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It also was a powerful factor in forcing the early revolutionaries to adopt a militarized war-footing whose impetus never quite subsided. Turns out when you bui

It also was a powerful factor in forcing the early revolutionaries to adopt a militarized war-footing whose impetus never quite subsided. Turns out when you build a society from scratch and have to spend most of your time solving military problems, you eventually run your entire society like a military.

arethuza 9y ago
The failure to appreciate how paranoid and scared the Soviets were almost started a nuclear war in 1983 with the Able Archer debacle - at least Reagan realised that the "Evil Empire" rhetoric was a mistake and calmed things down. [NB I'm not trying to defend the Soviets, who were a thoroughly unpleasant bunch, but the colossal failure to understand their motivations and just how one side the Cold War was for most of the time almost ended things.]
- cmdkeen 9y ago
  While we may like to think of the Western intelligence agencies as all knowing for large periods throughout the Cold War they were essentially blind as to the inner working / thinking of the USSR. The occasional defectors or agents who could bring understanding are significant because of their scarcity. The West had many reasons to believe the USSR was stronger than it was, hawks on the right wanted to believe it, fellow travellers on the left wanted to believe it, the Russian political system wanted to believe it (and lied to itself repeatedly).
  - arethuza 9y ago
    The "Bomber Gap" and "Missile Gap" were known to be fiction pretty much at the time but for partisan political purposes nobody could actually be seen to publicly acknowledge how small the threat was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap
vkou 9y ago
> It also was a powerful factor in forcing the early revolutionaries to adopt a militarized war-footing whose impetus never quite subsided. I wouldn't agree with that - I think the Civil war, and the subsequent domestic uprisings were that impetus. Outside of the Second World War, most of the fighting the Red Army did was against its own people.
- danharaj 9y ago
  > Outside of the Second World War That is a whole lot of fighting to leave out. In any case, these things compound. Immediately after WW2, the USSR still felt threatened by the West, which was not an unfounded fear. Multigenerational paranoia about being invaded by more powerful nations is precisely the kind of thing that damages institutions to the point where they no longer serve any purpose but preserving themselves.
tomohawk 9y ago
It was always the plan of the Marxists to grab all the power and run a dictatorship. They supposed they needed that to reeducate the masses and change society. Then, they ended up doing what every dictatorship ends up doing. In the end, 100 million people died. If your ideas require you to impose a dictatorship to implement them, then maybe they're not such good ideas.
- danharaj 9y ago
  I suggest you actually diligently check the sources for the suspect claims that 100 million people died under Communism. Under the accounting methods used, capitalist systems of government would dwarf that number. Of course, uneven standards are par for the course. > It was always the plan of the Marxists to grab all the power and run a dictatorship. "The Marxists". Do you know how many groups participated in the Russian civil war, how many of them considered themselves Marxists, and how many of them were purged by the sole political entity that seized power? Since you uncritically cited that 100 million figure, I'm going to guess no.
  - logicchains 9y ago
    As an example just in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Famine_deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Famine_deat..., due to economic mismanagement. I'd be interested to see any sources showing a similar number of deaths under a capitalist government, which I suspect would be hard as capitalist governments by definition don't exercise complete centralised control over the country's economic production.
    - jahaja 9y ago
      > I'd be interested to see any sources showing a similar number of deaths under a capitalist government Have you ever tried yourself? It's not a very hard thing to start to compile. The problem here is ideological though. Everything that would be added to the capitalism list would be rationalized away even if it uses the same measurement stick.

arethuza 9y ago

The failure to appreciate how paranoid and scared the Soviets were almost started a nuclear war in 1983 with the Able Archer debacle - at least Reagan realised that the "Evil Empire" rhetoric was a mistake and calmed things down. [NB I'm not trying to defend the Soviets, who were a thoroughly unpleasant bunch, but the colossal failure to understand their motivations and just how one side the Cold War was for most of the time almost ended things.]

cmdkeen 9y ago
While we may like to think of the Western intelligence agencies as all knowing for large periods throughout the Cold War they were essentially blind as to the inner working / thinking of the USSR. The occasional defectors or agents who could bring understanding are significant because of their scarcity. The West had many reasons to believe the USSR was stronger than it was, hawks on the right wanted to believe it, fellow travellers on the left wanted to believe it, the Russian political system wanted to believe it (and lied to itself repeatedly).
- arethuza 9y ago
  The "Bomber Gap" and "Missile Gap" were known to be fiction pretty much at the time but for partisan political purposes nobody could actually be seen to publicly acknowledge how small the threat was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap

vkou 9y ago

> It also was a powerful factor in forcing the early revolutionaries to adopt a militarized war-footing whose impetus never quite subsided. I wouldn't agree with that - I think the Civil war, and the subsequent domestic uprisings were that impetus. Outside of the Second World War, most of the fighting the Red Army did was against its own people.

danharaj 9y ago
> Outside of the Second World War That is a whole lot of fighting to leave out. In any case, these things compound. Immediately after WW2, the USSR still felt threatened by the West, which was not an unfounded fear. Multigenerational paranoia about being invaded by more powerful nations is precisely the kind of thing that damages institutions to the point where they no longer serve any purpose but preserving themselves.

tomohawk 9y ago

It was always the plan of the Marxists to grab all the power and run a dictatorship. They supposed they needed that to reeducate the masses and change society. Then, they ended up doing what every dictatorship ends up doing. In the end, 100 million people died. If your ideas require you to impose a dictatorship to implement them, then maybe they're not such good ideas.

danharaj 9y ago
I suggest you actually diligently check the sources for the suspect claims that 100 million people died under Communism. Under the accounting methods used, capitalist systems of government would dwarf that number. Of course, uneven standards are par for the course. > It was always the plan of the Marxists to grab all the power and run a dictatorship. "The Marxists". Do you know how many groups participated in the Russian civil war, how many of them considered themselves Marxists, and how many of them were purged by the sole political entity that seized power? Since you uncritically cited that 100 million figure, I'm going to guess no.
- logicchains 9y ago
  As an example just in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Famine_deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Famine_deat..., due to economic mismanagement. I'd be interested to see any sources showing a similar number of deaths under a capitalist government, which I suspect would be hard as capitalist governments by definition don't exercise complete centralised control over the country's economic production.
  - jahaja 9y ago
    > I'd be interested to see any sources showing a similar number of deaths under a capitalist government Have you ever tried yourself? It's not a very hard thing to start to compile. The problem here is ideological though. Everything that would be added to the capitalism list would be rationalized away even if it uses the same measurement stick.