists are divided on Russia with respect to whether or not to even critically support it. The notion that there are Marxists that support the Russian Federation outright as an example of Marxism is fantasy.
