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Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault
(www.foreignaffairs.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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Sure, Cuba is being kept down by western blockade, but truly you can't blame the Eastern-Western Europe divide on western shenanigans.
Don't get me wrong, most of Europe's 'healthy' democracies are from colonial wealth or oil money (except Finnland... They're weird bootstrap folk). But anyone directly under direct Soviet occupation kinda sufferred for it one way or the other.
Brother capitalism ravaged eastern europe once they were "liberated" from "soviet occupation"?
Duh. Consumerism is a blight on humanity that will take decades to wash off.
But why use the quotation marks? Many countries had native communist movements, but there was definitely soviet aggression involved in some.
7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them
Hungary: 72% of Hungarians say they are worse off today economically than under communism
Romania: 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism
Germany: more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR
28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime
81% of Serbians believe they lived best in Yugoslavia
Majority of Russians
The claims you have read in reddit comments are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe, because Americans do not have a left.
Let's end on something a bit more scientific than polls of people's feelings:
Socialist countries objectively provide a better quality of life to their populations than capitalist countries when compared at an equal level of development
Companies literally still sell the products from east germany, despite it being claimed to be inferior in quality to western ones. Like Vita Cola is one of best-selling products in germany.
Hey, thank you for bringing the data.
I cannot emphasize enough, that I am not against communism, or socialism. My initial comment was mostly against a blanket statement that Eastern Europe is where it's at, because of capitalism.
Even I remember the communist times fondly, even though I didn't live through it. I am working toward it myself, or at least the common win. Which just confusesed me further with all the fallout I got in this thread.
I also see our future along lines that implement the best of what we can from communism, but learns from the problems of the initial implementation.
So like how do we make sure to not have selfish assholes in places of power? Not live in fear because we have questions. And I am not saying this is ingrained in communism...just something people do.
I guess I'll have to read up on my dialectic materialism.
Thats what the revolution is for
Yes, yes, I understand. But isn't there the phrase that the revolution eats its children?
Excuse me as it has probably been discussed into the ground, but I am worried about the same power struggles experienced during after 1917. People in power not trusting each other or wanting more power. Will it be just a continual revolution, or a refresh when someone malicious gets too close to the reigns? If we had most of the core literature back then, why did it turn authoritarian?
I don't need answers to my question (unless you got em!), I just wanted to share my main gripe with power structures in general.
You should read this, "revolution eating its children" is mentioned there.
consumerism? do you mean capitalism? why do liberals always play these word games
No, my main beef is with consumerism. Capitalism props up consumerism. I don't have a huge problem with a market, as long as it's supervised.
"Consumerism" isn't an actual system. It's just describing people consuming goods with a negative connotation. There's nothing to critique or change about consumerism, there's no way to attack it outside of personal blame games of saying "individuals needs to be less greedy" (idealism). Capitalism is an economic system, one well studied and implemented throughout the world. Something that controls our societies, something that could be changed via political will. You really have only stuck your toe in the water here and lecturing people who swim all day.
This would be like a medieval peasant saying "I don't oppose Feudalism, I only oppose pilgrimage and the constant festivals". Like ??? You are mistaking a coping tendency under certain conditions for the system setting the conditions itself.
One is an epoch spanning economic system, a thing unto itself, the other is just some small offshoot describing what some people do. Not a thing itself, just a description of personal tendencies as they arise from the conditions they exist within.
Also, Capitalism =/= Markets. Markets and trade existed before capitalism in feudal and pre-historic societies even. Markets existed under socialism as well. Please learn what capitalism is.
While I did enjoy your verbose writing, it kinda feels to be coming off a pedestal. I get that this place gets a lot of trolls, but just looking at the reactions I'm getting from a good faith comment (heck, maybe it wasn't good faith... Maybe I should have asked) feels pretty harsh and looks super circlejerky.
I guess my superfluous simile doesn't hold water.
I don't know if we are properly understanding each other, as I see consumerism as a push to buy happiness. If it's just one of those things that's inherent to capitalism, sry for wasting your time.
I’m glad you think I’m verbose, English is my second language
You and I have fundamentally different methods of thought. I’m trying to say it in ten different ways to convey my alien, to you, materialist outlook. You have been raised in an idealist Liberal world to be an idealist Liberal subject, you think naturally in idealist ways (concerned about things like “consumerism” which are not real things but second order ideas). I am more concerned with changing the base structure of society itself, and the ideas will follow.
This is the first major hurdle that Liberals will face when radicalizing and breaking out of their confined worldview. Liberals fundamentally believe that ideas form reality. That people can agree on something from an argument in the marketplace of ideas and everyone just changes.
I believe that reality forms ideas. That the underlying economic relationships that people are placed in are the base from which all justifications and rationalizations (ideology, ideas, culture, religion, etc) arise
Until we can come to terms on this fundamental underlying discrepancy between our world views there won’t be much progress. I can dabble in your world, because I was also raised partially in a Liberal idealist society - but I can also dabble in mine where you cannot follow. I know all of your Liberal precepts and notions, you know none of mine.
Again, I appreciate you talking about yourself and talking about the definitions at play. Where you're losing me (and building some bad will) is whenever you write about what you know about me.
No questions asked, your knowledge here is vast and greatly outweighs mine. But you are alienating me. I guess it's no skin off your back, but I always thought that I could discuss radical ideas like thought shaping matter and matter shaping thought without being shamed. Live and learn, I guess. Maybe it's more my vice, that I didn't propose my initial statement as a question.
I don't want to accuse you of anything, just writing down what this type of communication brings up in me.
The point is that I "know" you because you hold the default ideology of your society, and I am intimately familiar with Liberalism in all its forms. It's not a diss on you. It's a statement of fact. Liberalism is the hegemonic system of belief you were raised in and what you have been espousing here.
How educated on Marxism are you? Have you read Lenin's works? Have you read anything by Marx, even the complete Manifesto?
Why couldn't my grandpa have been part of the communist party? Even if I didn't know him, wouldn't he instill it into my mother who packs it into me?
You are right to the extent that I am not read up on the literature. I mean I haven't read the Wealth of Nations either, but dabbling with Seeing Like a State. I alsi studied sociology for a semester or two, so different social patterns are not totally alien to me.
Again, excuse me for posting without familiarizing myself with proper form, but our thread is starting to feel a bit gate keepy. I appreciate your knowledge (or what you state of it), but that seems to be the start and end of it. You're read up, I'm not. You know me, I don't know you.
My main guess on why you don't want to actually interact on the topic is that you don't want to spoon feed me everything that is oh-so-trivial on the sub. I dunno, I feel boxed in. You may be right, it's just repelling to anyone not in the group.
You should be "gate kept" from discussing things which you have no knowledge about. Go and read Marx, at the bare minimum the manifesto, and then we can have a discussion. It's only a handful of pages. Until then, no investigation no right to speak. Why do you believe you have the right to discuss and argue with people about things you haven't put the bare minimum of effort into learning about? Why are you wasting our time and yours instead of simply reading?
After the end of the USSR, all post Soviet countries experienced a massive drop in quality of life comparable to war time. Unemployment sky rocketed, government social safety nets were gutted, organized crime skyrocketed, and wealth inequality rise in kind. Western capitalists accelerated the liquidation of post-Soviet governments with IMF loan sharks and neoliberal austerity, which made a few people incredibly rich at the expense of millions.
And we're still seeing the remnant of the system crumble (in the form of healthcare & schooling). I am not saying the crunch that Eastern Europe is facing is clearly the Soviet Union's fault. I am saying it is a one-two punch, that probably started before the first communists came to power in the Soviet Union.
Again, no advocating for capitalism from this lemmyng. I wasn't alive for most of the communist times, but from the shows and movies produced around and after the hardest times, you can get a good sense of what problems people faced. Most are ingrained into humanity (craving power, yaddayadda). Sure, we can all have a hate boner for Bezos&co, but that won't fix our problem.
This place is pretty radical sometimes for my taste, but I hover around, as I do feel kinship. I am happy for the dialogue, despite all the shade.
I appreciate you engaging. People here are just a bit on-edge about contrary takes because it's tough to tell who is in good faith (we've had a huge amount of trolls and bad faith bullshitters over the years)
I think you need to learn more about why we have our perspective on this issue.
For instance the reason why most of us would say there was no liberation after the fall of the USSR is because it was a giant mess that indirectly killed millions and impoverished tens of millions more. The former Soviets found out that a good deal of the ambient hostility coming from the Capitalists wasn't just anti-communist or because they hated the Soviet government but the natural hostility of capitalism toward the working class. A hostility that previously they had been protected against. It was a hell of a shock to find that out. And again, that shock killed millions. So we tend to think that despite the flaws in execution the Soviets had the right ideas about who the enemy of their citizenry really was.
Thank you for the tone.
I'm out on a limb here a bit as well. I'm usually on the other side of this argument.
I'm not too familiar with the history of the core soviet states, just the one satellite. I am sure of the harm the 'free' market style world view causes, but as I do with anyone just bashing communism, I raised word here too, when I noticed a blanket statement that didn't feel right.
Again, thanks for the words. I'll stick around and check in. I've never seen anything like hex.
I know I was pretty snarky in the other comment but as the other user said we get a lot of bad faith around here
Hehh.. It almost feels like a right of passage.
Even if they did suffer from ”Soviet occupation” like you say, why haven't things improved in the 34 years of capitalism since then?
the cranial structure of an eastern european person does not allow them to comprehend such logical ideas such as "healthy democracy"
Well, just based on one country I have personal experience living in, it seems like a multi-faceted issue. It feels like the people have their heads down and don't speak out of fear of retribution.
I am not flawing the communistic ideal in this case. I just wanted to point out, that no, it's not just capitalism that is causing the problems, and I wouldn't be posting on a hexbear server if I think capitalism is a solution to anything besides problems caused by it. Hell, I say down with democracy in it's current iteration, we have reached its limits.
Just to drive the point home, when Hungary wanted it's own flavor of socialism (I guess like Tito), soviet tanks came rushing in. I am all for the common win, but this looked more like imperialism than spreading the message of love and sharing.
The Hungarian revolution understander has entered the chat.
Thank you.
CIA documents have been released recently proving this “revolt” was a CIA backed fascist putsch
Surprise, surprise the red tankies were right again.
Oh sorry, it's a meme about people who clearly don't know what they are talking about being sure about the subject matter. You just put "the x understander" where x is the topic the person is acting like they understand, but doesn't.
Lots of users came in to explain why, check out some of their comments!
I replied sardonically in kind. Sry if it was too tame.
you want to know how I can tell you've never read any Marxist theory and have no idea what historical materialism means?
Oh noes, I can't oppress people with my inherited capital or be openly fascistic, what a nightmare! Here I go, burning my crops and murdering my livestock, can't have those filthy underpeople share what's mine in a time of drought!
Haha, good one. What about raising a word against a corrupt official? How well does that go in any regime?
I mean you can act like I'm advocating for current world order, but I am just questioning the sanctity of our imagined ideal.
"The current system is bad, the the only alternative (successor) is super horrible! No freeze preach, no grain, no consumerism. How could anyone live like that?"
Imagined ideal my right bollock. You've never met a communist advocating for some ideal, let me tell you that much. Although against whatever you imagine happened in the USSR, it might as well have been a proper utopia. No night raids nor thousands of dissidents killed daily, for a start.
You can take it as you wish. I am talking about red terror. When the black car comes to pick us up. I'm not arguing against communism. I just feel that people forget that men are fallible.
We have the right mind set in here, but it feels that wepeople are talking in the extreme ideals here.
the death toll of white terror is tenfold that of red terror, and most red terror deaths were nazis or fascists or the rich. We need more red terror, not less
Just take the L and log off, I'm sure you've got a life to live somehow.
Btw when a comrade called you "Hungarian Revolution understander" they were being sarcastic. MLs have been able to surmise as much for decades now, but with the JFK files it's been proven it was a CIA operation, not a real revolutionary movement.
there was already strong evidence of MI6 involvement
Really? I guess we can't all be edgy teenagers larping as communists.
Sorry. Some of us get awfully prickly when somebody comes in saying things we know aren't true. Even when it's very recently proven stuff—like how we now definitively know that the Hungarian "revolution" was a CIA-backed operation. The USSR correctly clocked it as American intervention, and responded like you'd expect a country to during a foreign invasion.
I appreciate you engaging in good faith.
Interestingly enough it also casts a new light on the 1956 incidents in Poznań. Sure there were a legit worker protests around there too, but also a riot purposefully targeting armories, militia precints and court buildings, being strongly suspected of being instigated by some outside parties (even incredibly anticommunist Polish wikipedia mentions this!), all this during the big international trade expo happening in the same city.
And I get awful prickly when people tell me that the uncle that left Hungary after '56 was either a CIA asset or a useful idiot.
I mean yeah, keep your defenses up, I'm sure every asshole has their day trolling here, but wow is it harsh. I guess I have to learn to frame questions here rather than statements.
Edit: Sry for the first pargrapgh, I was still a little frazzled from the hazing.
Sometimes I wish it would hide which instance people are posting from so I can just correctly assume without knowing beforehand.
Operation Bloodstone
Operation Gladio
And so on and on
The west deliberately armed Nazis all over the world to fight communism