No, you’re right. That undermines my larger point about imperialism, perhaps. But in the original context, I was pointing out that the ruling parties in the USA were cozying up to Beijing and Mao while Communist sympathizer and mayor of Burlington, Vermont Bernie Sanders was cozying up to elements of the Russian sphere.
I consider the Maoists of the era worse than the Kremlin of the era, and I think it’s ridiculous to denounce Sanders for his relatively mild peacenik-inflected association with the Sandinistas, Castro, and the USSR when the USA’s government and capitalists were deep in bed with elements in Beijing. Capisce?
Damn! I always thought something was fishy about that Atlanta, GA/Tblisi, USSR sister city thing! Who knew that Andrew Young, mayor at the time, was such a Communist?
You mean as opposed to declaring war on the Soviet Union like we did historically?
Seriously, we didn’t attack the Soviet Union. We didn’t establish a blockade or embargo. We didn’t withdraw diplomatic recognition. We didn’t challenge their domination of Eastern Europe. We didn’t try to kick them out of the UN.
We certainly weren’t BFFs after the war but we essentially did leave the Soviet Union alone.
Communism was predicated (in part) on violent world revolution. How could you possibly think the US could have left the USSR alone? They invaded their own allies (e.g. Hungary and Czech). Their response to the Prague Spring is especially galling. The notion that we could just leave Stalin alone is Chamberlainesque.
The US has had its share of atrocities but to compare the USSR with the USA is ludicrous. None of the governments propped up by the US are in the same league of evilness as the North Koreans. As I mentioned, the USSR has no foreign success stories like South Korea, Taiwan, or West Germany. The US never fostered any police state to the same level as the Stasi.
It’s hard for me to believe that anybody seriously thinks the USSR is even comparable to the USA.
Well, East Germany was a hole, but it was a lot better than places with Mao’s satellites. And Chile, El Salvador, and Honduras were USA clients. And in SE Asia, the Soviets were practically the good guys.
But yes, if you ignore Latin America and SE Asia, I suppose the USA looks pretty good?
I think it’s worth pointing out we didn’t intervene when the Soviets repressed popular movements in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. We made no attempt prior to 1991 to establish non-communist regimes in Eastern Europe. We stuck to the Yalta agreement and didn’t interfere within the Soviet sphere of influence.
The Soviets, on the other hand, did support communist organizations in Greece, Turkey, Italy, and France. And of course they attempted to expand the communist regime in North Korea into the south by force. They also established communist regimes in a number of other countries after 1945.
This is evidence to counter the argument that we were the aggressors in the Cold War.
I also reject the argument that we owed the Soviets anything for their efforts in WWII. Sure, they fought a hard war against the Nazis. But they didn’t do it for our sake. The only reason they were fighting was because Germany attacked them. The Soviets had been perfectly happy to do nothing against Germany as long as Germany was fighting other countries.
Britain and France, on the other hand, went to war in 1939 in defense of Poland. And while America didn’t enter the war right away, we at least were giving economic support to countries like Britain, France, China - and the Soviet Union.
You know it was the Soviets who supported Kim Il-sung, right? And that Stalin supported Kim’s invasion of South Korea?
Well, I’d say you were the one ignoring SE Asia. South Korea is by far the most stable, free, and prosperous nation in SE Asia (mainland), in no small part due to US influence. What have the Soviets done? Let’s do a comparison of areas that were divided up and directly under the influence of the USA and the USSR:
Federal Republic of Germany – German Democratic Republic
Western Europe – Eastern Europe
South Korea – North Korea
Sure, the US backed (covertly and overtly) some oppressive regimes in South America but it’s not like the Soviets were puppies and unicorns. Cuba has been pretty brutal. Can you name any countries that have done better under Soviet influence than US influence?
Practically nothing in human history compares with NK – which compares favorably with nothing but the Khmer Rouge, but it was a Chinese, not Soviet, client – but Pinochet’s and the Shah’s regimes were in a higher (or lower, if it works that way) league of evilness than Castro’s, to put it mildly.
I don’t know. In terms of people killed for political reasons, it appears the rankings are:
Cuba under Castro - approximately 4800
Chile under Pinochet - approximately 3200
Iran under the Shah - approximately 3100
Granted, the Castro regime has been in power for longer than the Pinochet or Pahlavi regimes were. But to balance this, Cuba has a smaller population than Chile or Iran has.
The Kims were originally a product of Soviet support. NK was occupied by the Soviets (by agreement) after WW II and they installed Kim Il-sung in 1948. Kim actually purged a Chinese-leaning faction after he came to power.
As for Pinochet there is no getting around that he was a murderous, evil thug, easily on par with Castro (and if you want to argue he was marginally worse I won’t disagree). There is debate on how much support he received from the US (certainly less that Castro received from the Soviets) but at the very least the US tolerated him as preferable to the previous regime. But if we compare Chile and Cuba today we see that Chile is doing better in most ways; e.g. it has a higher GDP, a better freedom score, and it is a functioning democracy. It’s pretty safe to say that Castro has been a bigger disaster for Cuba than Pinochet was for Chile.
This has been a fairly common pattern in US foreign policy: a right-wing (or anti-communist) government is supported/installed that starts off as a dictatorship but often ends up as a liberal democracy. South Korea and Taiwan are the two leading examples; one could add the Philippines as well. I don’t know of any Soviet-sponsored states that ended up as a place I’d want to live. Some areas of Eastern Europe are finally starting to repair the damage of communism but that’s only after the USSR fell apart.
There’s just no way to argue that overall the USSR did less damage than the US. My belief is that despite such errors as Pinochet and Marcos the US has improved the world.
The Shah was certainly a giant tool of whom the best that can be said is that he wasn’t as horrible as the people who followed him or the first guy he deposed. However he allowed overall more freedom to his citizens than Castro, locked up fewer political prisoners as far as I can tell, and certainly caused fewer of his people to become refugees.
It depends on what you consider “SE Asia”. Isn’t it stil part of SEATO?
Beyond that, the Soviets did back North Vietnam which while not as loathe some as NK, was a police state which persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, so I’m not sure the Soviets can crow about backing them.
Not that the Diems of the various empty suites that followed them were great humanitarians of course.
I’d have looked foolish if I referred to him, but I didn’t. I referred to the Shah’s dad, the first Shah, whom he deposed in 1941 because the British were pissed at him for being too pro-German.
No. The instillation of Heydrich as Protector of Moravia was heinous. The instillation of the Kim’s in North Korea was heinous. The Shah was a banality.
From what I’ve read, the initial executions in Castro’s regime were not very proper but most agree they were murderers/torturers in the Batista regime, not just lolitical opponents.