[Split from 'Wrost President'] Likewise Following is completly off topic and i humbly ask moderators to split this topic. This topic Goals of the SSSR and eastern block after Stalin deserves it's own topic. In wery short terms: Never again allowing suprise attack on SSSR, defence of SSSR, Warshaw pact (their buffer zone) and mantainig foothold in Latin america (Cuba) and cousing as much problems for the US and the west as possible (all over the world). Thus diverting their focus away from SSSR. West always saw East bolck as monolith but it was very far from that. East block was riddled with bickering even war for ideological, teritorial... reasons. Change of policies after Stalin: After death of Stalin, their politics changed to defence and if necesary counter attack. World wide revolution was more or less abandoned but if chance presented itself they took it. In minds of Hruschov and later Brezhnyev, Stalins worst crime was not persecution of political dessident (and milions killed as result) but a fact that he did not prepare SSSR for German attack (even though he had inteligence reports) resulting in 20+ millions soviet citizens killed and most of the country in ruins. Both Hruchov and Brezhnyev were front line commisars during the war and they saw ugly face of war up front and personal. Their policy was that war should never happen again but in case it it did happen they would be ready and if neccesary they would turn USA and west Europe into glass covered, selfilluminating parking lot. They would never, ever again be attacked as on 22. 06. 1941. Since only possible attack on the SSSR was from west europe the needed buffer zone of countries under their control (Warshaw pact, North Korea and at the beginning also China). This strategy also required large conventional forces to stop and push back any conventional attack. Only holes in buffer zone were Turkey, Iran, Afganistan. Turkey was and still is member of NATO and stationing of nuclear tiped missiles there prompted Cuban missile crisis (according to Dobrynin and other souces close to Hruschov he was thinkig on the lines of: let's see how they like taste of their own medicine). SSSR did not intefere with Iran, becouse there were no US or NATO forces there and they feared that Iranians coud couse problems in their southern republics that were mostly populated with muslims. Afganistan was not a problem up until early 1980's when they marched in in support of communist leaders to end turmoil in that country securing it's southern flank. Policies towards midd east: In the beggining Stalin's SSSR suported Israel (selling weapons and smuggling jews via ČSSR, Yugoslavia), thus making problems for the British. Stalin's support ceased becouse of Stalin's paranoya. When Hruchov took over SSSR had no foothold in the area. When west shifted support to the Israel they took their chance and supported Arab countries (mainly Egypt and Syria, later also Iraq). This had no ideological background (since this countries were not communist but were nationalistic military didctatorships mostly quite happy jailing communists) but was pragamatical step ensuring strategic allies in the area. They also supported marxist south Jemen in its war against US supported north Jemen thus ensuring possible control of strategic sea lane in red sea. Third world. Stalin practicaly had no polices on that matter. Leaders of most newly created countries in the third world ( africa) first asked USA for help. Some of them were immidiatly brushed off (like Lummumba). SSSR practicaly had no foothold there. They managed to get influence first trough Egypt and other communist countries (like Yugoslavia i.e. non aligned countries) and then by themselves. Basic strategy in africa for both blocks was if someone recived help from other side we have to support revolutionary (SSSR argument)/pro democraty (USA argument) movement no matter how bad they are (and some were realy realy bad). Basic strategy was to create trouble for the other side. Latin America: After succesful revolution of Castro he recived small (i.e. almost none) help from SSSR. Things changed after Hruschov decided to provoke Missile crisis. SSSR had almost negliable presance in latin america but all help went trough Cuba. Only notable exception was help to Sandinistas after they managed to get into power. China: After death of Stalin, rift between SSSR and China became deeper. Best way to illustrate this is looking into events in South Easts Asia. Rift was entirely ideological. Hruschev took more pragmatic stance concernig the world revolution than Mao, who thus calimed to be leader of revolutionary movements since SSSR gave up to US imperialists (and other blah, blah...). There was also a small grievance about Korean war (into which China was pulled by Stalin). Things got excalated by border incidents on China-SSSR and China-Mongolia ( soviet territory in all but name) borders, and problems with suppliing N.Vietnam. Vietnam started to rely on SSSR more than on China. Reasons were ideological and historical (Chinese domination in the past). China percived this as therat of beiing surrounded by SSSR allies and took steps to counter that. When civil war started in Kambodia both sides supported Khmer rouge. When thay came to power the started their genocidal policies against political and national enemies (in first line Vietnamese) they got suppoert from China. They also started attacking Vietnam. Vietnam qickly rolled over Kampuchea (as it was known then) and established it's own regime (note: it was more democratic than Vietnams). US politicaly supported Khmere Rouge. China picked fight to help Khmer rouge in diverting Vietnamese forces. Vietnamese-China border war lasted from 1979 up to 1989. Vietnam became main SSSR ally in the SEA. N.Korea. After Korean war, strategy changed from offense (staging point for possible attack on Japan) to defense. N.Korea was and still is buffer zone for main SSSR (Russian) naval and army bases on Pacific ocean.
I think that your last paragraph contains a lot of the reasoning for the West's attitude - All Communist countries were generally seen as one lump, and any any every action they took was seen as a 'Communist advance' rather than a 'Chinese' or 'North Korean' etc etc. Early on there was some truth to the assumption though - China initially had a lot of backing from the SSSR, North Korea and then North Vietnam both received a lot of help from both China and the SSSR, and many, many attempted revolutions around the world were sponsored by either China or the SSSR (mostly the SSSR). While Stalin might look upon that as 'causing trouble' to the recipients it understandably looked like an assault upon the world.
I was talking about time after Stalin. Cousing trouble was two way street. It just seems that SSSR were better at it, but west gave as good as it got. West and USA in particular were wery histeric seeing revolutions where none existed (Guatemala, Iran, Chile) overeacting and in process shot themselves in foot in the long run (results seen today). Most "revolutions" (or social-democratic parties wrongly seen as Communists by US) in these countires had none of SSSR backing. US would do much better (especialy in Latin America) by supporting and in effect wining these countries with trade incentives and improving living standards of populace. Insted they supported various dictatorships, degarding some of these countries to source of raw materials complety dependant of USA and thus giving communists (with generous Cuban backing) couse for making trouble.
So all the bravado (pre and post Stalin) about burying the west, a communist world revolution, the inevitable death of capitalism, the new man and all, was only the guys at the Kremlin having a good joke looking for hysterical reactions from the west and then rolling around on the floor laughing about it? And of course the peace loving peoples of the Soviet bloc never gave anyone in the west any reason to think that the massive defensive build up could ever be used against them. Most of these countries in which communist, excuse me, democratic-socialist revolutions occured had no backing from the USSR? Are you really serious? You really believe this stuff? That it was all as simple and straight forward as you say? That the USSR and communists had nothing to do with the Cold War? While I think there is some (or even alot of) truth in what you write, overall it seems very naive and one sided (and all the fault of the west, especially the US, of course). Sounds like it came out of a Soviet era history text book or Pravda itself.
So what backing from the SSSR did at the start have Castro, Allende, Ortega, Lumumba? Show me, please. Ah, but you forgot to mention first rule of any decent dictatorship: One needs an enemy. One big (as big as possible) ugly enemy with nasty domestic traitors (very handy for jailing these traitors or anyone else) who will take any chance to undermine glorious achivments of our revolution, for which our forefathers sacrificed their lives and we have to defend at any cost against any foreign and/or domestic enemy so our chioldren and grandchildren will have better and brigt future. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH... Such enemy is very usefull. 1. One can have large security services (giving work to lot of poeple) and thus knowing a lot of dirt on a lot of poeple, 2. one can quiet any voice of dissent (jailing or otherwise ostracizing this "traitors") serves right these criminals, 3. one doesn't need squabbling politicians in the parlament as they all know how they have to vote (or else... look at points 1. and 2. ), 4. one needs a large army (for repelling foreign enemies) that is backbone of your system ( it gives work to lot of poeple) and big stick if need be, 5. one can indoctrinate pople and then call on their patriotism (when they are indoctrinated naturaly) ... and on and on it goes. Get the drift? I was living in such country (Yugoslavia) even tough it was not as bad as realy by Soviet controled countries. They still have my fingerprints somewhere ( i had to give them for mandatory personal indentity card).
TISO wrote: They tried to, back in 1947 I believe. The communist uprising that eventually led to the establishment of Azerbaijan as a sovereign nation was watched closely by Moscow. The Soviet Union saw this- Iran's instability during the revolution -as a chance at gaining oil concessions from the area. The Soviet Union not only wanted a privatized oil pipeline from Iran, but they also wanted to permanately install troops in the country! The Soviet deadline for these demands passed unanswered. Moscow backed down from their requests, probably because of the appearance of a US carrier task force of the coast of Iran. As in Turkey, the Soviets had their bluff called when it was clear that the US would get itself involved militarily. Defense really was the Soviet Union's foremost priority, and defense not just from the outside, but from within as well. The USSR encompassed a very large area and contained at least 100 different nationalites and ethnicities. As far as I know, Russia was the only republic in the USSR that actually had a successful communist uprising; all the other nations comprising the Soviet Union had communism forced upon them. This being so, Moscow's policy makers had much to worry about from the resentment that non-Russian peoples felt towards communism. Western media had long portrayed all people of the Soviet Union as willing advocates of communism, as if the idea of the Soviet Man had come true all across the USSR. This was, of course, not the case. Opposition to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was widespread all along the Union's peripheries. In anycase, this brings me to the point mentioned earlier concerning Kruschev's comment that the Soviet Union would crush the West into dust. I truely believe that this comment, and most others like it, were designed to unite the people of the Soviet Union, both Russians and non-Russians alike. By making statements like that, Moscow could promote an air of foreign oppression on the Soviet people, that they are fighting for their very survival and must stick together. The idea was to scare the independent-mindedness right out of the Communist Party's oppostion; make them believe that the outside world was far to dangerous and unforgiving to go at alone. While this worked to an extent in some Soviet republics (like in the Baltics and Armenia), this aim at frightening the Soviet peoples into voluntary submission ulitmately failed, as is quite evident nowadays. While defense may have been the USSR's foremost priority, it was naturally not their only active issue. The Soviet Union was still a superpower, one of only two, and therefore acted like such. Many communist uprisings across the globe were, if not directly instigated by Moscow, aided via Soviet money and material. The Soviet Union still followed a unilateralist path and took those actions that would only better its own global position. But this is still a long ways from coming across as a warmongering nation, especially when the United States (usually attributed as the "good one") did the very same things, minus all the communist stuff. One cannot forget the 9 year long Soviet-Afghan war. This was a really stupid move on the Soviet Union's behalf. Technically speaking, the Soviet Union had every justification for entering its army into Afghanistan. But look into said justification and it isn't so pretty anymore. There was definitely some diplomatic maneuvering that got the Soviet Union involved in Afghanistan. I definitely see this conflict as the pinnacle of post-Stalin Soviet aggression, but I don't understand so much why Moscow wanted to get involved in that region. Was it really to fulfill an obligation to the failing Communist Party of Afghanistan? Are natural gas and petroleum reserves in that country plentiful? Or was it just a show of power by the Soviet Union meant to startle the United States?
All those examples were made for after Stalin era. Soviet and british troops were stationed in Iran during and short time after the war. When both should move out, Soviets just wanted to stay (like USA in Saudi after 1991). After US intervention Stalin reluctantly pulled out (but still suported local communists). This was pragmatic decision (better have neutral country on the border than one in turmouil). Afganistan is interesting topic in itself. As far as i could figure out Soviets went in for in my opinion for 3 main reasons: 1. Country bordered the SSSR and it was in inturmoil. Nasty capitalists (especialy Pakistan and trough them USA) could take advantage of that so southern border had to be ( in the mind of Brezhnyev) secured. 2. Fear of spreading muslim nationatialism to strategicly important (oil, minerals) southern soviet republics with mainly islamic population that never realy liked communism. here one has to remember that large part of population are Tadzik's and other nations that had part's of their nation also in the SSSR. 3. diverting attention at home from domestic problems predominantly bad economic situation. Well, this plan backfired. SSSR became economicaly ruined becouse of costs of the war, moral of the miltary was at all time low becouse of mounting casulties (same frustrations as US in Nam) and long term serving in country ( 2 years)... Pakistan (distributing US help) managed to get firm foothold in Afganistan (trough Taliban) and in the end Gorby did the only sensible thing and pulled out. Sad thing is that after Soviet pull out everybody (and especialy US that promised to bring democraty) simply forgot on Afganistan and let Pakistan put Taliban in power. The only country supporting Northern Alliance was Iran that had let's just say "personal" grudge against Taliban (after capturing on of the towns Talibans killed around 170 Iranian "diplomats" - after that Iran opened floodgate of weapons and equipment for NA)
