Was the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance just a Soviet version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
Was the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance just a Soviet version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
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…)
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.