https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/opinion/biden-china.html

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    They just wanted to be left alone

    The USSR was backing and supporting socialist revolution globally. They backed domestic revolts from India to South Africa to Guatemala. Khrushchev literally sent nukes to Cuba.

    These were, literally, tankies. They'd spent the last thirty years crushing imperialist projects internally and into the surrounding territories, and they were 100% committed to both proselytize and propagate Marxist-Leninism internationally, particularly after the death of Stalin.

    China is going further still, by going to extremes to avoid any sort of foreign intervention

    This is pure nonsense. China's foreign policy is in no way isolationist. Look at the BRI ffs. Look at the Confusion Centers they're sponsoring to encourage foreign adoption of Chinese education and culture. Look at their efforts to distribute Sinovax. They are fully committed to hemispheric alliance and economic union. They are 100% on board with foreign intervention. And that's what's scaring the shit out of the Bidencrats and other Neo-cons.

    • AlexandairBabeuf [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Come off it. USSR foreign involvement was orders of magnitude below the US, and as a response to US imperialism. Nukes wouldn't have gone to Cuba had the US not invaded it.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Only because the USSR's infrastructure had to be rebuilt in the run up to the next war. Had the Soviets enjoyed the insulated hemispheric hegemony of the US, I suspect they'd have propagated their ideology far more successfully and come out of the Cold War winners in the end.

        Nukes wouldn’t have gone to Cuba had the US not invaded it.

        The invasion of Cuba was a disaster long before Kruschev delivered nukes. And the nukes were delivered in response to the US's arming of Turkey, putting each country in striking distance of the other.

        That's not evidence of an isolationist USSR. It's evidence of a Cold War between superpowers.

        • AlexandairBabeuf [they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Only because the USSR’s infrastructure had to be rebuilt

          this doesn't make the Cold War asymmetrical? the likelihood the USSR would've been aggressive if they had the chance doesn't change the actual sequence of events.

          • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            the likelihood the USSR would’ve been aggressive if they had the chance doesn’t change the actual sequence of events.

            The USSR and the USA were going to come into conflict for the same reason Capital and Labor have traditionally come into conflict.

            Pretending the USSR was full of pacifists, in the wake of two world wars and a brutal civil war, is myopic and revisionist. Pretending that Soviet citizens did not want a true globe-spanning International Union neglects ML theory rather severely. Pretending as though they were not justified in advocating an anti-colonial liberationist ethos is cowardly. Pretending as though the violent overthrow of colonial regimes was not both necessary and good is reactionary.