The Return of Communism?

We know now that for decades during the Cold War, both sides desparately feared that the "other side" was around every corner just waiting for the chance to devestate the other. As the iron curtain fell, we realized that, Russia had been in no way able to carry out such a dastardly deed upon us. This decade opened with us going into Iraq and overthrowing their government. Now there is talk of events that will lead to a similar outcome in Iran. Now that we have brought capitalism to the Russians, how long before they return to being scared we may come at them after all? Remember, it only took one Hitler to bring Germany to WWII. To be certain, by all means if Iran has nukes for weaponry, we must take them out. But we had better be certain. More certain than this administration was on Iraq.

I'm curious on this one.

How was Iraq going to hurt us with them?

so I guess that's the same here or something.

why "must" we take out nukes if iran has them...? we haven't taken out the nukes in pakistan or north korea, have we?

The commies lied about their military strength--not to scare us but because a command economy invariably ends up lying about its productivity.

the op said that there was no soviet threat.

(and i'm not saying that the threat potential was real- just that they DID have the means to cause us great harm, had it come to that.)

The Soviets went on an enormous building spree after the Cuban Missile Crisis. They also generally used larger warheads to compensate for worse accuracy.

--

:hide:

THe USSR had nukes pointing at us for years and Krushjev was a crackpot. But we still talked to them and while we were talking, years passed, Krushjev died, ideology gradually changed. The supporters of Ahmadenajad didn't fare so well in their last election. Maybe the people of Iran will have something to say about all of this.

Seems to be a much more sane approach than taking them out.

Mz Pip
:dem:

my point exactly ........ I think I was trying to say that if we know we are definitely behind a little red button about to be pressed on us we must attack. Beyond that ... if we attack as we did in Iraq, do we face somebody attacking us out of fear they may be next?

which was the battle hitler needed to win, and didn't. Khruschev built the Moscow subway, certainly the grandest subway system on earth...in 'Khruschev's Confessions' published after he forced from power in 1964, he said he didn't need a pension if brezhnev refused him one since he would simply request whatever he needed from his people on the streets, who loved him...it was Khruschev who took control of USSR after Stalin's death, and who began the de-stalination process that made possible glastnost etc..
your 'crackpot' reference probably was to Nikita's visit to US when he banged his shoe on the podium at the UN....Khruschev drank, alot, and that was probably the problem, he was dronk....compare Krushchev to reagan, who began the process of privitising funding for public schools, thus ruining the schools, and who demolished objective 'free' press re 'fairness doctorine' and who exploited racism and class differences to screw the average amer. citizen - well you get the pic! read 'Khruschev Remembers' and you'll get a idea of what a real tough, honest pol was like!
:)
Also remember in 1963, when Chairman Khruschev still in office, the bushevik/fascists murdered JFK....
BTW the USSR exploded its first atomic device in 1949, while Uncle Joe still ran the show (the US exploded its bomb in 1945, and murdered hiroshima/nagasaki soon after)...that means Stalin had the bomb for 4 years (he was taken by jesus in 1953! :()...The USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, with a doggy passenger in the drivers seat....these events, coming from a 'broken down 3rd world nation only couple generations from serfdom' well, it was like black america sending man to the moon, and it scared alot of our old bully boys, who thot genius was us, and only US, goddammit!

He did not fight at Stalingrad, He was the political commissar to General Yeremenko on the Southwest front. This was just south of the Stalingrad front. Yeremenko launched the southern arm of the pincer movement that trapped the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad.

i'm trying to say he was no geebush, or ronnie reagan - he deserves some of the credit for the soviet victory in ww2 (churchill admitted that it was the red army which 'tore the guts' outta hitler's military) notice stalin never messed with khruschev too much...surviving joe stalin was quite an achievement in itself

I fully agree that he was not a Bush or Reagan. But, he was one of about two dozen or so Communist Officers that were trusted by Stalin to serve as Front Political Commissars. These men were charged with enforcing Communist political orthodoxy within the Soviet Army. Stalin did not mess with Khrushchev because Khrushchev was a loyal Communist ally of Stalin. Khrushchev does deserve credit for his part in the Soviet victory over the Germans. As do untold numbers of Soviet citizens and soldiers of the Soviet Army. Without their sacrifices, the outcome of the war in Europe would have been much different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8">Now it can be told ...

much like JFK was deposed by a conservative faction within USA, by hardliners of a different breed(no, I don't subscribe to the "Oswald did it" alibi).

Khrushchev was not a crackpot, he was born from a simple peasant background, he was trying to take the USSR away from its Stalinist mindset, he denounced Stalin for his personality cult. He was soon deposed by a conspiracy in the Politburo, replaced by a more conservative leader, Leonid Brezhnev.

The Cuban Missle Crisis had a lot to do with his downfall, certainly. The ideology didn't change after Khruschev, it didn't really change until 20 years later under Gorbachev.

...that they look just like cartoon characters.

Second, we are building bases that are pretty much encircling Russia. I read an article not too long ago that while we may consider the Cold War to be over, the Russians do not. They feel every bit as threatened by us as they did then.

Communism is stateless. Socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is what people are referring to.

Sometimes I think Americans understand leftist ideologies less than geography.

before Stalin took over and gutted the USSR and turned it into his plaything, it was socialist. I agree with Trotsky's analysis, that it became a degenerate workers' state after Stalin.

I do not agree with Trotsky that it was a degenerated workers' state.

I subscribe to the analysis that the USSR was a state capitalist enterprise.

The economy of the USSR was absolutely devestated after the Russian Civil War (understatement). Lenin recognized this and knew that there needed to be growth...fast. The NEP got production back to pre-war levels quickly, something that seemed an impossibility at the end of the war.

The NEP saw the Kulaks grow, this is true, but the fact is that it needed to happen. If Lenin didn't institute the NEP, people would've been dying in the streets.

And "state capitalist" is a term that has never been clearly defined, no one really knows what it means. Labor and resources were not treated as commodities, so it is difficult to see how one can label it "state capitalist" when faced with these facts.

At any rate, these are minor disagreements. I have nothing but respect for anarchism and anarchists (I presume you are one yourself).

There have been plenty of theories that state that labor and resources were treated and commodities. Some with varying degrees of validity.

However, I think you'd be interested in reading this. It's quite long but well worth the read. This explorers the USSR from various perspectives.

Let me know what you think.

What was the USSR?

Towards a Theory of the Deformation of Value
under State Capitalism Part I

It's been a long time since I've read it. I think I'll read it again just to refresh myself.

I'll try to read that. However, from what I can tell, there is no real agreement on what "state capitalism" means. Furthermore, Trotsky accurately estimated the fate of the USSR (the party elites would revert to capitalism when it suited them), so I think that gives some extra validity to his theories (he also foretold the US' turn to imperialism, when the US was still isolationist during the 30's).

Here is his work on the USSR:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/index.htm

I will do my best to read that piece. Thank you.

I'm aware of Trotsky's predictions and some turned out on the mark. However, there is much to disagree with him regarding his analysis of the USSR (as you will find in my link) and his support for a party vanguard. The latter I find repelling.

Thanks, manic, for the link and I will read that. I'd love to talk to you further about this.

As far as I'm concerned the popularity of Leninism greatly damaged damaged the socialist movement. If there is a Hell I hope Lenin and Trotsky are rotting in it.

They will refer to the Democrats as "socialist."

Basically the economy was one huge corporation ran for the benefit of the party elites. It was far closer to fascism then real socialism.

The merger of industry and the state = fascism.

Read the link I provided in my previous post. It's very interesting.

the pig lies about what happened yesterday; how does anyone know what really ruined the dear old USSR. A state, run by and for the working people, surely hasn't a chance in this world-notice that today, with a capitalist superpower in control, and all the advantages of controlled news medias etc, still we the people are intruders at the decision table: how dare we insult the soviets for not pulling off what woulda been a miracle-the usa never even recognised the USSR until 1934 (hitler was in power by then)
>the USSR basically won WW2
>after losing 20 million people in WW2, the USSR still managed to explode a nuke by 1949 (kim philby, the famed brit spy, and such scientists as klaus fuchs justified their 'treason' by pointing out the only reason the USSR survived after WW2 was its strategic nuclear arsenal-philby stated before his death that for that alone he would have helped the USSR anyway he could)
>the USSR was first into space, 1st to orbit the earth with a human astronaut, 1st to put up a satelite...
>under the communists, the USSR became a super power - it prevented Vietnam, for example, from becoming a permanant french colony, it saved cuba from fascism and people all over this planet are alive because the USSR survived for awhile...

all our revolutions got hijacked by fascism, or power criminals - nevertheless, the ideals that created the USSR remain alive now, and indeed forming a people ruled society might be mankind's only hope...
one thing certain - the problems facing us are global, and will require a global response. the rightwing will fight this no matter what-divide/conquer is their way. but such a collective response as needed will only be possible with the 'masses' united, and, well you see the picture...

All our freeper friends who flock to WalMart every day to make their contributions to supporting world communism will be enough to prop up the Chinese economy from now until our own economy collapses. After that, it won't much matter since we'll be a third world country by then.

For Communists, they're not very good at the whole 'commune' thing...

In reality it is a hybrid of Fascism and Traditional Confucian Authoritarianism.

Is that what 'we' have brought them?

May want to bone up on your current events.

That said, considering they are the worlds remaining energy superpower, they probably are taking measures to mitigate our 'coming at them'.

Not current events here .... history though .... refresh back to the late 80s and you will see Russians chomping at the bit for the first McDonalds in their country. Their people lived in a perpetual 1930s style recession before and during Gorbachev's rule.

Energy superpower? I dont see anyone buying oil from Russia and they certainly are not part of OPEC.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/16149450.htm

Much of Russia's new prosperity can be traced to a single source. "Russia's economy is about oil," says Natalia Orlova, chief economist at Moscow-based Alfa-Bank. Oil and gas account for 65 percent of Russia's exports and 60 percent of federal tax receipts. "Consumption is financed by oil revenues," she says.

. . .

Putin's government has also sought to cement a dominant role in the gas and oil industries for state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom and OAO Rosneft Oil Co. State-aligned companies in steel, aluminum and other commodities have received similar support.

In mid-November, government environmental inspectors vowed to revoke the licenses of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell P.L.C. that allow it to participate in an oil-exploration venture called Sakhalin 2, in which Shell has a 55 percent stake. Iskyan says the government's motive is to win a controlling stake in the project for itself.

In mid-October, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan criticized Russia's swing back to big state companies. "National champions, by definition, are those that don't maximize profitability," Greenspan, 80, told an annual investors' conference in New York sponsored by Moscow-based investment bank Renaissance Capital. "Competition is critical."


Hysteria Over Iran and a New Cold War with Russia:
Peak Oil, Petrocurrencies and the Emerging Multi-Polar World (PDF)

http://www.petrodollarwarfare.com/PDFs/Hysteria_Over_Iran_and_a_New_Cold_War_with_Russia.pdf (.pdf)

Since becoming president in 2000, Putin has methodically sought to implement his basic thesis: Russia should use its vast energy reserves to uphold its economic and political independence. The first step in using the regulatory role of the state was to reverse, to the degree possible, the disorderly privatization policies implemented under Russia’s former president, Boris Yeltsin. Over the past three years, Russia’s oil and gas resources have slowly been re-organized and transformed via nationalization policies. In fact, one of the more impressive policies that Putin has implemented as president has been to use Russia’s elevated oil revenue of the past few years to pay off the dollar denominated IMF loans that were extended to Russia during the 1990s.


Does not sound like they are much into the whole 'capitaism' thing, does it.

considering capitalism was a catastrophe for Russia (and Ukraine). It's hard to underestimate the trauma capitalism wrought upon the USSR. At any rate, Greenspan's concerns over centralization doesn't warrant such a definitive claim.

Yes the communists are coming and they will eat your babies and poison your water. Only by killing any and everyone else can you be safe, because after all they would do it to you if they could...

...why "must" we take "them" out, and how? Exactly what are you proposing that America do, and to whom? Exactly what do you believe should be the trigger?

Only one government has ever used nuclear weapons on another nation, and it wasn't Iran's.

I do not propose we take Iran out. Unless under dire circumstances. Much more dire than the ridiculous claims we saw on Iraq. My whole point here being that if we do go into Iran, what impact might that have on Russia?

...that if Iran has nukes, we must "take them out"?

If we need to do it, shouldn't we start with the biggest offender: the U.S.?

In fact, if the Bushistas really thought that Iran had nukes, they wouldn't touch it. They only pick on countries they think can't defend themselves. Of course, they encountered a few surprises in Iraq; and the Iraqis didn't even have nukes.

Now, think of an attack on Iran; and a nuke smuggled close to American aircraft carriers, say in the relatively close quarters of the Red Sea. No, if the Bushistas really thought the nukes existed, it would be hands off -- as with North Korea.

I do not propose we take Iran out. Unless under dire circumstances. Much more dire than the ridiculous claims we saw on Iraq. My whole point here being that if we do go into Iran, what impact might that have on Russia?

we're coming after them; some are convinced that we went after them and did them dirty already, but will come back for what's left.

There's a fair amount of pop literature that involves either (1) debunking lies about Lend Lease and saying how the west prompted Hitler's assault on Russia, (2) how we destroyed their system to impoverish them, or for the fantasy/sci-fi crowed, (3) how we're going to invade them for their oil, their gold, their women.

Russia is awash with Neo-Nazis. Putin isn't about to go left or right, he stands for himself.

However, Russians do know that socialism was FAR better for them than capitalism has been (so does Ukraine). So, it may be possible, but it is unlikely to the highest degree.

Hopefully, leftism can continue to spread in Latin America. Onward to the final victory! Hasta la victoria siempre!

So comrades, come rally
and the last fight let us face
the Internationale unites the human race!

Taking them out, unless you mean for ice cream sundaes, will backfire. They don't need to be decapitated. They need to be contained, and traded with, and lured into moderation and a consumer-based economy that will force their government to act more responsible.

But I'm not too worried about Iran. Four years ago we stole the title from them for "most dangerous force in the Middle East".

What utter hogwash...When was the last time Iran attacked another country unprovoked? Now when was the last time America did? Notice the difference? Who really should have their nukes taken out?

Has there ever been a true Communist State? Russia will probably slide back into a Kleptocracy, much like the U.S. is doing right now.