Come! Let’s read and discuss This Soviet World.

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It’s interesting reading this chapter with the knowledge of World War II and the ensuing Cold War. It really stresses that no socialist country has genuinely been allowed to develop peacefully, on its own terms. Even countries like Vietnam and China are constantly playing games of back and forth with the west as the US continues to see if it can wage war against modern China.

Nothing really drives home how many resources are spent on war like knowing that it directly takes away from your ability to meet people’s needs in a socialist system, and that’s something those living in socialism know well.

The Soviet world sees war as naked destruction of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The US capitalist ruling class sees war as a way to delete capital and start the cycle of the rate of profit all over again. It’s no coincidence that the premier capitalist state is also one that is constantly, virtually eternally at war, whether it’d be domestically with the militarization of the police or abroad.

The impoverishment of the whole world, the lowering of the living standards of all categories of labor, both physical and mental, unemployment when no one is sure of tomorrow, to say nothing of the collapse of cultural values, the reversion of certain countries to medieval ideas

Hey hey hey, a near perfect description of the current conditions, almost as if marxism is a science.

China refuses to fight, but gets no peace.

partial peace possible under capitalism is clear, sincere study of the whole world situation, the choosing of a policy which prevents war or lessens it, and the backing of that policy by all available power.

There’s a lot of analysis on how Chinas economic development model is being sabotaged by the west through proxy attacks but the CPC has always been able to weather the blows.

The USSR had to deal with so much bullshit that its impossible to not feel enraged with how much they had to suffer. Reading about the Soviet approach to peace and defense also explains the DPRK’s similar stance of militarily incorporating the south only in response to an attack.

For the status quo is evil, but war is worse.

Another banger line.

Reading about the soviet union, especially in this era, is always so intoxicating. Imagining what could be done in even one country unshackled from capitalism. They were never let rest, but still they built and built and built, and created a better society…

to get even more off topic:

For all its successes, the story of modern China is, I hate to say, not so inspiring to me (yes I know, inspiring a random westerner isn’t the point, but I’m just musing here).

Maybe it as a model is more realistic in my lifetime, and certainly it is a tremendous, world-changing achievement worthy of support, but it doesn’t inspire the same passion. Probably this is just because I live in a country that already has material abundance (for some) and a long period of capitalist economic development, and has seen it through long past the point where it stopped providing improvements and started innovating primarily in the realm of blood sucking and exploitation. For us in the imperial core the development needed is in large part moral, social and communal, not technological or economic (and obviously that isn’t going to just happen, the settler colonies must fall, the imperialism must stop, etc etc), so I guess it kinda makes sense that the heady optimism and communal spirit of the Soviet people would be more inspiring than the marketized and guide-railed rapid development of China, even though the latter seems to be on course for a happier ending.

It just seems like early revolutionary moments, when the whole of the people can be inspired in the way this book presents, are like lightning in a bottle. Maybe that kind of energy can’t be maintained indefinitely, sure, but how to create the conditions for at least allowing continued spurts and starts of generative growth and excitement among the people is something I think about a lot. There’s obviously a lot more to it than just “morale”, for lack of a better word; that morale emerges from material conditions, it isn’t a material factor itself. But I think its indicative of a society where improvement is still seen to be possible, and one’s individual efforts, however small, do not feel in vain. The late Soviet Union seems like (from my limited knowledge) a case where after years of mismanagement and betrayals, this ceased to be the feeling, leaving the people too demobilized to properly resist the overthrow…

This chapter was a good read but also frustrating due to hindsight of the near century of events that happened. The USSR spent the 1920s and 30s rebuilding itself, modernising and progressing the population and culture while also working towards peace and relations with the rest of the world. However they also knew that to call for peace also requires the ability to defend yourself if everyone actively ignores you.

If Germany offered the Bolsheviks only a robbers’ peace, their former allies gave them no peace at all. On April 5, 1918, the Japanese landed in Vladivostok; following them the English, French and American armies invaded Siberia. Allied armies landed on the Arctic coast to seize the northern part of Russia; the British grabbed Baku, oil capital of the south. Agents of the Entente incited and participated in armed uprisings of Czechoslovak prisoners of war along the Volga, leading them against the Bolshevik government.

The Western Powers attacking the Bolsheviks, snatching territory and planning to split up Russia amongst themselves is very much forgotten in the West. It also shows the huge hypocrisy of Western Cold War Propaganda that the USSR was planning to attack and invade them. You invaded them before the USSR even officially existed FFS. You invaded for the interests of Capital because the Bolsheviks acted in the interests of the people and stopped the involvement in WW1.

I remember Michael Parenti talked about the Cold War actually started in 1917, i think that was in Blackshirts and Red?

Bolsheviks were made to realize that no peace can be had from the imperialist powers of earth by any backward nation.

This made me think about the post WW2/Great Patriotic War and how the USSR attempted peace talks then with the West. Its a different situation entirely as the USSR had won fighting Nazi Germany and had to rebuild itself again after essentially the entire sacrifice of the country but also that again there were attempts to establish world peace again. Which, well never happened and the Cold War continued instead. There was that normalisations of relations with the West under Khruschev that is pretty much doing the complete opposite to what Strong describes after the quote in the chapter.

A bit off topic but does anyone know of some reading of the Winter War between Finland and the USSR. I read a bit in ‘The Soviets Expected it’ also by Strong in how the USSR attempted territorial exchanges with Finland, I don’t remember the exact areas but that it was a 2:1 area exchange for Karelia and a base lease on an island which then Finland asked for a 3:1 increase; the USSR eagerly accepted before Finland rejected the deal entirely. Then I believe Strong says that supposed artillery fire by Finland sparked the conflict but the actual reasoning was at that time unknown. The discussion of peace efforts by the USSR ultimately and unfortunately ending with this war seems relevant to look into.