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The one good thing Khrushchev did (stopping literal Nazis from doing a counterrevolution and pogrom in Hungary) is being denounced by milquetoast liberal Putin? Sounds about right to me.
They hate Putin because their propaganda tells them to
I hate Putin because he's a wishy-washy liberal who continuously betrays the Communist revolution
We are not the same
I'm gonna join the libs here, and lol at the absolute irony of saying this right now
liberal says liberal thing, film at 11
Putin: people keep saying I'm a tankie or that tankies are my supporters, but that is clearly nonsense. I hate commies just like all you libs too.
L Putin.
Putin said the United States was making the same mistakes as the Soviet Union. He said Washington had "no friends, only interests".
Says him. Like what 'friend' does modern Russia have? Every capitalist country is working with each other purely for self interest. USSR had a ideology and did things for ideological reasons. Cuba, Vietnam etc were all friends of the Soviet Union having shared ideological goals and a desire for solidarity against imperialists.
Heck even NAM had better ideological solidarity than modern capitalist countries.
Like what 'friend' does modern Russia have?
Belarus, just for starters. They're also very friendly with Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. They've got friends in Hungary and they're continuing to court factions in Poland and Romania and Italy and Greece.
USSR had a ideology and did things for ideological reasons
Oh man. You'd get a weekend at reeducation camp for that one. The West had an ideology.
The USSR had scientific communism, through which they tested the material consequences of their policies and revised them in pursuit of a better world. They had accumulated experience which lead them to enact evidence-based policies for materialist reasons. They weren't operating on a political faith-based initiative.
Cuba, Vietnam etc were all friends of the Soviet Union having shared ideological goals and a desire for solidarity against imperialists.
Cuba and Vietnam were anti-colonial revolutions that just so happened to align with the USSR as a counterweight to Western efforts to reimpose colonial control. But they had distinctly different material conditions and goals. Cubans and Vietnamese residents weren't looking to operate as forward bases for Soviet soldiers. They wanted real autonomy and an opportunity to pursue their own social projects independent of the Russian politburo.
One reason Vietnam and China came to blows stemmed from conflicts in materialist thinking.
But - again - I can't stress how much this wasn't just ideology. They weren't enacting policy dogmatically or for some higher spiritual purpose. They were looking for autonomy and viewed the USSR as a crutch to get them back on their feet after centuries of oppression.
At some point, much like how China and Russia had their Sino-Soviet split and China and North Korea still have stilted relations, they were going to depart from one another. The USSR's collapse forced the issue sooner than expected. But the material interests of these distant places were always in some degree of contradiction. The New Russia was simply more contrary than the old Soviet bloc.
Belarus sure. I don't know about the rest though.
What I meant by capitalist countries not having solidarity is that U.S. is more than willing to fuck over its own allies (like its doing with Germany now) and has done it many times in the past.
'To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal' -Kissinger
I mostly agree with the rest. Of course, USSR wasn't purely motivated by ideology. But Putin saying Soviet Union had no 'friends' is very silly. There is a reason why so many global south countries view Russia (and USSR) positively.
But Putin saying Soviet Union had no 'friends' is very silly.
I mean, silly on its face. What did he think the "Union" part of the USSR meant? It wasn't just Russians For Russia. You had the entire Warsaw Pact working towards a common goal.
I can see arguments that the Hungarian Revolution was the first in a long line of phony propaganda-inspired color revolutions. I can also see it as a real weakness in the early Soviet social model. The act of sending in tanks to suppress the revolt was a consequence of that failure, not the cause of it. One could say the same of Tienanmen. By the time the tanks arrived, the state had already failed.
I don't expect Putin to have good takes on the USSR, despite how every liberal is convinced he WaNtS ThE SoVieT UnIoN BaCk.
But still, if you don't send troops to quash the revolt in Hungary, what do you think happens when the West sees that Eastern Bloc countries can be shaken with color revolutions? It became apparent in the 1980s, with the USSR in a much weaker position, that the Baltics and Poland were especially vulnerable. I don't know too much about the Prague thing, maybe someone can give some info.
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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chapotraphouse
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