• David_Eight@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    What’s the difference between colonialism and what the USSR did in East Germany and Afghanistan?

    • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      Fucking unbelievable that you’d just leave out the fact that Germany was under literal Nazi rule. Unironically a Nazi sympathiser… East Germany thrived under USSR just so you know.

      There was no unequal exchange. Which is what Western Imperial powers do to countries that can’t fight back.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      Colonialism/neocolonialism/imperialism involves setting up a system of international plunder. The USSR did not do that.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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        6 days ago

        I would say it’s a little more complicated than that. Imo imperialism has to entail more than just a colonialist money grab. If we don’t acknowledge things like ethnic hierarchy and expansionism then there isn’t really a good term to describe the expansions of countries like Germany or japan during and before ww2. The same goes for the empirical expansion of the past.

        I especially don’t think west Germany would be an example of colonialism or imperialism, but I think you could argue with some degrees of success that imperialism happened in places like Kazakhstan during Soviet rule.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          It’s more complicated, but for someone trying to find out why the soviet union was different from the entirely imperialist west, it’s more than sufficient.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          The same as it was doing by helping national liberation movements in Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, and more: trying to spread socialism and weaken imperialism, which is what was holding the USSR in siege.

          • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Didn’t those counties welcomed help from the USSR and the countries I mentioned not. What your saying just sounds like a different flavor of “spreading democracy” to me.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              6 days ago

              Germany was governed by Nazis prior to the establishment of the GDR. In both countries, existing communist organizing existed, and like with other countries the USSR aided them. The key difference between the USSR spreading socialism and the US Empire “spreading democracy” is that the USSR really did spread socialism, while the US Empire instead spread death and destruction to plunder these countries.

              • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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                6 days ago

                The USSR spread socialism by force though, did the not? Weather your spreading democracy or socialism, using tanks and violence against an occupied people seems bad to me.

                Also, what about Afghanistan?

                • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
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                  6 days ago

                  Afghanistan was invaded by western powers multiple times and USSR actually respected Afghanistan and formed diplomatic relations. But of course we can’t have that so the US Empire through CIA funded terrorists to overthrow the government back in the 70s.

                  As usual it is your fucking projection that sees the USSR doing what your favourite western empire does.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  6 days ago

                  Spreading good things is good, spreading bad things under the guise of spreading good things is bad. The USSR said they were spreading socialism and actually did so, the US Empire claims it spreads democracy but actually spreads genocide and violence, in order to establish imperialist relations.

                  • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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                    6 days ago

                    Spreading anything by taking and maintaining control over a territory and its people is by definition, colonialism, is it not.

        • deathmetaldawgy@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          Read about literacy rates, poverty and life expectancy for starters. “Building hospitals and schools” is the answer to “so what was the ussr doing in those countries” lmao get better propaganda. The prop I choose to follow is atleast backed by LOTS of history.

          • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            I’m not following propaganda, I lived it. My family left the Eastern block looking for a better life. I was born in West Germany myself, my mother told me the reason for that was that she had a terrible time giving birth to my older brother back home.

            Hearing stories of life under Soviet control from all my family contradicts post I see here glorifying the USSR. I don’t understand why this contradiction exists, so I’m trying to ask people why they came to the conclusion that the USSR was good. And in particular here how occupying countries against their will is a good thing?

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlM
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      6 days ago

      They legitimately elected Afghan government asked the USSR to help in putting down a wahhabist revolt. The US unsurprisingly armed and funded the wahabbist women-hating reactionaries, just as they do locally with their evangelical movement.

      • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        So the majority of the Afghan people welcomed the Soviets into their country? If that’s true why was the Afghan government overthrown a few years after the Soviets left?

        • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          holy fuck Dessalines literally wrote what happened with the Afghan government and you still repeatedly hyper-focus on this question. You’ve been answered multiple times and yet you ignore everything