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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2023 4:39:02 GMT
Note: this article I wrote in September. I have decided to post it here to see if it generates any discussion. I try to briefly outline the origins of Ukrainian nationality and the history of Ukraine's relationship with Russia, the West's relationship with Russia, and how this relates to the current war in Ukraine.
The Causes of the War in Ukraine
N.B.:
The war in the martyred land of Ukraine has been ongoing in its current form since the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation of Ukrainian territory in February, 2022. The war in Ukraine has however continued since 2014.
In this article I aim to outline the causes of this conflict. I wish to first state that I unequivocally condemn the actions of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. It is a crime, and on his hands is the blood of the innocent martyrs of Ukraine - women, children, soldiers, and others on both sides.
The Origins of Russians, Ukrainians, and Ukrainian National Consciousness
I would like first to start at the very beginning. Ukrainians and Russians are both Slavs. Slavs are the main ethno-linguistic group in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as North Asia. They speak very similar languages. Within the family of Slavic peoples are Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbs, Czechs, and various others. Around 60% of Slavs are Orthodox Christians, and around 35% are Catholic. This is of some importance in the Ukraine conflict.
Russia is and always has been the largest of the Slavic nations. Russia has 140 million people, around 120 million of whom are Slavs - there are around 260 million Slavs in total. Ukrainians are also Slavs and number about 55 million worldwide - 30 million in Ukraine and 20 million in the diaspora.
Amongst the Slavic nations, the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) have always been very close. Traditionally, in Russian discourse, they form the “Triune Russian Nation”, which comprises “Great Russians” (Russians), “Little Russians” (Ukrainians), and “White Russians” (Belarusians). Until the early 1990s, when Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union, the majority of Ukrainians were Russian-speakers who viewed themselves either as a subdivision of the Russian nation or a distinct but closely-related group to the Russians, so close as for the two nations to be “brother states”.
Today, around 40% of Ukrainians mostly speak Russian, and 60% mostly speak Ukrainian. In 2021, a survey taken of Ukrainians showed that the vast majority affirmed the statement “Russians and Ukrainians are brother nations”.
The history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is very complicated. The first Russian state arose in what is now Ukraine in 988 AD, when Prince Vladimir of Kyiv converted his people to Byzantine Christianity. Gradually, the centre of the Kingdom of Rus’ moved north, first to the Vladimir and Novgorod, and then eventually to Moscow. The earliest Russian buildings, mostly churches and forts, still exist today in Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine.
Ukraine as a state did not emerged until after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. After a brief period of independence, it was incorporated into the Soviet Union.
Modern Ukraine had always been divided between various powers. Most of Ukraine was ruled by Romanov Russia. This part of Ukraine remains the mostly heavily Russified, and most people from the part of Ukraine that was ruled by Russia before 1917 remain Russian speakers and Orthodox Christians.
The western part of Ukraine was ruled by Poland and then by the German-speaking Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary. This is part of the reason why western Ukraine today is majority Catholic and majority Ukrainian-speaking - originally, it was mostly Orthodox, but in Polish-ruled territories the Orthodox largely converted to Greek Catholicism. Western, Catholic Ukraine has always been culturally and linguistically different from the rest of Ukraine, which is historically Orthodox and Russian-speaking. Ukrainian-speaking, Catholic Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk are worlds away from Russian-speaking, Orthodox Donetsk and Odessa in eastern and southern Ukraine. Many have described western Ukraine as being effectively a different country.
It was in Austrian-ruled western Ukraine, amongst the Catholic population, that Ukrainian national consciousness first arose in its modern form in the 19th century. Initially, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the dominant force amongst the western Ukrainian population, had a strong Russophile movement, but this gradually dissipated and by the time the First World War broke out was almost entirely consigned to the dustbins of history. Amongst the Greek Catholics of western Ukraine, nationalism had become the dominant force of society, and it was these Greek Catholics who led the Ukrainian nationalist movement in the latter stages of Austrian rule and during the Second World War.
The rest of Ukraine - in fact, virtually all of Ukraine east of Kyiv - did not really see itself as separate from Russia until the 1990s. Hence we can say that the idea of “Ukrainians” as something different from Russian identity arose amongst the Catholic Ukrainians under Austrian rule and gradually spread around the rest of Ukraine firstly during the Ukrainisation undertaken by Lenin in the 1920s, and secondly after Ukrainian independence in the 1990s. Of course, “Ukraine” did exist as a concept in Imperial Russia, but it was regarded merely as a region of Russia rather than a separate nation. Ukrainians were, as far as the Tsars were concerned, merely a type of Russian. It was only in Austrian-ruled western Ukraine that a different view prevailed.
In summary - western Ukraine has always been Catholic and Ukrainian-speaking. The rest of Ukraine has largely been Orthodox and Russian-speaking, and this continues to this day.
The Soviet Union
Ukraine in its entirety was incorporated into the Soviet Union by 1921. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkSSR) was proclaimed. It included most of modern Ukraine, excepting the Western Catholic regions, which would not be incorporated into the USSR until the Second World War, and Crimea, which was part of the Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic.
Lenin supported the idea of Ukrainian nationalism. Although most of Ukraine was Russian-speaking and considered itself Russian, Lenin supported the Ukrainisation of all of Ukraine. The Ukrainian language and culture was promoted in regions of Ukraine where it was basically foreign. The policy was reversed by Stalin, beginning in the early-1930s. Stalin, though a Georgian (and thus neither a Russian nor even a Slav) believed basically in an All-Union policy of Russification.
The policy of Ukrainisation was reversed and the Ukrainian language, though co-official in the Soviet Union until the collapse of the Union in 1991, was marginalised. But the lasting legacy of Ukrainisation was that much of Soviet Ukraine regarded itself as inherently Ukrainian rather than Russian. When during the Second World War the Catholic regions of western Ukraine were incorporated into the Soviet Union, Russification accelerated as the Catholics were forced by the Soviet government to convert to Russian Orthodoxy and were encouraged to give up the Ukrainian language.
After 1931, aside from the 1953-1964 period when Nikita S. Khrushchev (a Ukrainian himself) ruled the USSR, although the Ukrainian Soviet Republic remained nominally autonomous, and there was an opportunity to learn and speak the Ukrainian language, a policy of absolute Russification was pursued. As in Russian Imperial times, the line between “Russian” and “Ukrainian” merged. Leonid I. Brezhnev, ruler of the Soviet Union from 1964-1982, was a Ukrainian and variously identified sometimes as Russian and at other times as a Ukrainian. This was completely normal in Soviet times. Ukrainian identity was considered part of a greater Russian ideal.
Putin’s claims, therefore, about modern Ukraine being created by the Soviet Union as quite true. Ukraine in its current borders is entirely the product of the Soviet Union. Lenin decided initially on the borders of Ukraine, Stalin added the western regions, and Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine (when it had been part of Russia for centuries) in the 1950s.
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. It is worth bearing in mind that from 1953-1982, the Soviet Union was ruled by two successive Ukrainians (Khrushchev and Brezhnev), and that both Konstantin U. Chernenko (ruler of the USSR - 1984-1985) and Mikhail S. Gorbachev (the last ruler of the USSR) were part-Ukrainian.
This makes Ukrainian claims that the Soviet period was one of “Muscovite occupation” look even more stupid than a normal person would understand them to be. It is true that the western Catholic regions of Ukraine never wanted to be part of the USSR, but the other regions of Ukraine were just as willing a part of the Union and the communist experiment as Russia was, largely because they considered themselves Russian until Lenin decided to Ukrainise these regions.
Vladimir Putin was also correct in saying that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest geopolitical disasters of the 20th century. It put borders between peoples who had never before known them. 10 million Russians - that is the number of ethnic Russians in Ukraine - now found themselves to be citizens of Ukraine and not of the Soviet Union.
Since the Fall of the Soviet Union
Ukraine’s post-1991 history is a history of a constant struggle between the Russophile vision of Ukraine as a state that is part of the Russian sphere and nation, and the Ukrainian nationalist vision of Ukraine as a separate state and nation from Russia.
In 1991, newly independent Ukraine had over 50 million people - around 17% ethnic Russians, the rest largely ethnic Ukrainians. Its industry was larger than that of China. Newly independent Ukraine was largely Russian-speaking, with Ukrainian speakers dominating only in the West of the country.
The majority of Ukrainians initially wanted to be an independent state with close ties to Russia. The majority of Ukrainian believers were members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a part of the wider Russian Orthodox Church, whilst the western Ukrainians returned to the Greek Catholic Church that was forbidden in the Soviet era.
In Ukraine, the majority of those in eastern and southern Ukraine wanted to be very close to Russia and viewed themselves as culturally and ethnically a part of the “Russian World”. Parts of eastern Ukraine as well as Crimea remained majority ethnically Russian.
Until 2010, most Ukrainian Presidents tried to maintain good relations with both Russia and the West to appease the two sides. In 2010, Viktor F. Yanukovych, a Russian-speaker from eastern Ukraine, won the Presidential elections and gradually transformed Ukraine back into a state that was heavily dependent on Russia. Yanukovych, with the support of most Ukrainians, tried to make Ukraine a part of the Russian “World”. Ukraine, it seemed, with most of its believers under the Moscow Patriarchate, a pro-Russian President and populace, and a majority Russian-speaking population, was heading the way of Belarus.
However, in 2013 - 2014, this all changed as pro-Western Ukrainians toppled the democratically elected government in a coup supported by (possibly organised by) the CIA. The President of Ukraine was forced to flee to exile in Russia. A nationalist government, with an anti-Russian agenda, came to power in Ukraine. Putin, believing he was protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea and Donbass, invaded and took Crimea and nurtured pro-Russian separatists in Donbass.
The United States had for years been obsessed with the idea of influencing Ukraine - for so long aligned with the Russian World - into becoming a vassal of the United States in an effort to split Russia and make Russia less powerful. This has been the goal for 30 years.
When the opportunity arose to split the brotherly nations of Russia and Ukraine, the United States and its willing allies took it. Victoria Nuland, an official at the US State Department, is known to have tried to select the post-Yanukovych Ukrainian government. The Obama Administration was behind so much of this.
From the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the USA has constantly tried to humiliate and weaken Russia. It lorded it over Russia, saying “we won the Cold War” in the 1990s as most Russians were living in abject poverty as a result of the capitalist shock therapy which Boris N. Yeltsin imposed on post-Soviet Russia with Western support. The USA and the West trampled all over Russia when it most needed help. The West told Russia it was now merely a “middle power” and just as Russia was getting back on its feet in the early-2000s after over ten years of the West trying to arrogantly turn Russia into a weak client state, the West started to constantly criticise Putin and the Russian government for doing things far less severe than what Western nations were doing.
It is also well-known that NATO is not a defensive alliance. It is an anti-Russian alliance. The West uses it to send a message to Russia. As soon as Putin, who raised Russia up from its knees, started to assert an independent foreign policy, the West turned on Russia, and it became again the “enemy of the free world”, though we can hardly call the West free, for it now knows no God and no morality.
Therefore, we can say that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has very complicated causes; it did not occur in a vacuum. It is true that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a sin, a terrible sin. We cannot deny it. What is happening in Ukraine defies all our conceptions of the post-communist order of the world. How Vladimir Vladimirovich can go to church and cross himself, chanting “Christ is Risen” whilst also bombing and killing civilians, I know not.
But I do know this: despite the fact this evil invasion was unleashed by Putin, and despite the fact that Putin and his friends bear the blame for this, we should not be deceived into thinking that the West shares no blame in this. On the contrary, everything the West has been doing has intentionally provoked Russia. I would not be surprised if getting Russia to invade Ukraine was the plan in Washington all along. I cannot say this, but I suspect it.
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 31, 2023 15:52:52 GMT
Yep, it is all the West's fault.
The West is at fault for the imbalance of wealth under the USSR, under its supposed communist/socialist system. The West is at fault for the human rights violations which have taken place in the USSR and Russia since. Yep, the west invented the Gulags. The West is at fault for the oligarchs within Russia especially Putin himself who are raping Russian society and economy at the expense of the Russian people. It was the West who starved the Ukrainian people in early years of the USSR. It was the West who broke the Budapest memorandum which guaranteed Ukraine's territory.
Ukrainians who identify as Russian have had decades to relocate within the geographic borders of Russia if they wanted to be Russian. Eastern Europe has been sliced and diced so many times over the centuries due to wars, which the West didn't start, X people living in a geographic border where they shouldn't be can be said for any number of groups.
Yes, the US has viewed the USSR and Russia as a threat to us and the rest of the world because they have openly admitted they are a threat, and openly demonstrated that they are a threat.
Yes, NATO is a defense alliance against outside aggressors. Russia currently just happens to be the aggressor. Simple solution, Putin needs to stop the nonsense.
To say the West knows no God or morality is laughable at best. Nothing in this world happens in a vacuum, but to place any blame on anyone but Putin for his invasion of Crimea and Ukraine is pure nonsense. BTW, who is responsible for not letting the breadbasket of Ukraine export food which people rely on. Please don't say it is the West that is responsible for that.
Putin is responsible for wanting to reconstitute the USSR the atrocities, targeted assignations, and making Russia a pariah to most of the rest of the world. He will burn in hell for eternity for his actions, because he is the one who knows no God and has no morals.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2023 20:47:07 GMT
Yep, it is all the West's fault. The West is at fault for the imbalance of wealth under the USSR, under its supposed communist/socialist system. The West is at fault for the human rights violations which have taken place in the USSR and Russia since. Yep, the west invented the Gulags. The West is at fault for the oligarchs within Russia especially Putin himself who are raping Russian society and economy at the expense of the Russian people. It was the West who starved the Ukrainian people in early years of the USSR. It was the West who broke the Budapest memorandum which guaranteed Ukraine's territory. The West is not at fault for the imbalance of wealth in the USSR. But think of it this way: until the fall of the USSR, everybody, or almost everybody, in the USSR had guaranteed to them by the state 1) a job; 2) a house or apartment; 3) money for food; and therefore, the transition to a system without any state support whatsoever, which is what Russia looked like in the 1990s, was an absolute disaster and sent millions into poverty. What did the West do at that time? Lord it over Russia about how we "won the Cold War". The things you attribute to me as blaming the West for are incorrect. I did not blame the West for the Gulags, or the Holodomor, or the any of the other things. "Ukrainians who identify as Russian have had decades to relocate within the geographic borders of Russia if they wanted to be Russian. Eastern Europe has been sliced and diced so many times over the centuries due to wars, which the West didn't start, X people living in a geographic border where they shouldn't be can be said for any number of groups."Why should 15% of Ukraine's population be expected to move to Russia? "Yes, the US has viewed the USSR and Russia as a threat to us and the rest of the world because they have openly admitted they are a threat, and openly demonstrated that they are a threat."Russia is only a threat because the USA adopted the idea of "limited sovereignty" not dissimilar to the Brezhnev doctrine. In the case of the US, it's "it doesn't matter how good or bad a country is, as long as it serves our interests it's fine, but if not, we will pile sanctions on it or invade it". "Yes, NATO is a defense alliance against outside aggressors. Russia currently just happens to be the aggressor. Simple solution, Putin needs to stop the nonsense.To say the West knows no God or morality is laughable at best. Nothing in this world happens in a vacuum, but to place any blame on anyone but Putin for his invasion of Crimea and Ukraine is pure nonsense. BTW, who is responsible for not letting the breadbasket of Ukraine export food which people rely on. Please don't say it is the West that is responsible for that."Neocons had been advocating regime change in Ukraine for years. Putin was shocked and decided to invade. I am not justifying it. Just noting the reasons behind it. The USA has no business in Ukraine. "Putin is responsible for wanting to reconstitute the USSR the atrocities, targeted assignations, and making Russia a pariah to most of the rest of the world. He will burn in hell for eternity for his actions, because he is the one who knows no God and has no morals."God is the Just Judge - why are we judging Putin's eternal soul?
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 31, 2023 23:49:02 GMT
The idea that life was a peachy in the USSR before the fall is looking at it through rose colored glasses. Facts indicate life for a great portion of the country was miserable. www.learnliberty.org/blog/myths-about-the-soviet-union-inequality-poverty-and-quality-of-life/Are you suggesting that AFTER Russia invaded the Crimea region that the USA should not have helped Ukraine? Seriously, blaming the USA for Russian aggression. Nonsense. The US supported Ukrainian independence and even showed support for eventual admittance into NATO, even after Ukraine assisted Saddam Hussein. Heck, the US has supported Ukraine for 100 years. No, I am not God, but a Just God will have to look at Putin's decades of evil, by his own hands or authority. One doesn't display evil for decades and then on the death bed have a come to Jesus moment and get forgiven a lifetime of evil. Again, not my call, but Christ called us to live as he did, by his example, not try to slide into home plate with your hands crossed for the first time.
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Post by ralfy on Nov 1, 2023 0:59:40 GMT
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Post by farronwolf on Nov 1, 2023 2:09:24 GMT
If Russia would play nice with the rest of the world, maybe nations wouldn't need to join NATO.
It was Putin's actions which caused Sweden and Finland to want to join.
Does the President of the United States alone determine who can be admitted into NATO. Nope.
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Post by tth1 on Nov 1, 2023 13:53:24 GMT
But think of it this way: until the fall of the USSR, everybody, or almost everybody, in the USSR had guaranteed to them by the state 1) a job; 2) a house or apartment; 3) money for food; 1. Only so the USSR could claim that it had no unemployment. Many non-jobs were created so this could happen. This would not happen in the West because the economy cannot support this nonsense, which is one of the reasons the USSR was an economic mess.
2. Yes, again, so the Communist party could make certain claims. There was often no choice where you lived. You didn't even have any control of when the heating went on and off. If you think being told where to live and how to live is what you want then there are still places in the world where you can find this. The standard of housing was also often extremely poor.
3. There wasn't much point in having money to buy food if there was no food. There were many shortages of food, even basic staples. This was not the fault of the West but the state-controlled economy of the USSR. No economy functions well under those conditions. Capitalism has many faults but it's the only system we have that produces genuine wealth and real economic gains. Indeed, it's capitalism that has changed the Russian Federation's economy; however, because it's still a totalitarian state only a small number truly benefit.
The USSR has to bear a good deal of the responsibility for how the West behaved towards it. The simplistic overview USSR = was good; West = was bad, simply fails to reflect the realities.
Please also remember many of us on here have lived through not simply read about it.
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Post by theguvnor on Nov 1, 2023 15:59:35 GMT
I'm going to try and ask my wife and mother-in-law to respond to some of this. My brother-in-law Sergey is too young to remember the Soviet Union. He was age one or so when it fell. My wife and mother-in-law have slightly differing takes but might be interesting to have as voices from the USSR if people are interested in me getting their point of view. Unfortunately, my wife's grandfather who would likely write a political thesis for us and then argue it out is gone to his rest. Possibly a good thing as his intellect was rather over-powering and he would insist any conversation on history involved quotes reference and sourced from books or appropriate materials. His grandson once tried to argue that wiping out the Germans at the end of WW2 would have been ethically permissible. This did not go down well with the old man and remember the Third Reich killed large numbers of his family. He was well aware of some plans that both the Soviets and Allies had to attempt to divide Germany up with the aim of permanently crippling it economically. He was not in favour of these. It is a shame I couldn't get his views (except via memories) as his views as a Red Army Officer would be interesting.
My wife's aunt may also prove interesting as she was an an agriculturalist in some of the Asian Soviet Republics. Let me ask them for a day or two and come back to this.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2023 20:34:24 GMT
But think of it this way: until the fall of the USSR, everybody, or almost everybody, in the USSR had guaranteed to them by the state 1) a job; 2) a house or apartment; 3) money for food;
The USSR has to bear a good deal of the responsibility for how the West behaved towards it. The simplistic overview USSR = was good; West = was bad, simply fails to reflect the realities.
Please also remember many of us on here have lived through not simply read about it.
I never said the USSR was good. My view on the USSR is substantially expressed in the article I wrote entitled "The Paradox of Soviet Power", which I posted on this forum. I view the fundamental basis of the USSR's existence as being the evil ideology of Marxism-Leninism. However, given it existed for 74 years, it much more complicated than just the ideology that governed it. I view the first 24 years of Soviet rule as basically unmitigated evil. Then, we saw the great struggle of the Soviet people against Nazi fascists in the Great Patriotic War, which was accompanied by the state-sponsored massive revival of Christianity. Then, though Khrushchev ended the terrible totalitarian aspect of Stalinism, he again fought against religion and revealed himself an agent of the demons of the world. But Brezhnev, in my opinion, was the best Soviet leader by far - he had a balanced policy towards the Church, he kept stability in the country, defended not just the USSR but other countries from radical Islamic terror, promoted family values, and generally seemed to have good intentions.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2023 20:40:35 GMT
The idea that life was a peachy in the USSR before the fall is looking at it through rose colored glasses. Facts indicate life for a great portion of the country was miserable. www.learnliberty.org/blog/myths-about-the-soviet-union-inequality-poverty-and-quality-of-life/Are you suggesting that AFTER Russia invaded the Crimea region that the USA should not have helped Ukraine? Seriously, blaming the USA for Russian aggression. Nonsense. The US supported Ukrainian independence and even showed support for eventual admittance into NATO, even after Ukraine assisted Saddam Hussein. Heck, the US has supported Ukraine for 100 years. No, I am not suggesting that. But look at it this way: the West has long wanted Russia to be weak, and tearing Ukraine, a country of 40 million people very much in the "Russian world" to an extent, away from Russia was something the State Department had longed for for years. Putin was wrong to invade even an inch of Ukrainian territory, but the causes are complicated. The US supported Ukrainian independence and even showed support for eventual admittance into NATO, even after Ukraine assisted Saddam Hussein. Heck, the US has supported Ukraine for 100 years.I don't recall Ukraine supporting Saddam - on the contrary, they were involved in the Iraq War against Saddam. No, I am not God, but a Just God will have to look at Putin's decades of evil, by his own hands or authority. One doesn't display evil for decades and then on the death bed have a come to Jesus moment and get forgiven a lifetime of evil. Again, not my call, but Christ called us to live as he did, by his example, not try to slide into home plate with your hands crossed for the first time.Jesus Christ Our Lord is the Just Judge - the judge of me, you, and our brother in Christ Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, whose fate will be decided by God on the day of his judgement when he dies - not by us on an internet forum.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2023 20:46:22 GMT
But think of it this way: until the fall of the USSR, everybody, or almost everybody, in the USSR had guaranteed to them by the state 1) a job; 2) a house or apartment; 3) money for food;
The USSR has to bear a good deal of the responsibility for how the West behaved towards it. The simplistic overview USSR = was good; West = was bad, simply fails to reflect the realities.
Please also remember many of us on here have lived through not simply read about it.
I'd also add I am certainly no communist - my brother has described me as a far-right Catholic nationalist (though I would dispute that but anyway, I'm not a communist or Marxist). That which was good in the Soviet Union was in spite of communism, not because of it. Regardless of how difficult the system of bureaucracy was though, I understand former Soviet citizens who long for the days when Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev ruled their country, for though things were stagnant, people felt they could predict the next day, month, and year. People felt they had food, a house, a job, and clothes, even if they were not the ones they desired. For a country that has always been filled with war, violence, internal disputes and intrigues, that sort of existence is valued in Russia - don't forget the parents of those who grew up under Brezhnev were the survivors of the Great Patriotic War, where over 25 million Soviet citizens died at the hands of the Nazis. For them, the stability of the 1960s, 1970s, and early-1980s was the best thing they could have hoped for. Of course, I cannot speak for them; I am only relaying what I have read and seen these people say. But when people in Russia are asked why they support Putin they often say (I recommend the YouTube channel "1420"): "Putin keeps order in the country....Putin means we can predict tomorrow...under Putin we have our pensions on time". These are often the same people who long for those days in the so-called "Era of Stagnation".
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Post by ralfy on Nov 1, 2023 23:41:07 GMT
To recap, according to Goodman, both Ukraine and Russia were suffering economically, which meant that there was no need for NATO expansion. In fact, there was probably no need for NATO as well given the demise of the Soviet Union.
The problem is that the U.S. and others called for "shock therapy" to solve those economic problems, and they made matters worse. The latter led to more insecurity, which encouraged the U.S. to ramp up militarization, something that started before the Reagan admin.
In this case, Clinton wanted to win in elections by showing that he was experienced in international affairs, so he pushed for NATO expansion even though his own officials and those of Bush, Sr. strongly advised otherwise. That plus Dubya's continuation of such in the Middle East followed by Obama's pivot to Asia fulfilled what the military industrial complex wanted but also caused red lines to be crossed, and and ended up provoking multiple countries, including Russia and even China.
This explains why from being a North Atlantic alliance, NATO joined the U.S. in military adventurism in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, got Turkey to join in exchange for military and trade deals, and is now trying to open shop even in Japan.
Finally, the U.S. has been playing both sides, e.g., providing military aid to Iraq and then making deals with Iran, supporting the muhajedeen against the Soviets and then making deals with Northern Alliance drug pushers, arming Israel and then engaging in military deals with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, provoking China but also eagerly trading with it, attacking Vietnam and now trying to engage in arms deals with it even though its ally is Russia, etc.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2023 2:27:11 GMT
To recap, according to Goodman, both Ukraine and Russia were suffering economically, which meant that there was no need for NATO expansion. In fact, there was probably no need for NATO as well given the demise of the Soviet Union. The problem is that the U.S. and others called for "shock therapy" to solve those economic problems, and they made matters worse. The latter led to more insecurity, which encouraged the U.S. to ramp up militarization, something that started before the Reagan admin. In this case, Clinton wanted to win in elections by showing that he was experienced in international affairs, so he pushed for NATO expansion even though his own officials and those of Bush, Sr. strongly advised otherwise. That plus Dubya's continuation of such in the Middle East followed by Obama's pivot to Asia fulfilled what the military industrial complex wanted but also caused red lines to be crossed, and and ended up provoking multiple countries, including Russia and even China. This explains why from being a North Atlantic alliance, NATO joined the U.S. in military adventurism in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, got Turkey to join in exchange for military and trade deals, and is now trying to open shop even in Japan. Finally, the U.S. has been playing both sides, e.g., providing military aid to Iraq and then making deals with Iran, supporting the muhajedeen against the Soviets and then making deals with Northern Alliance drug pushers, arming Israel and then engaging in military deals with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, provoking China but also eagerly trading with it, attacking Vietnam and now trying to engage in arms deals with it even though its ally is Russia, etc. US foreign policy has never been about defending freedom, but obtaining the best economic interests for the war hawks in their ivory towers in Washington.
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Post by theguvnor on Nov 2, 2023 9:53:40 GMT
My mother-in-law Valentina is in her mid-70s. I went and asked her and some family members and her friends about their memories of their lives in the USSR. The old ladies all have at least an average of two degrees each but my mother-in-law's mother who I can remember was a very feisty elderly lady who had limited education. The replies I got were shall we say interesting. All these old ladies are fairly technically astute and worked in fields such as teaching or economics etc. So I shared some of those classic images from BBC TV from the 80s of people queuing for hours for bread in the USSR and stuff like that. Several ladies noted there was generally no shortage of staple foods but certain foods were rare in certain regions which is why if they turned up there you'd get those queues. The lady who was an economist noted that there tended to be strange planning at times and stores would get tonnes of one thing in a certain area and people would get fed up with that and the other goods. So if something else turned up people would start these massive queues off.
They all did tend to find this the sort of stuff Westerners ask about the USSR and noted foreigners are probably better solving their own problems first before they solve those of other people.
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Post by tth1 on Nov 2, 2023 13:48:50 GMT
The USSR has to bear a good deal of the responsibility for how the West behaved towards it. The simplistic overview USSR = was good; West = was bad, simply fails to reflect the realities.
Please also remember many of us on here have lived through not simply read about it.
I never said the USSR was good. My view on the USSR is substantially expressed in the article I wrote entitled "The Paradox of Soviet Power", which I posted on this forum. I view the fundamental basis of the USSR's existence as being the evil ideology of Marxism-Leninism. However, given it existed for 74 years, it much more complicated than just the ideology that governed it. I view the first 24 years of Soviet rule as basically unmitigated evil. Then, we saw the great struggle of the Soviet people against Nazi fascists in the Great Patriotic War, which was accompanied by the state-sponsored massive revival of Christianity. Then, though Khrushchev ended the terrible totalitarian aspect of Stalinism, he again fought against religion and revealed himself an agent of the demons of the world. But Brezhnev, in my opinion, was the best Soviet leader by far - he had a balanced policy towards the Church, he kept stability in the country, defended not just the USSR but other countries from radical Islamic terror, promoted family values, and generally seemed to have good intentions. You have basically ben saying that the majority of the problems currently faced by the Russian Federation can be laid at the doors of the West. If other responses were different to mine I'd accept that I may have misunderstood you. However, others have formed the same opinion.
I think saying that Brezhnev was the best Soviet leader is like saying which of the Nazi leaders was the best one. The Soviet Union was a brutal, atheistic, totalitarian regime which cared not one iota for its people.
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