gjk@talcott.UUCP (John) (10/16/85)
Recently there has been statements on the net to the effect that the Soviet
Union's paranoia of the West and the US is understandable, because the US
and other Western countries have invaded the Soviet Union (the main example
is the Russian civil war) while they have never invaded the West.
Well, this is a myth. During the Russian Civil War, we sent 8,000 troops to
northern Russia. We never fought a single battle. The French sent 15,000.
They never fought a single battle either. The British also sent about 15,000,
and they fought *one* battle, with light casualties. On the other hand, the
Japanese sent 72,000 troops, the Czechs had 40,000 leftovers from WWI, and the
total strength of the Red Army was in the hundreds of thousands.
Military history is not the reason for Soviet paranoia of the West. The
reason is ideology. By their religion, we are the devil, the "bad guys". It
is as impossible for them to trust us as it is for any Christian to trust
Satan himself.
--
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^ ^^lrb@hpcnof.UUCP (10/18/85)
>> Military history is not the reason for Soviet paranoia of the West. The >> reason is ideology. By their religion, we are the devil, the "bad guys". It >> is as impossible for them to trust us as it is for any Christian to trust >> Satan himself. > ....... >......... It is not so much paranoia (they keep themselves well in- >formed of Western intentions and decisions) as that their whole >cultural background and their unconscious, deep-seated philosoph- >ical attitude requires *eliminating the opposition*. .............. ........... > Jan Wasilewsky This reminds me of an interesting theory concerning USSR/Russian history that was proposed by a "Kremlinologist" or Russian history expert or whatever. (I wish I could remember who it was or where I read it so that I could directly quote it!) But the conclusion of this man was that from the U.S.'s point of view, the Communist Revolution was the best thing that could have happened to Russia rather than the worst. I couldn't accept this at first, since it was contradictory to what I have always thought. But the logic behind his argument was really very good. Instead of dividing Russian history into the usual pre-1917 and post-1917 periods, he looked at those attributes that were consistent through ALL of Russian history from the very beginning through the present time. One factor he saw was a consistent history of expansion, from the tiny state of Muscovy into the Russian Empire and then to the current USSR. ("Russia" nowadays refers to a republic which includes Moscow and Leningrad, comprises about 50% of the population of the whole USSR, and is one of many republics which include the Ukraine, Siberia, the Baltic republics, etc.) Regardless of the reasons for their thirst for expansion, whether paranoia or greed or self-defense or cultural or what have you, Russia has been doing her best to conquer her neighbors for 700 years, always having new neighbors to conquer as soon as her old neighbors become part of her! (The USSR has more than twice the landmass of any other country.) Thus the postwar domination of Eastern Europe is seen in the historical context as just another chapter in the age-old story of Russian conquests. This historian also brought up two more important factors concerning the USSR: First, that the Soviet Union has far greater natural resources than the USA. Second, that Communism, even though it is perhaps the most efficient form of political control ever devised, is also one of the worst forms of economic production ever devised. So this historian plays a "What if" game by predicting what would have happened if Russia had NOT had a Communist revolution, and instead had ended up with a capitalistic rather than a socialistic economy these past 68 years. According to his theory, Russia would STILL be as expansionist as it always has been for the past 700 years, since their form of government has apparently never had any effect on their expansionist tendencies one way or the other. The major difference would be that their economy would now be unbelievably strong, much stronger than the U.S.'s, due to Russia's immense resources being fully utilized by an industrialized nation unhampered by Communist economics. The combination of this economic power AND the expansionist tendency would pose a far greater threat to the West than the USSR does today. If this guy's theory holds water, then we should be GRATEFUL for the 1917 revolution. Interesting theory, eh? Larry Bruns, Hewlett-Packard, Colo. Networks Oper. R&D, Ft. Collins, CO ihnp4!hpfcla!l_bruns or hplabs!hpcnof!lrb
gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) (11/01/85)
In article <50400001@hpcnof.UUCP> Larry Bruns wonders if the Bolshevik revolution has been good for us after all, given that it made the USSR weak and inefficient. If it never happened, they would be just as expansionist but infinitely stronger, says the theory: > The combination of this economic power AND the expansionist tendency would > pose a far greater threat to the West than the USSR does today. If this guy's > theory holds water, then we should be GRATEFUL for the 1917 revolution. The problem with this kind of Realpolitik is that it is not real enough. Is it really in our national interest to have a politically and economically backward Russia facing us? Are we really better off because millions 'over there' live miserable and stunted lives? Posing the question in such a narrow ethno-centric fashion seems quite ugly to me; but even on these tunnel-vision terms the answer is clearly no. The unproven assumption here is that Russia would be just as expansionist under any conceivable political system. What this assumption ignores is that the expansionist policies of the past and present have been possible only because their true cost is not visible to the decisionmaking elite. Remember that the Soviet political system is run by people who operate in a vacuum with no effective feedback mechanisms. One of the disadvantages of sitting atop a hierarchical police state is that it takes decades for news of many policy disasters to filter through the system. This is the reason for the paranoid irrationality of their internal and external colonization drive which is far more menacing than your garden-variety expansionist power that could be bought off with agreements on spheres of influence, buffer states and similar well-tried 19th century techniques. Another cost to us of the 1917 revolution is that facing such a centralized, militarized and ideology-driven rival has distorted and coarsened our political system in obvious ways: it made us more centralized, militarized and ideology-driven than we would be otherwise. Overall, I think we would be far less menaced if the USSR has evolved into a country with twice its current economic strength but with a populace that could demand and get a measure of control over its political institutions. ----- Gabor Fencsik {ihnp4,dual,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor