This proves absolutely nothing. Did marxism call for world revolution? sure. The question is, was that strategy ever really implemented? and the answer, (you guessed it) is no.
Did marxism call for world revolution? sure. The question is, was that strategy ever really implemented? and the answer, (you guessed it) is yes.
The mention of 'two stage theory' actually contradicts your view.
It does not. I added the 'two stage theory' because the entry contains the following sentence: "The revolution cannot pause [...] but remains 'permanent', in the sense that it must seek worldwide revolution to avoid isolation and thus move towards international socialism.".
If the soviets really believed that countries 'must first pass through a stage of bourgeois democracy before moving to a socialist stage', then surely this would have prevented them from attempting to revolutionise pre-industrial third world nations?
Are you taking the p***? The Soviet Union itself was a pre-industrial nation, and despite Marx postulating that a bourgoise, industrial capitalist phase needs to precede a communist revolution, the Bolsheviks went ahead and did the October revolution anyway, ditto in China. The Bolsheviks didn't exactly adhere to that dogma either. Marxism requires flexibility with strategy. Same with world-revolution.
How do you know what Stalins 'ultimative' intentions were?
Inference to probable causes from observable behaviour, using heuristics like Occam's Razor, Bayesean reasoning, commonsense, speculation, imagining what I would have done in Stalin's position ... in short the same gamut of techniques that is applied to reason about somebody else's intentions. Roughing up a few citizens, commanding the economy to focus on military production, public adherence to an explicitly expansionist political outlook (Marxism) are pretty good indicators.
You say the USSR was aggresively expansionist - your proof? That they did not expand because they feared conflict.
Let me answer in two parts.
- First, let's ask the same question, but in a simpler and less emotionally charged context: do bicycle thieves exist in London? Following your line of reasoning, the answer must be NO for me because my rather expensive bicycles haven't been stolen for over 5 years now! And yet, obstinately I will hold to the belief that bicycle thieves do exist and that I have been containing them with my heavy lock and paranoid diligence. I'm happy to change my mind if you leave an expensive bike in central London unlocked and it does not get stolen. Go on, prove me wrong!
- Second, a nuclear conflict is not just any old conflict.
And how exactly is this relevant to the cold war period (when the policy of 'containment' was implemented), during most of which Stalin was, in fact - dead.
Containment in a general sense was implemented as soon as the October revolution succeeded. The cold war did not change the perception of a need of containment, what changed the strategic situation radically was nuclear weapons, which enabled MAD (mutually assured destruction). MAD required a new epoch of politico-military strategy that really changed a lot of things for humanity. The experience of Stalinism is the defining event in the perception of Marxism, and post-Stalin Marxist leaders have been -- perhaps sometimes unfairly -- tarred with the same brush. That Stalin's terror was later replicated in China and Cambodia was a gruesome reminder of the necessity of the cold war, and the essential correctness of the west's understanding of the communist states.
We're not discussing intent or desire here.
The question I am discussion cannot avoid discussing intent or desire.
Im sure every dictator (and many democratic leaders) who ever lived had dreams of global domination. By your logic one could argue that Cuba was aggressively expansionist.
The relevant difference is that Cuba is militarily powerless vis-a-vis the US, and has a much better record w.r.t. the treatment of its own citizens. If you don't see why that makes all the world's difference, I'd be baffeled.
