The ultra-left anti-”campists” and the liberal idealists share an incorrect view, claiming that “just because a state is anti-US does not mean it should be supported.” This is wrong on, at minimum, two counts.
Support is situational, not permanent
First, situational support in the moment does not equate to support forever. Russia, Iran, and even Palestine all have their own internal contradictions, but these are put aside for now as we confront the principal contradiction: Western imperialism and hegemony.1
Failure to recognize this situational and temporary support for the broader movement is a clear and fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between theory and praxis; this same erroneous view would have opposed the United Front during the War Against Japanese Aggression merely because the Kuomintang (KMT) was counterrevolutionary and reactionary and ignores the greater, shared enemy—the Great Shaytan, as Iran calls it—for the sake of secondary contradictions that need not be considered at the current moment.
Additionally, as I previously quoted in my past discussion of Russia specifically, Lenin’s Draft Theses in 1920 asserts:
[The] Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries [and] must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.
Support based on material conditions, not “anti-US” rhetoric
Second, support for an “anti-US” state is in fact not voiced purely because they claim to be “anti-US” at all but is based on, rather, why Imperialist America opposes that certain state.
In many cases, it is because that particular state has adopted a socialist method of governance (which threatens Western hegemony in various ways, including by showing the masses that socialist governance works—which is why some imperialist mouthpieces call China “capitalist”) or because they possess natural resources Imperialist America wishes to control.
Communists do not only support other Communists (which, of course, some ultra-leftists fail to do anyway) but also all workers of the world.
If a certain people group is facing attacks by an imperialist force, how can someone who calls themself “Communist” refuse to support that group?
There are also leftist movements and groups in those countries, such as the Palestinian resistance groups Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Palestinian People’s Party (PPP). The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reported on the first three in 2005, designating them “terrorists.”
If I recall correctly, Cheryl Rubenberg’s The Palestinians: In Search of a Just Peace should discuss the matter as well, though I have not yet had the chance to read it in full.
Yes, US imperialism is the largest contradiction (in geo politics). But no war is ever going to be socially progressive unless it is a proletarian one.
Support for nation states that regularly kill communists is nonsense. We want revolutionary defeatism. That’s basic lenin. Not inter imperialist wars that don’t serve the proletariat.
Please reread https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jul/26.htm
The principle contradiction is Western imperialism and hegemony, and not class struggle? What then becomes the principle contradiction if (in the struggle of supporting the lesser imperialist in inter-imperialist conflict) Western hegemony is overthrown? Do all other forms of fiscal domination of the global south disappear or become "nice" imperialism?
One can only glean from your brief misquotation of Lenin that you haven't even read the 10 minute article from which it's from!
> "An abstract or formal posing of the problem of equality in general and national equality in particular is in the very nature of bourgeois democracy."
> "the Communist Party [...] must base its policy, in the national question too, [...] the specific historical situation and, primarily, of economic conditions; second, on a clear distinction between the interests of the oppressed classes, of working and exploited people, and the general concept of national interests as a whole, __which implies the interests of the ruling class__"
> "From these fundamental premises it follows that the Communist International’s entire policy on the national and the colonial questions should rest primarily on a closer union of the proletarians and the working masses of all nations and countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the landowners and the bourgeoisie. This union alone will guarantee victory over capitalism, without which the abolition of national oppression and inequality is impossible."
And finally:
> "The form of this alliance should be determined by the degree of development of the communist movement in the proletariat of each country, or of the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement of the workers and peasants in backward countries or among backward nationalities."
Can you name me a "backward country" in the year 2026? There is a developing communist movement in the proletariat of Iran. There are several developed communist proletarian movements in China and Russia. As another commentor pointed out, Iran kills communists. Russia and China flattens and imprisons Marxists for reading groups and protests. The very rhetoric of campists is not only anti-Marxist but against even the quote *you* misused for your article! To speak of subordinating the class struggle to every present national liberation movement is utterly ridiculous. If you're waiting on a moment of peace within capitalism to begin your support of the proletariat and strike a blow against capitalism, you are sorely misguided.