> On 12/15/15 3:53 PM, Joseph Green wrote:
> > The importance of defeating the Axis should not be forgotten. But the
> > imperialist acts of the Stalinist as well as Western governments should not
> > be forgotten either.
>
Louis Proyect wrote:
> I agree but it is doubtful that the USSR would have ever created a war
> machine unless it had been invaded. Stalin was basically very
> conservative, looking at the USSR in the same way that a trade union
> bureaucrat looks at his social base of dues paying members. Strikes only
> occur as a last resort. Capitalism is an expansionary system by
> contrast. Capital needs new markets and sources of raw materials in
> order to reproduce itself. The USSR's imperialism was political in
> nature, not economic. For example, it subsidized nations within its
> sphere through oil subsidies, including Cuba. Its domination of the
> republics within the USSR such as Georgia and Ukraine was an extension
> of how the Tsars ruled, having nothing in common with, for example, the
> USA's conquest of Cuba, the Philippines, Hawaii, etc.
If Soviet actions towards Ukraine and Georgia resembled Tsarist action,
that
shows the imperialist nature of those actions. It wouldn't show that Soviet
imperialism was only political, but instead reinforces the analysis that
Soviet Union did become imperialist when the epoch-making Russian revolution
died away.
The imperialism of different countries can and does differ from each
other,
but it's still imperialism. Depending on their strength relative to other
imperialisms, their particular economy, geopolitical position, history, etc.
imperialisms differ, and always will. US imperialist methods even differ
among themselves, at different times, or in how certain regions are treated.
(With respect to the examples you gave, Hawaii was annexed; the Philippines
eventually became independent.)
That said, I'd hardly say that Soviet imperialism was conservative, in
the
sense of restrained or limited. Indeed, like other imperialisms, it often
made and implemented grandiose plans, whether economic or political. Such
plans might succeed or fail, but it would be odd to see them as conservative.
Economically, for example, forced collectivization, one of the bases of
the
economic system that was built up in the Soviet Union, was hardly
conservative. It was a dramatic and rapid change in the countryside; and it
was carried out with an iron hand, leading to the heartlessness of the
response to hunger and famine.
Politically, Stalin ordered the deportation from their homelands of all
the
Chechens, all the Crimean Tatars, and of all the members of a number of
other small nationalities. This was not a conservative or restrained act, and
it fully rivals the acts of other imperialists against small nationalities.
The domination of the Eastern European bloc was hardly a conservative
act.
It was empire-building on a vast scale. Similarly, the brinksmanship with
China was hardly a conservative act.
You refer to the Soviet Union subsidizing countries with oil. But, if I
remember right, the claim that the imperialist country is supporting its
colonies has come up with respect to other countries besides Russia. One of
the arguments of various bourgeois opponents of colonialism and imperialism
has been that the colonies are a weight on the mother country. Of course, in
saying this, they overlook the full extent of how the dominant bourgeoisie
profits off the colonies.
Nor do I think that Soviet imperialism was only political. Such a
conception
goes against the Marxist idea that politics is a superstructure built up on
an economic base. I think it reflects the view of the Soviet economy set
forward in Trotsky's "The Revolution Betrayed". He believed that the Soviet
Union needed a political revolution, but not a social revolution. In essence,
he believed that there was nothing wrong with the Soviet economy except that
it needed Trotskyists, not Stalinists, at the head. I think this was a very
shallow viewpoint, and it goes against concrete facts with respect to the
Soviet economy under Stalin and his successors.
-- Joseph Green
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