Only the Bolsheviks understood that post-war Russia would be a corporate dumping ground and raw material heaven for Western Europe, an Eastern European "Latin America," so to speak. The whole logic behind their revolution was to spread it to the real capitalist nations in the West, who would then turn around and help out their Russian brothers with their backwardness. But it never really got there, for a variety of reasons. I mean, neither really thought Russia should "go it alone," and its unfortunate that Stalin was the man who had to deal with that situation. I think part of that is why he gets a bad rap, though, he was the one who wound up having to clean up all the loose ends, all the problems created by the failures of the revolution: the failure to extend the revolution into Europe, the failure of the Polish war, the failure of the NEP, the failure of the early campaigns to divide the peasants against the Kulaks...
