Nice attempt to avoid an argument through use of the dreaded Wall of Text + 500 spell.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I don't have the time or patience to continue this piecemeal argument. I will try to wrap up by making a few points.
First, what must be understood is that the word imperialist only has one meaning. It means to forcefully take over or invade, by a variety of methods, another nation or land with the expressed interest of subjugating its population and taking its natural or human resources and creating new markets in order to better the mother country. Though it has taken many shapes and forms, its definitive nature is that of exploitation.
From
the first result of a Google search.
Wiki said:
Imperialism, as defined by the dictionary of human geography, is “the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination.” Imperialism, in many ways, is described as a primarily western concept that employs “expansionist – capitalist – and latterly communist – systems."[1]
Lenin defined imperialism differently to others, and that seems similar to the way you're defining it also.
From Lenin's own
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said:
We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly. Free competition is the basic feature of capitalism, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale industry and forcing out small industry, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale industry, and carrying concentration of production and capital to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of millions. At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system.
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism...
(bolding mine)
Now, I'm not a Marxist, or a Marxist-Leninist, and only have a limited understanding of this. But, just from looking at this brief excerpt, it's pretty clear that Lenin was wrong about exactly what imperialism was. In fact, his view been discredited roundly since he wrote this. I have Marxist professors at university that admit that Lenin had no idea what imperialism was. Havng read both Lenin and Marx - albeit not in a while - I was taken by how they had a tendency to leap to unfounded conclusions, and ignore things that disagreed with their views. The "Asiatic mode of production" is a perfect example of this.
Not only that, but the mere fact that there is more than one definition of 'imperialism' would seem to discredit your claim that "the word imperialist only has one meaning." It's also a somewhat dishonest debating tactic to use a discredited and outmoded definition of a word, and claim that it is the only definition of a word. It would be like calling African-Americans a 'Negroid racial sub-strata' or refusing to debate something from the Quran on the grounds that 'there is only one definition of God.'
Now, socialism is staunchly against these things. You might say it is defined by its opposition to them.
You might say that about socialism. You cannot say that about the USSR, which as 'socialist imperialist' as the West was 'capitalist-imperialist.' Mao even went so far as to call the Soviets "running dogs for the capitalist-imperialist powers." Anyone who's studied Chinese history, and knows who the original "running dogs" were, understands that this is a massive insult. Another Chinese might have launched himself at Mao's throat for it, and he'd likely have had anyone referring to him in that manner shot. We're left with the inescapable conclusion that at least
one of these two socialist nations didn't understand socialism
or imperialism. Which one was it?
After the October Revolution in 1917, the common belief, among both the Bolsheviks and the European Communist Internationals, was that Europe, after years of brutal imperialist war, was closing on the breaking point, and that worker revolts would soon sweep the continent, and hopefully the world. This was the dominant view of things until these revolutions were crushed; German, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Finnish, and Czech revolts, all between 1917 and 1925. All of them were ended, either by internal or external counterrevolutionary forces. So in a way, they were right, but none were in the position of strength of the Russian revolutionaries.
All true.
The Bolshevik policy in 1917, after the Triumphal March of Soviet Power, was to consolidate the revolution and serve as an example to European workers of what could be done if only they rose up. Before the disastrous revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, Soviet Russia was in a position to survive the War and hopefully be ready to come to the aid of European revolutionaries
Not really. Kerensky's socialist government was in a position to continue the war, but the Bolshevik insurrection ended that hope. It is possible that the Bolsheviks may have been able to
re-enter the war at a later date, but doubtful.
- none of whom were "answering" to Moscow, and many of whom actually didn't like at least some of what was going on in Russia. Had the Czechs not taken over the Trans-Siberian and created a dead zone for the Whites to form in, the Russians would have been ready and able to sweep into Europe in 1918 and 1919 to aid those peoples. But it did not, and was instead beset by the Western Powers who tried, either directly or by proxy, to extinguish the Revolution. It was only by their efforts that the "nations" of the Baltics got independence, or Poland or Bessarabia became independent (or joined Romania, in the last case). In all of those places, the Westerners overthrew or helped overthrow indigenous revolutionary republics, all of whom had sent their allegiance to the Petrograd Soviet.
Actually, several of those nations had achieved independence after the Treaty of Brest-Livotsk, under German patronage. Some remained independent through Soviet inaction, some fought off Soviet attempts to re-integrate them, and others - most notably Poland - aggressively attacked both the Soviets and their other neighbours. But the indigenous revolutionary republics did not represent the majority power-holders in any nation - excepting Russia - to my knowledge, with the possible exception of Belarus. Which is not to say that they would have been the best (or worse) possible choice to hold power even if they were.
And Russia's army was in absolutely no position to sweep into Eastern Europe in 1919-20, even if the Czechoslovak Legion hadn't revolted. They were locked in a stalemate with Germany until the Revolution tipped the balance in Germany's favour. How can you honestly believe they could have taken on Britain, France, the US, and the various new regimes in power in Eastern Europe? You are looking at this from an ideological point of view - that of socialism - not from an historical point of view, I'm sorry to say Cheezy.
In the mind of the Bolshevik - and I believe they were right in this - if a nation or people were under Capitalist rule, it meant they had to be liberated by the righteous socialist powers that be.
Never thought to have my previous sentence proven correct quite like that.
This meant that Sovnarkom (the USSR before it was made the USSR, in 1922), and later the Soviet Union, had a duty to spread socialism around the world and free oppressed peoples. This is hardly different from the American idea of "militant democracy," the difference being that America did not embark on that mission out of altruism, it was merely a mask for its imperial ambitions.
Firstly, it is not entirely true that America didn't embark upon "militant democracy" out of altruism. There was definitely a degree of altruism involved in the attempt to free Cuba and the Philippines from Spain, though this was later co-opted by expansionists. In America's case, they often seem to think that the rest of the world wants to be just like them, and if by some mysterious circumstance they don't, it's best to treat them like they do anyway. While this is undoubtedly ignorant and egocentric on the part of the US, it's not "merely a mask for its imperialist ambitions." Doubtless, that has happened in the past, but it's unfair to state that this is always the case.
Secondly, the Soviet Union very quickly deviated from the idea of world revolution. Remember "socialism in one nation?" Stalin pursued a
nationalist policy in regards to Russia, albeit with a socialist methodolgy. So did the Viet Minh and Viet Cong, the Khmer Rouge, and plenty of other supposedly socialist regimes in history. I'm willing to give Lenin the benefit of the doubt and say that this wasn't his wayy of thinking, but we'll never know, since he died shortly after the revolution. The Soviet Union certainly didn't practice the altruistic spread of socialism after his death. Stalin even broke with Tito over Tito's attempts to assist Greek and Italian communist partisans, which threatened Stalin's own efforts to bring this groups under his own control, and his fragile arrangement with Britain and the US.
The Soviet Union had no imperial ambitions, it was anti-imperialist. Nations it liberated were freed of their capitalist rule, and banded together to free other brothers under oppression. The USSR was not expanding its power for the sake of it, as imperial nations do, it had a specific intention of freeing oppressed workers from their overlords and putting them in charge of their own lives and countries.
So anti-imperialist that annexed territory from its neighbours during WWII? Wouldn't a better idea have been to invade these countries and liberate the proletariat in the whole nation, rather than just the Karelian Isthmus, or Bessarabia?
Ah, so the Czechoslovakians
chose to have the Soviets overthrow their democratically elected non-socialist government in 1945-6? I never knew that.
The true internationalist was, of course, also anti-nationalist, so the existence of a "state" was to be a temporary thing, only necessary while combating the Capitalists.
Marx makes mentions of states and nations existing
after the revolution. I have no idea what exactly he had in mind - I doubt he did - but he didn't seem to advocate the dissolution of the nation-state. Not unless he did that in his later-life. I admit, I've not read
Das Kapital.
That the new socialist nations banded together was of course natural and out of necessity; in fact, several newly socialist nations sought help from the US first (Cuba, Vietnam, and Nicaragua), but were turned down, which sent them to the only ally they could have, the USSR. Another, Afghanistan, came about by its own volition and voluntarily associated with the Comintern. Still others, colonial powers who freed themselves, sought help from the USSR and the Comintern, because they represented the anti-imperialist force in the world (nations like Egypt, India, China, Ethiopia, Iraq, and Laos).
Cuba wasn't socialist until
after the US turned down their call for assistance. And several of those nations sought help from China, which was most definitely a powerful Soviet state to whom they could turn for assistance. You also leave out socialist nations such as Yugoslavia, which actually formed a defensive military alliance with the
capitalist, NATO member-states of Greece and Turkey. This alliance fell apart when Greece and Turkey fought over Cyprus, but, funnily enough, it was directed
against the USSR.
India turned towards the USSR for help because its policy of neutrality - it was one of the two founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, with Indonesia - failed miserably, when the socialist nation of China invaded it, and it was left without an ally to come to its aid. By this point, China had split with the USSR, and the only capitalist superpower, the US, was allied with India's perennial enemy Pakistan. India turned towards the USSR because it had nowhere else to go. It had nothing to do with their representing "the anti-imperialist force in the world."
The Soviets supported Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist regime almost as much as they supported the Communists, until Mao emerged victorious in the civil war. It then began a deliberate policy of re-embarking upon the former Tsarist imperialist measures in China - such as control of Port Arthur, which Lenin had repudiated - in order to keep China weakened and dependent upon the USSR. Stalin feared that China might become an alternative power-base for socialists outside of the Russian-controlled Comintern. he was right.
Afghanistan joined the Comintern because its Communist government was desperate for an ally, since the locals weren't terribly impressed with the government, and were showing signs of rebelling. This ended up happening anyway.
Ethiopia was a US ally, until the Soviets helped engineer the overthrow of Haille Selassie, and switched their allegiance from Somalia to the much more valuable Ethiopia. Hilarously, the US then switched its support to Somalia, since it still needed an ally on the Red Sea. One can see clearly how Ethiopia declined under the Societ-sponsored government. Oh, and referring to Ethiopia as one of the "colonial powers which freed themselves" is pretty laughable, being that it was only a colony for about 5 years, and it was freed by those same capitalist-imperialists.
Egypt and Iraq were Soviet-sponsored due to the threat of Israel and Iran, both of which were US-sponsored. This was a simple matter of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Again,, this had nothing to do with the Soviets representing "the anti-imperialist force in the world." Russia even deliberately sabotaged Egyptian and Syrian efforts against Israel in order to kepp them from pursuing independent policies. Eventually, these nations realised that this policy of aligning themselves with the USSR was not doing them any good, made peace with their enemies, and placed themselves under the US umbrella.
If Soviet enforcement of discipline in the ranks of the socialist nations was rough, it was because the stakes were indescribably high. Where would the Eastern Bloc be if Hungary or Czechoslovakia had gone and joined NATO?
Where would Czechoslovakia have been if the Soviets hadn't forcefully overthrown its democratic government in 1945-6? The withdrawal of Yugoslavia and Albania from the Soviet Bloc didn't seem to hurt it too much. Neither of them joined NATO. Could not a deal have been reached whereby neither Hungary nor Czechoslovakia joined NATO? I don't think Czechoslovakia even attempted to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, though I know Hungary did.
Such an event would have been indescribably bad for the Socialist Bloc, since they were from the very beginning fighting an uphill battle against a superior-equipped and resourceful foe. That is why there was little tolerance for dissent most of the time, because the stakes were so high.
Rumania pursued an independent foreign policy for decades. It wasn't cracked down upon because Ceaucescu was smart enough to keep his military strong, and not to even hint at leaving the Warsaw Pact. Dissent was fine, so long as you didn't try to leave the Pact, because that would have dissolved the Bloc as every satellite state left overnight. Which is pretty much what happened when Gorbachev repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine.
As socialism expanded into more of the world, those things would have been able to relax. What was most important was the future of the World Revolution, since its fall meant the end of a very unique time in history, when the people on the bottom, who usually get the short end of the stick in history, were in charge of themselves for once.
Russian peasants were on top during the USSR's history? Was Stalin secretly a puppet for Siberian communal farmer, Vladimir Ivanov, holder of the local vodka-chugging record?
They had to think about the future, about their responsibility to future generations who would fall under the yoke of imperialism and capitalism if their Revolution fell. Were those measures harsh? Yes. Were some of them unnecessary, like those horrid deportations? Absolutely. But that is the way that any and every nation has and would react when placed in such a dire situation as that. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
Funny, I don't recall Britain acting in such a manner during the Blitz, when there was genuine - though incorrect - belief among even the Cabinet that Germany could launch a successful invasion, or force a settlement that would end British independence and its way of life. Desperation != licence to commit ethnic cleansings.
And finally, a word about the study of Soviet History as a discipline. Because of its unique nature as a nation diametrically opposed to the West in ways never before seen in history, it is difficult to find information that is equal and balanced.
You mean like the Soviet archives, which, if anything, would be biased in favour of the USSR? Because many of them seem to indicate horrible suffering under the Soviet regime.
Or are we talking
FoxNews-style "fair and balanced?" Is there a Nikolai O'Reilly that you're sourcing?
More commonly, it is either skewed one way or the other, portraying Lenin and Stalin and every Bolshevik in history as an infallible force, or portraying them as bloodthirsty, savage, power-hungry dogs no different, if not worse, than the Tsars. Both are propaganda. Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes are no more impartial than Pravda and Izvestia, though the former have far more to gain from being dishonest than the latter two do. Conquest writes what he thinks his reader want to hear, and Pipes is a neoconservative motivated to portray socialists in the world light possible - both make things up. It should come as no surprise that the Western Imperialist powers, confronted with a movement whose ideology directly challenges and threatens their existence as a ruling class, would be willing to take whatever actions necessary in order to stop that movement from spreading to their home countries. There is no reason to believe that they would be honest about the nature of the USSR, of socialism, or of the Eastern Bloc, and indeed, they have not been.
Yet, since the Fall of the Wall, Soviet archives have been opened, thoroughly investigated and reported upon by
Russians,
Communist Russians, which have still found that many of the things said by Western sources were true. Or are former Soviet Generals biased against their own former political system, to the point where they would make their own country, their own former superior officers, out to be monsters?
So to decry information simply because it portrays socialism or the Bolsheviks in an even remotely positive light is imprudent, and to trust absolutely in rich Western historians with their biases and government patronage to give real and honest information about the USSR is like trusting Osama bin Laden to run the War on Terror honestly. Similarly, we should be wary of information coming out the USSR, which was so concerned with its image internationally,
Up until here this paragraph was fine. then:
but far less concerned, I think, than we should be with Western historians and the supposed "facts" that make it into survey textbooks and high school history courses.
Which is why revisionist history was rampant in the Soviet Union, and Russia today?
These are the facts as they exist, and my opinions as they are. I think I have addressed most of the salient issues, and I really don't have anything else to say here.
Opinions, yeah. Facts? Not so much.
is that your name, the name of someone you lifted this from, or something else entirely?
Him and his entire familiy are saints.
