Was the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance just a Soviet version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
If you ask me? No, it wasn’t. The people’s republics did establish the Warsaw Treaty Organization to defend against the NATO, but the upper classes established the NATO to protect exploitation and potentially crush workers’ revolutions. These two organizations weren’t the same thing.
From what I can tell, the accusations of ‘(social) imperialism’ start with a kernel of truth (the U.S.S.R. extracting some reparations from Eastern Europe, the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian uprisings having some proletarian elements in them, &c.), but they end up misinterpreting the situations, exaggerating certain features, and leaving some arguments unaddressed, resulting in misanalysis. If you want a more in‐depth overview, kindly let me know if you find this book useful.
While I disagree with the accusations of imperialism, I think that it’s still important to understand the other side’s argument, so you can read some of these links later if you want. Just try to take them with a grain of salt.
No. Sure the USSR supported people’s movements abroad, but that’s not imperialism. Neither are military alliances in themselves. There wasn’t an export of private or nationalized Soviet finance capital in order to exploit workers elsewhere.
Lenin layed out the conditions for what constitutes imperialism:
(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital,” of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
Based on these conditions, it’s a hard, resounding and absolute no
Yes. Look at the evolution of the polish border between 1939 and 1945 for example. USSR moved the entire country to grow its territory. Look the Prague Springue. Those are two examples of russian imperialism
Look at the evolution of the polish border between 1939 and 1945 for example. USSR moved the entire country to grow its territory.
Half Ukrainian half Polish territories got fights for control by the two new nation states at their creation. Is it supposed to refute USSR imperialism?
Poland lost territories to Russia during this war
But at least, we agree that the invasion of Prague in 1968 was an imperialist move
TIL stopping reactionary fascist interlopers is imperialism.
I am not sure what you are referring to. Is it the conquest of eastern Poland or Prague 1968 ?
what the fuck are you on?
Poland annexed soviet territories in 1920. Those territories were inhabited by ukrainians and belarusians, whose language was banned and were oppressed. Polish settlers were brought from western Poland to “polishize” the region. These settlers were given control of all the natural resources and capital, while the natives were enslaved to them. Poland was also a fascist regime. Communists were imprisoned or shot. In 1934, Poland signed a non aggression pact with Hitlers Germany, cementing an alliance that would last until 1939. In 1938, Poland and Nazi Germany jointly invaded Czeckoslovakia and split the country. Plans were also made for a joint polish german invasion of the USSR. These plans lasted until Molotov Ribbentrop was signed, making the germans invade Poland instead. The USSR didnt “invade” Poland, it liberated it. The fascist government was deposed and communists brought to power. They rebuilt Poland from the ruins of WW2 and brought progress to the nation. Antisemitism was erradicated and abortion was legalized. The USSR helped Poland even though it had no reason to.
Crushing color revolution attempts is “an imperialist move”? Also it was Poland that started the 1920 war in hopes of rebuilding its former empire and ended up stealing land that was not majority Polish by population.
The USSR was not imperialist at any point in its history. The worst you can accuse them of is revisionism (starting with Khrushchev) and perhaps “great nation chauvinism”.
Treating half of Europe as puppet states and sending the army to cancel reforms is imperialist. Prague 1968 is a reform movement that was initiated by Dubček the head of the party. It is not a color revolution. The operation is controversial, even for communists country, even for country of the Warsaw pact ! Albania left the Warsaw pact after the event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
I am sorry but the Brezhnev Doctrine is an imperialist doctrine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brezhnev_Doctrine
The goal of USSR was to impose progressively communism to the (bourgeoisie of the) whole world. Because, communism in one country could only lead to proletariat dictatorship. So to move further toward communism, they had to have a communist world. USSR imperialism is an imperialism of an other nature than the american one or the european one. Trotsky wrote about it
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism
The cold war is an influence war and an aggregate of proxy war between two imperialist states. How can it be understood otherwise ?
That Trotskyist definition of imperialism is not one that is recognized by most communists. Lenin’s definition of imperialism necessitates monopoly capitalism and capture of markets for capital export. The USSR did not fulfill the Leninist definition of imperialism. The so-called “reform movement” you speak of was nothing more than a Gorbachev-like attempt at smuggling liberalism in through the back door in order to destroy the socialist system.
The USSR was 100% right in defending socialism in Eastern Europe. The Cold War was nothing less than global class war, a struggle between an imperialist capitalist camp and a socialist anti-imperialist camp.
(Also, Trotsky was not even alive anymore by the time the Cold War started, not to mention he got a lot of things wrong about the USSR, i don’t think he is the best person to cite on this issue…)
The Cold War was nothing less than global class war, a struggle between an imperialist capitalist camp and a socialist anti-imperialist camp.
Yes, I agree
(Well, most of the comunits where I live are troskyists, so it is a pretty consensual point that USSR is imperialist. But) it seems so weird to me to consider the USSR not imperialist because it does not fit the leninist definition. It would be as if I was saying the Roman republic was not imperialist because it did not fit the definition of Lenine.
The leninist definition is incomplete because it does not aim to carecterize imperialism. It is an analyze of how “late stage capitalism” leads to imperialism. It describe a process of implementation of imerialism in capitalists country. The whole book is not about how a communist state could be imperialist.
Ah yes, a wikipedia expert. Go read “Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism” by Lenin and learn what imperialism actually is. Its not what wikipedia says. Stupid clown.
I see, wikipedia is not good enough for you. No problem, I happen to read other things than wikipedia. This brochure of Lenin is very interesting. And it makes very clear why you think the USSR is not imperialist. I do agree that Lenine’s USSR was not imperialist. However neither USSR disappeared with Lenine, nor did the communist thought.
There are also implications of their analysis for our understanding of the Cold War and its place in the last half-century of history. Panitch and Gindin (2012: 12), rightly in my view, did not regard USSR as a capitalist state, but rather as a different form of exploiting class society. The USSR was imperialist in the classic, general historical sense i.e. a territorial imperialist, both internally in dominating other people, such as in the Ukraine, and externally in its post-war control over Eastern Europe. The Cold War was undoubtedly a conflict between imperialist blocks, and between different modes of production. There is no doubt about the real threat of global war that it entailed, or its terrible impact on labour movements.
Also, you seem to be implying that the roman empire is not imperialist which is not what Lenine had in mind
