# 1975-1990, the USSR was arguably the least bad of the three imperial superpowers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 5, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246 "2016-02-05T17:23:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/21 "2016-02-05T20:15:51Z")
> [@Corporal\_Clegg](#): > > Roosevelt also pledge reconstruction aid to the Russians who were still our allies. When Roosevelt suddenly died, Harry Truman, who was a hawkish concession to the industrial right who replaced Roosevelt’s previous VP, a very dovish aand idealistic Henry Wallace, Truman not only dropped both atomic bombs on Japan to end the war but he arranged it so that the Soviets would see this and realize that the US had the big stick and the ruthless new willingness to renege on Roosevelt’s promise of aid. > [@](#): > > Although the Soviet Union was victorious in World War II, its economy had been devastated in the struggle. Roughly a quarter of the country’s capital resources had been destroyed, and industrial and agricultural output in 1945 fell far short of prewar levels. To help rebuild the country, the Soviet government obtained limited credits from Britain and Sweden but refused economic assistance proposed by the United States under the Marshall Plan. [Cite](http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Soviet2.html). > [@](#): > > So, the US not only screwed the Soviets on reconstruction aid, the emerging right-wing dominated military industrial complex made the most of rancor that came from US refusal to honor Roosevelt’s promises. Actually the rancor did not come from what the US did - > [@](#): > > During the postwar reconstruction period, Stalin tightened domestic controls, justifying the repression by playing up the threat of war with the West. Many repatriated Soviet citizens who had lived abroad during the war, whether as prisoners of war, forced laborers, or defectors, were executed or sent to prison camps. The limited freedoms granted in wartime to the church and to collective farmers were revoked. The party tightened its admission standards and purged many who had become party members during the war. See also the Berlin blockade in 1948. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/22 "2016-02-05T20:17:44Z")
> [@Corporal\_Clegg](#): > > In all fairness, the US has always been the aggressor in the Cold War. (I have no knowledge of Bernie cozying with the regime in the USSR however). I was born in 1955 and actually remember the so-called “Cuban Missile Crisis” which scared the hell out of me and everyone else. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I learned what happened without the American propaganda spin on it. To get to it quickly, the crisis was resolved by the Americans agreeing to remove missiles from Turkey. Duh! We had rolled nukes into Turkey and pointed them at the Kremlin for 10 years before the Soviets put their foot down and said what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander and thus tried to put nuclear missiles in Cuba. That was 10 years of living in fear of nuclear threat. Why? > > The answer is that f WWII, Roosevelt and Churchill had rightly acknowledge the Soviet Union as the victors in the European theater of WWII because they suffered so far worse losses than America or Britain. Roosevelt also pledge reconstruction aid to the Russians who were still our allies. When Roosevelt suddenly died, Harry Truman, who was a hawkish concession to the industrial right who replaced Roosevelt’s previous VP, a very dovish aand idealistic Henry Wallace, Truman not only dropped both atomic bombs on Japan to end the war but he arranged it so that the Soviets would see this and realize that the US had the big stick and the ruthless new willingness to renege on Roosevelt’s promise of aid. So, the US not only screwed the Soviets on reconstruction aid, the emerging right-wing dominated military industrial complex made the most of rancor that came from US refusal to honor Roosevelt’s promises. I don’t know exactly why the US felt it necessary to point nukes from a relatively short range at Moscow, but the US did just that.Can you blame the Soviets for feeling victimized and wanting to equal the score? Sorry but this is just wrong. The Cold War began when the Soviet Union was ruled by Josef Stalin, one of the greatest monsters in history. Stalin certainly could not claim moral superiority over any leader in America or Britain. The only person in the world Stalin could claim moral superiority over was Adolf Hitler - and Stalin had no problem working with Hitler when it suited their mutual self-interests. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/23 "2016-02-05T20:18:01Z")
BrainGlutton: > [@](#): > > Kinda flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but is it right? Of course not. The USSR had no freedom of the press, or of religion. The US did bad things through the CIA? The USSR did just as bad or worse through the KGB. The US propped up dictatorships? The USSR also supported dictatorships, they were just communist (usually only nominally so) rather than non-communist. Any criticism that the US deserves for their government’s conduct during the cold war is no less deserved by the Soviet Union, and in addition, it’s quite possible to pile on to the USSR criticisms that have absolutely no equivalent in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/24 "2016-02-05T20:22:18Z")
> [@WF\_Tomba](#): > > I think it’s a stretch to call China in that period an “imperial superpower”. Exactly what I came in to say. Askaldically, I had the sense to skim through the thread first. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/25 "2016-02-05T20:26:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It can also be misleading to just focus on the period from 1975 to 1990. Arguably the reason the Soviet “empire” was quiet during that period was because the Soviets had been more thorough in crushing all dissent prior to 1975. It’s not misleading if you don’t attempt to draw more from it. I mean if anything it’s more misleading because it includes the beginning of the end of the USSR. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/26 "2016-02-05T20:29:32Z")
> [@Corporal\_Clegg](#): > > In all fairness, the US has always been the aggressor in the Cold War. Utter nonsense. Between 1945 and 1949 the Soviets ‘liberated’ all of Eastern Europe, leading to Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech. During the same period, the United States withdrew its forces from most occupied territories and downsized its military so much that by the time of the Korean War the Americans barely had the assets to fight a regional war. The Soviets used the Cuban military to fight proxy wars in Central and South America, and Cuban training camps run by Che Guevara trained terrorists and insurgents who planned to overthrow western-leaning countries. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua were heavily supported by the Cubans and the Soviets. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were both responses to rapid Soviet Expansionism in Europe. Stalin tried to starve West Germany by cutting off food and supplies, leading to the Berlin Airlift. Stalin and Mao were instrumental in convincing North Korea to attack South Korea, starting the Korean War. During the 50’s and 60’s Communism was spreading, and rebellions against Communist rule were brutally put down in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other places. The Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956, killing tens of thousands of people. Hungary’s leader was executed and a hard-line Soviet puppet was put in his place. The 1960’s saw the creation of the Berlin wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and an increase in Soviet meddling and undermining of Democratic governments around the world. In 1968 the Soviets put down another rebellion in Czechoslovakia. And of course, in 1979 the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. And you think the U.S. has always been the aggressor. Unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/27 "2016-02-05T20:34:28Z")
Soviet backed the Vietnamese, they also had a huge hand in the Southern African States, or have you forgotten Angola where Cuban troops were operating as a proxy for Russia? Who was/is currently backing Syria? Who was keeping maybe two thirds of Europe under its unwelcome heel? Bulgaria, Rumania, Poland, East Germany, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary the Balkans, have we forgotten the war in Chechnya so easily? Who was backing Serbia in its murderous ethnic cleansing war in Yugoslavia? Don’t forget that in the Balts, the Russians made an effort to supplant the native populations with rehomed Russians. Right now we have a Russian fuelled war in Ukraine, where so called - rebels have seized Ukrainian territory, yet we continue to get reports of Russian troops being directly and indirectly involved, including the downing of an airline with weaponry that can only have been supplied and operated by the Russian military themselves. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/28 "2016-02-05T20:36:29Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > Who was/is currently backing Syria? > > \ > > . . . have we forgotten the war in Chechnya so easily? > > \ > > Right now we have a Russian fuelled war in Ukraine . . . Look, nothing post-Soviet is relevant here, is it? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/29 "2016-02-05T20:44:15Z")
During WW2 the US sent hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid to the Soviet Union, despite the fact that it was one of the most evil regimes in the history of the world. That was perfectly justifiable because the need to defeat the nazis was so pressing even allying with a monster like Stalin was worth it. During the cold war the US was allied with some awful regimes, but that was justifiable because the alternative was so much worse. During the 1960s and 1970s the US supported a dictator in South Korea. They grew fast economically, transitioned to being a democracy and are now a free and prosperous nation. North Korea was a communist dictatorship supported by the USSR, they have stagnated, suffered several famines, and are now one of the worst places to live on the planet. Chile had the same arc. They had a right wing dictator, prospered economically, transitioned to democracy and are now the richest and freest country in South America. Look at Nicaragua vs El Salvador. Both were wracked with bloody civil wars with the communists taking over in Nicaragua and being defeated in El Salvador. Now GDP per capita is three times as high in El Salvador. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/30 "2016-02-05T20:48:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Kinda flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but is it right? I’m struggling to find anything I could possibly add to those who already told you how utterly wrong it is, but I think it’s pretty well covered. When are you going to tell us what you think? Also, Did you invoice **foolsguinea** to participate? I would be interested in hearing more justification for the stuff quoted in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/31 "2016-02-05T20:54:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > “Support”? Sanders was the mayor of city whose sister city happened to be a Russian city. His “honeymoon” there was simply a scheduled official visit. “Happened to be”? When Sanders was mayor Burlington became sister city with both Yaroslavl in the USSR and Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua. They were both chosen deliberately to express solidarity with those countries. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/32 "2016-02-05T21:00:58Z")
> [@Corporal\_Clegg](#): > > In all fairness, the US has always been the aggressor in the Cold War. No it has not and I daresay it’s what I might term “American privilege” to adapt vocabulary currently _en vogue_ to say such a thing. As someone of ethnic Korean descent, I’m eternally glad that President Harry Truman decided that the “buck stops here” on the spread of the Bolshevist cancer and intervened to save the entirety of the Peninsula from being under the heel of Stalinist dictatorship. > [@](#): > > The answer is that f WWII, Roosevelt and Churchill had rightly acknowledge the Soviet Union as the victors in the European theater of WWII because they suffered so far worse losses than America or Britain. Of course the Soviets didn’t help themselves by murdering millions of their own citizens driving entire ethnic groups in the arms of the invading Wehrmacht, purging the Red Army officer corps of capable officers such as Tukhachevsky, and collaborating with the Nazis in the dismemberment of Poland. > [@](#): > > Roosevelt also pledge reconstruction aid to the Russians who were still our allies. When Roosevelt suddenly died, Harry Truman, who was a hawkish concession to the industrial right who replaced Roosevelt’s previous VP, a very dovish aand idealistic Henry Wallace, What nonsense. Harry Truman was a thoroughgoing man of the people who fought Big Business interests and upheld Labour in its struggles by urging Congress to implement the FDR’s vision of the Second Bill of Rights and denouncing Taft-Hartley. If anything it was the former Republican Henry Wallace who was more pro-business in his domestic politics. Certainly, he was of that unfortunate shrill, unpleasent, hyper-moralistic, degenerate Unitarian tradition of American politics of “Minneosta nice” which has produced both the abomination of the Social Justice Warriors and elected a Wall Street shill like Ted Cruz over the nationalist Donald TRUMP in the recent caucauses. It was this piggish, _kleine Amerikaner_ variant of Midwestern moralism that caused Wallace to have such naive views on foreign policy. > [@](#): > > Truman not only dropped both atomic bombs on Japan to end the war As any other US President would have done. > [@](#): > > but he arranged it so that the Soviets would see this and realize that the US had the big stick and the ruthless new willingness to renege on Roosevelt’s promise of aid. You do realize [Marshall Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan) aid was offered to the Soviets as well as the countries occupied by them, but that _Stalin refused this aid_? > [@](#): > > So, the US not only screwed the Soviets on reconstruction aid, the emerging right-wing dominated military industrial complex made the most of rancor that came from US refusal to honor Roosevelt’s promises I’m sure the brutal Soviet subversion in their occupied zones of Poland and Czechoslovakia had nothing to do with it. > [@](#): > > I don’t know exactly why the US felt it necessary to point nukes from a relatively short range at Moscow, but the US did just that.Can you blame the Soviets for feeling victimized and wanting to equal the score? It’s understandable in a purely logical sense, in the same way it was understandable Hitler invaded the Sudetenland and then Poland. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/33 "2016-02-05T21:02:47Z")
[QUOTE] > [@puddleglum](#): > > Chile had the same arc. They had a right wing dictator, prospered economically, transitioned to democracy and are now the richest and freest country in South America. Except Chile was already a democracy in 1973 when Pinochet overthrew Allende. > [@](#): > > Look at Nicaragua vs El Salvador. Both were wracked with bloody civil wars with the communists taking over in Nicaragua and being defeated in El Salvador. Now GDP per capita is three times as high in El Salvador. So what? GDP per capita isn’t everything. Russia’s “GDP per capita” is technically higher then China’s but the latter has vastly lower life expectancy. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/34 "2016-02-05T21:06:48Z")
The worst things America did in that period were Operation Condor and supporting the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. You can haggle over the figures, but that’s probably something like 150-200k dead minimum. Pretty bad, but not close to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. I’ve seen some people try to blame America for baiting the Soviets into it, as a trap. The Carter administration instituted Operation Cyclone before the invasion, and the Soviets certainly wanted to stamp out American influence, but it’s a pretty silly deflection. It’s not like Brzezinski put a gun to their heads and made them do it. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/35 "2016-02-05T21:35:19Z")
Did the USSR have any success stories on par with South Korea, Taiwan, or West Germany? > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I recall reading that when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan some Afghans were heard to express nostalgia for the Soviets, who at least built some schools and roads and things while they were there. That means nothing. I remember reading Soviets who expressed nostalgia for Stalin and his 5-year-plans because he boosted Russian manufacturing. I once got into a protracted argument with a guy who was claiming Stalin was a good ruler (although it’s possible my troll-detection equipment wasn’t fully online at the time). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/36 "2016-02-05T21:37:00Z")
The US buying manufactured goods from China where they use slave labor is worse than China using slave labor? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/37 "2016-02-05T23:19:40Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I wouldn’t want to have lived in either the PRC or the USSR during that period, nor sought to be within their spheres of influence. As undemocratic as foreign policy of the US may have been during that period (especially under the Reagan Administration which doesn’t seem to have met a dictator it couldn’t come to terms with as long as they were against dirty Commies), I think in terms of quantitative harm the US is clearly favorable in comparison to the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. I agree that the USA was a more pleasant place to live, for both the majority of residents and for the median person. How much more pleasant is distorted a smidge by how awesome it was for rich people to live in the USA and be worshipped as opposed to being condemned as class traitors in Stalinist-influenced societies, but yes, on average and overall, it was a better place to live. But I was thinking of the imperial activities of the three powers. I am biased, due to my acquaintance with Cambodian history. But China supported the Khmer Rouge even as they demolished that country in a nightmare of anti-urbanite ethnic cleansing. The USA, in the name of _Realpolitik_ and _détente,_ apparently decided to let the Chinese have it. I’m not willing to excuse either. As for Afghanistan, in hindsight it was better off as a Russian satellite than what is there now. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/38 "2016-02-05T23:21:54Z")
And again, I wasn’t saying they were good, exactly. I was saying, ‘arguably least bad,’ of those three powers in that specific period. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/39 "2016-02-05T23:32:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Look at what’s happened to Venezuela since Chavez took power. It should be one of the wealthiest countries in the region, and it can barely feed its own people now. And Equatorial Guinea has been screwed over by a capitalist dictator aligned more to the USA. You don’t have to be a Leftist to have dictatorship or an unstable petroleum-exporting economy. As for Ethiopia, mentioned above, the famine was largely driven by a decade of rain failures, and I think the civil war was as bad as it was in response to the pains of the famine. Since when does the Kremlin control the weather? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246/40 "2016-02-05T23:40:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > When are you going to tell us what you think? Still reserving judgment on the assertion made in the OP. I **do** feel strongly, however, that the U.S./West could well and safely have afforded to leave the USSR alone, and the Cold War only happened because the West started it as a war of choice. We’d all be better off if FDR had kept Henry Wallace as his Veep instead of replacing him with Truman. (Wallace later [changed his mind and admitted it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace#Later_career_and_death) regarding the USSR, but that still would not have made him any Cold Warrior, IMO.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1975-1990-the-ussr-was-arguably-the-least-bad-of-the-three-imperial-superpowers/745246.md?page=3)