This was on the BBC radio this morning and it regarded a new book coming out accusing the US and British governments of escalating the cold war.
According the the book, the Russians never had any intention for global conquest nor to actively spread communism. Any country been invaded twice and lost 20million people to the Germans would natrually want to control neighbouring countries as a buffer zone against the future threats. And the paranoia of the west after seeing how the Russian military can steamroll German troops so quickly was scared and reacted out of proportion.
TThe spread of communism was like evolution in some countries and it wasn't because revolutions were incited and supported actively by Russia.
What do u all think?

i think that's a big load of bs
if they were such peaceloving people who only were protecting their
own borders, then why the missiles on cuba ?
i think they had something nasty in mind, but then the country went broke and it all came to an end
i still don't trust them though

<font color = lightgreen>Like many theories, communism looked good on paper but flopped miserably in practice. You cannot dictate that people willingly not strive to advance economically; people are too self-oriented to blindly follow "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need". Most people are just not that selfless.
Anyway, Russia never posed the threat that the US thought it did. True, they had nuclear missiles, but their technology was overrated. Stalin was too anti-science for Russia to truly succeed (that nutcase killed more Russians than the Germans did in WW2).
I agree that communism would be a "natural" reaction against centuries of monarchies/dictatorships, because when many people grow tired of being ruled by an aristocracy they will eventually revolt.

On the other hand, the Cold War was really profitable for the military-industrial complex, yes? [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

I am puzzled as to what they hope to achieve with this book. Escalating problems already buried?

Great thoughts! My opinion exactly. Take away the carrot of economic advancement and the mule of the populus quits moving. Another problem is with a central government so powerful, it's bound to be abused. It would eventually degenerate into a "Rich and powerful nobility vs. Poor working peasant populus" system. Power is almost ALWAYS abused in one way or another. Even in the US you see a lot of rich staying that way by leeching off the poorer common citizen. It's economics. That's the way it works. When you have control of what you pay the work force and what you charge for goods, it's easy to control the flow of money. The only deterrent to abuse is competition. Large corporations and unchecked monopolies pose problems to this system though as they undermine the spirit of competition.

<font color = lightgreen>Herein lies the inherent problem with capitalism: in a capitalistic society, eventually some corporations will become so large and powerful that they will either buy out/absorb their competitors or make their products so well (or for such low cost) that their competitors go out of business. What you will eventually have is not healthy competition but a small group of extremely wealthy, large, and powerful companies who literally dominate the market place. Strangely enough, capitalism will result in a situation similar to some of those that led to the 19th- and 20th-century communist revolutions--a small group who are in de facto control of the rest of the population.

Getting back on topic, now.... I'm sure the Russians never considered global conquest (that is an impossibility) but they did consider--and pursue--the spread of their version of "communism".

Also consider this: without the Cold War, some of the technological advances made during the last 50 years would not have occurred; at the very least they would not have occurred at the rate that they did occur.

Just out of curiosity, Avatar, you didn't happen to catch the name of this book, did you?</font>

the Amerian had missiles in Turkey. Russia reacted to USA a great deal less hostile.

While the Cuban missile crisis is not really a good example of Soviet expansionism... there ARE a few out there. I seem to recall tanks were a Soviet standard method of "helping out" the small countries that surrounded her. And the blockade of Berlin certainly wouldn't have helped the security of Russia had it succeeded.

Their covert operations in central America also don't make much sense given a non-expansionist USSR.

That being said I agree that the Soviets didn't pose the threat the West assumed she did... a lot of their actions were really REACTIONS to things that we were doing. (of course the same assertion could be made in the opposite direction)

We can all play the armchair quarterback and come up with all sorts of assessments, but in the end there's no debating that the Balance of the Superpowers kept them both in check for quite a while. There's no way to know what the USSR would have become and done if the West hadn't resisted her actions. In the Stalin era Russia was essentially a dictatorship, and putting too much power into too few hands is exceedingly dangerous. This is why I wince every time our President asks for more authority, something he's been doing far too often lately.

[ 04-18-2002, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

I think the cold war was great because it seemed to have no begining and no recorded end, it also never got "hot" and as far as I'm concerned I think that we wouldn't have been on the moon by now had it not been for them much less would be be creating an international space station. Another thing: I wouldn't be in Cuba right now had it not been for the cold war so I think we have alot of things to attribute to it. Though China being communist REALLY REALLY bugs the hell out of me... They just recently started a program to launch "men" into space... *has a conspiracty theory* it's probably a coverup for them to build orbiting nuclear satelites just ready to RAIN DOWN on us *bites nails and sweats* Just kidding by the way...

...well i guess 'soviet way of helping out countries' is a lot better than nowadays US-American active Expansionism isn't it..? I hope that soon all European countries will realize that the USA is currently led by a complete maniac and act accordingly.