4 ms·

I mean the Soviet Union has been an expansionary empire from the start. It is a fact, as well as a convenient PR/propaganda point. First stopped by Poland and

I mean the Soviet Union has been an expansionary empire from the start. It is a fact, as well as a convenient PR/propaganda point. First stopped by Poland and West Ukraine in 1921, then deterred by Poland for about two decades. Next step was an expansionary deal with Nazi Germany which started WW2. Expansion continued after the American Lend Lease took off, and stopped at East Germany. Following years focused on Asia (Korea, Vietnam). Then there were military invasions of Hungary or Czechoslovakia, to reassert dominance. Finally it crumbled under the weight of system's own incredible incompetence. The re-born Putin's Russia continues expansion at almost any cost, first Georgia, now Ukraine. Shows no sign of stopping. Trying to compare that to things like NATO or SEATO, or even the post-WW2 occupation of Germany implies very poor knowledge of history. The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death millions of people. One million casualties is 10 Hiroshimas. The Soviet system, especially at the start, was so brutal that I believe most people in democratic countries can't really comprehend it without spending days or weeks studying the history. That's why some people can compare the two empires as somewhat equal and not feel shame at the same time. They were only somewhat equal in military strength, and nothing else.

kstenerud 3y ago
Yup. The West doesn't understand (and never has understood) the East. Even at the levers of power, it's often shocking how little people know. Russia understands this, which is why their propaganda is so effective. Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine have been warning the "West" for decades, to deaf ears. And still today, their warnings go unheeded.
- Enk1du 3y ago
  Funny that. In Farley Mowat's "Sibir" (1970), he reports a conversation with a Siberian Russian explaining the difference between the two superpowers like so "In the USSR, our propaganda is poor and we don't believe it at all. In America, your propaganda is very good ..." with the _and you believe it_ left for the listener to fill in. I suppose the culture of samizdat gives you a bit of perspective on controlling naratives.
  - pydry 3y ago
    Closed off societies don't need sophisticated propaganda because the competition is blocked off. One of the things that struck me about propaganda in North Korea was that it was incredibly unsophisticated. It was like watching 1950s adverts. Glasnost produced an opening for the most sophisticated western tactics to be applied in the Soviet Union and it was used to maximal effect. Russia has recognized the shortcomings and has adapted. Their propaganda is pretty much every bit as sophisticated as ours these days. Enough to cause Congress to have conniptions.
    - H8crilA 3y ago
      Today's Russian propaganda is entirely different from Soviet propaganda. It creates a depoliticized society by generating as many incompatible statements as they can and blasting that from every tube. This is a lot more advanced than western propaganda. Russia today is actually already "in the future", some of the patterns we can see in democracies are fully rolled out there. Tim Snyder often says that this is why Russia is interesting analytically. Soviet propaganda pretended that black is white, while Russian propaganda will essentially try to convince the listener that colors cannot be assigned to any object whatsoever.
      - mandmandam 3y ago
        > This is a lot more advanced than western propaganda. Friend, you've never heard of Chomsky. This isn't your field of expertise. Consider avoiding sweeping statements like that. Because they're very, very wrong. US propaganda is like the water a fish swims in, so that they don't recognize what wetness is.
        H8crilA 3y ago
        I mean I actually watch Russian propaganda, as well as various other propaganda sources. It's rather clear what they're doing, and fully consistent with citizen behavior. Remember how just a few days ago Wagner took control of a 1M city, and citizens didn't care whatsoever? The same patterns can be observed in the West, but to a much weaker degree. BTW, I'm not American in case this matters. One way to explain it is that institutions (universities, courts of law, scientific research, parliaments) are not trusted by some (growing) number of people here. In Russia nobody believes in any institutions whatsoever, for example if the FSB rackets your business and takes over your apartment, well that's just part of life (complete lack of belief in any justice system). Like they won't even try to resist in any way. Another way to explain the difference: there is no there there in modern Russian propaganda. It comes from absolutely nothing, no consistent philosophical system, no consistent policy, be it foreign or domestic, no consistent support or rejection of particular people or organizations. Should they lose the war then propaganda will just say that Ukraine is now denazified (if this term lasts that long), and will pretend like nothing bad happened, while on the next day will scream about how NATO is trying to kill Russia, then on the third day will pretend the topic doesn't exist, and so on and so on, without any pattern or rhythm.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  > The West doesn't understand (and never has understood) the East. I'm glad you brought that up. (Western) Russians look to be 'everything European' yet don't act like it. It wasn't until I watched this extended interview with Julia Ioffe on Frontline [0] did I go... this is brilliant! This finally made me understand that, no, they're not like us nor will they be. Her retelling was apt. Start watching at 32:37 [1] for the context of the quote. "[...] would be easier to understand Russians if they were just purple, because it was in fact confusing to Westerners, to Europeans and to Americans to deal with Russians who look European, who look white, and you expect them to act like Westerners like white Western Europeans, when in fact they are quite different and wired quite differently and have quite different cultural expectations and wiring [...]" I strongly suggest watching the entire interview (along with the rest of the Frontline interviews that don't make it into the show). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEu0oRajJxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEu0oRajJxE [1] https://youtu.be/qEu0oRajJxE?t=1957 https://youtu.be/qEu0oRajJxE?t=1957
woooooo 3y ago
Thank you, citizen, for staying on-topic! Would you like to know more?
- H8crilA 3y ago
  Yes.
dotsam 3y ago
Chomsky certainly can't fairly be accused of having a poor knowledge of history. I would recommend spending time to read the book in full if you haven't already. > The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death millions of people. I know your comment is in the context of more recent times, but we shouldn't overlook the fact that the US enslaved millions of people, not least because the effects are still playing out today.
- H8crilA 3y ago
  I don't know anything about him actually. People who know a lot about Russia never even mention his name, and I only heard rather stupid headlines associated with his name. So I won't bother spending time on this guy. There are actual experts on this topic in the US, such as Timothy Snyder.
  - fuy 3y ago
    I don't think Timothy Snyder himself would be glad to be a part of this ridiculous take.
- pookah 3y ago
  [dead]
chomskyole 3y ago
> The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death millions of people. If you believe this, you really need to start reading more books. Start with "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky. Let me give you an unsorted and quite limited selection of crimes against humanity conducted by the USA: - The US enslaved large amounts of people with the consequences still being enormously present. This one should be obvious. - The death toll in Iraq alone was 1m people for which the official explanation I believe is that they did a "whoopsie" because they thought there were WMD... - Let's also remember when the USA provided immunity to Japan's army of Mengeles, Unit 731 [1]. A really wild story. - Henry Kissinger is said to have killed 150,000 Cambodians. Of course that was in the context of the unforgivable Vietnam war. Some read up on Henry [2][3] - Here is a limited list of USA's involvement in regime change. Often these regime changes included democratically elected leaders like in Chile [4] - Torturing is also part of the USA's official policy program. Have a look at Guantanamo Bay [5] - The US also has a standing secret court whose secrecy provisions were recently protected by its Supreme Court [6][7] Start looking into this and you will find that you can go on and on. Now the last fact-let I want to share is that the US army has more funding than the next five largest nations combined. This is utterly crazy, yet confirmed on numerous occasions. This large budget naturally translates into the fact that the number of US military stations abroad is unmatched. Now please consider that US military stations abroad are near someone else's home. How would you feel if a militaristic foreign nation would have their military stations located around your home? Let alone a nation that has been at war nearly every year since it's inception... [8][9] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 [2] https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors/ https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia... [3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/09/henry-kissinger-birthday-reputation-foreign-policy/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/09/henry-kissinger-birthda... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... [7] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics/supreme-court-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics/supreme-court-fo... [8] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/usa-only-17-years-of-peace.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/usa-only-1... [9] https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
mlprtaf 3y ago
Certainly the Soviet Union was expansionist, but many of its top functionaries were not from Russia. Stalin and Kaganovich, responsible for the Holodomor, were from Georgia and Ukraine. Other leaders like Brezhnev were born in Ukraine or had ties to it. A Georgian woman alleges to be Putin's mother (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Putina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Putina) and looks quite similar on the Wikipedia photo.
- lisasays 3y ago
  Brezhnev considered himself Russian, as did Khrushchev. Kaganovich's background is more complex, but that's splitting hairs. What's more important is that, to a first order approximation -- the way the SU conducted itself geopolitically was as a continuation of the Russian empire. Including in particular the strategy of maintaining as many buffer / vassal states between itself and perceived competitors as possible. And as holiday resorts, etc. Which is of course basically Putin's strategy, and his prime motivation for subjugating / neutralizing Ukraine as well.
natpalmer1776 3y ago
The comment you’re replying to just used this issue as an example from a book to emphasize a point on propaganda framing public discourse, not necessarily arguing that the framing of this particular issue was in any way incorrect. Sometimes (usually) propaganda is necessary to get the general public to reach the correct conclusions and ask the right questions, so whether the framing of this issue was right or wrong isn’t necessarily being contested as unethical or wrong, merely highlighted as a well known case study of this method of propaganda.

kstenerud 3y ago

Yup. The West doesn't understand (and never has understood) the East. Even at the levers of power, it's often shocking how little people know. Russia understands this, which is why their propaganda is so effective. Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine have been warning the "West" for decades, to deaf ears. And still today, their warnings go unheeded.

Enk1du 3y ago
Funny that. In Farley Mowat's "Sibir" (1970), he reports a conversation with a Siberian Russian explaining the difference between the two superpowers like so "In the USSR, our propaganda is poor and we don't believe it at all. In America, your propaganda is very good ..." with the _and you believe it_ left for the listener to fill in. I suppose the culture of samizdat gives you a bit of perspective on controlling naratives.
- pydry 3y ago
  Closed off societies don't need sophisticated propaganda because the competition is blocked off. One of the things that struck me about propaganda in North Korea was that it was incredibly unsophisticated. It was like watching 1950s adverts. Glasnost produced an opening for the most sophisticated western tactics to be applied in the Soviet Union and it was used to maximal effect. Russia has recognized the shortcomings and has adapted. Their propaganda is pretty much every bit as sophisticated as ours these days. Enough to cause Congress to have conniptions.
  - H8crilA 3y ago
    Today's Russian propaganda is entirely different from Soviet propaganda. It creates a depoliticized society by generating as many incompatible statements as they can and blasting that from every tube. This is a lot more advanced than western propaganda. Russia today is actually already "in the future", some of the patterns we can see in democracies are fully rolled out there. Tim Snyder often says that this is why Russia is interesting analytically. Soviet propaganda pretended that black is white, while Russian propaganda will essentially try to convince the listener that colors cannot be assigned to any object whatsoever.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      > This is a lot more advanced than western propaganda. Friend, you've never heard of Chomsky. This isn't your field of expertise. Consider avoiding sweeping statements like that. Because they're very, very wrong. US propaganda is like the water a fish swims in, so that they don't recognize what wetness is.
      - H8crilA 3y ago
        I mean I actually watch Russian propaganda, as well as various other propaganda sources. It's rather clear what they're doing, and fully consistent with citizen behavior. Remember how just a few days ago Wagner took control of a 1M city, and citizens didn't care whatsoever? The same patterns can be observed in the West, but to a much weaker degree. BTW, I'm not American in case this matters. One way to explain it is that institutions (universities, courts of law, scientific research, parliaments) are not trusted by some (growing) number of people here. In Russia nobody believes in any institutions whatsoever, for example if the FSB rackets your business and takes over your apartment, well that's just part of life (complete lack of belief in any justice system). Like they won't even try to resist in any way. Another way to explain the difference: there is no there there in modern Russian propaganda. It comes from absolutely nothing, no consistent philosophical system, no consistent policy, be it foreign or domestic, no consistent support or rejection of particular people or organizations. Should they lose the war then propaganda will just say that Ukraine is now denazified (if this term lasts that long), and will pretend like nothing bad happened, while on the next day will scream about how NATO is trying to kill Russia, then on the third day will pretend the topic doesn't exist, and so on and so on, without any pattern or rhythm.
nullindividual 3y ago
> The West doesn't understand (and never has understood) the East. I'm glad you brought that up. (Western) Russians look to be 'everything European' yet don't act like it. It wasn't until I watched this extended interview with Julia Ioffe on Frontline [0] did I go... this is brilliant! This finally made me understand that, no, they're not like us nor will they be. Her retelling was apt. Start watching at 32:37 [1] for the context of the quote. "[...] would be easier to understand Russians if they were just purple, because it was in fact confusing to Westerners, to Europeans and to Americans to deal with Russians who look European, who look white, and you expect them to act like Westerners like white Western Europeans, when in fact they are quite different and wired quite differently and have quite different cultural expectations and wiring [...]" I strongly suggest watching the entire interview (along with the rest of the Frontline interviews that don't make it into the show). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEu0oRajJxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEu0oRajJxE [1] https://youtu.be/qEu0oRajJxE?t=1957 https://youtu.be/qEu0oRajJxE?t=1957

woooooo 3y ago

Thank you, citizen, for staying on-topic! Would you like to know more?

H8crilA 3y ago
Yes.

dotsam 3y ago

Chomsky certainly can't fairly be accused of having a poor knowledge of history. I would recommend spending time to read the book in full if you haven't already. > The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death millions of people. I know your comment is in the context of more recent times, but we shouldn't overlook the fact that the US enslaved millions of people, not least because the effects are still playing out today.

H8crilA 3y ago
I don't know anything about him actually. People who know a lot about Russia never even mention his name, and I only heard rather stupid headlines associated with his name. So I won't bother spending time on this guy. There are actual experts on this topic in the US, such as Timothy Snyder.
- fuy 3y ago
  I don't think Timothy Snyder himself would be glad to be a part of this ridiculous take.
pookah 3y ago
[dead]

chomskyole 3y ago

> The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death millions of people. If you believe this, you really need to start reading more books. Start with "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky. Let me give you an unsorted and quite limited selection of crimes against humanity conducted by the USA: - The US enslaved large amounts of people with the consequences still being enormously present. This one should be obvious. - The death toll in Iraq alone was 1m people for which the official explanation I believe is that they did a "whoopsie" because they thought there were WMD... - Let's also remember when the USA provided immunity to Japan's army of Mengeles, Unit 731 [1]. A really wild story. - Henry Kissinger is said to have killed 150,000 Cambodians. Of course that was in the context of the unforgivable Vietnam war. Some read up on Henry [2][3] - Here is a limited list of USA's involvement in regime change. Often these regime changes included democratically elected leaders like in Chile [4] - Torturing is also part of the USA's official policy program. Have a look at Guantanamo Bay [5] - The US also has a standing secret court whose secrecy provisions were recently protected by its Supreme Court [6][7] Start looking into this and you will find that you can go on and on. Now the last fact-let I want to share is that the US army has more funding than the next five largest nations combined. This is utterly crazy, yet confirmed on numerous occasions. This large budget naturally translates into the fact that the number of US military stations abroad is unmatched. Now please consider that US military stations abroad are near someone else's home. How would you feel if a militaristic foreign nation would have their military stations located around your home? Let alone a nation that has been at war nearly every year since it's inception... [8][9] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 [2] https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors/ https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia... [3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/09/henry-kissinger-birthday-reputation-foreign-policy/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/09/henry-kissinger-birthda... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... [7] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics/supreme-court-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics/supreme-court-fo... [8] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/usa-only-17-years-of-peace.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/usa-only-1... [9] https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473

mlprtaf 3y ago

Certainly the Soviet Union was expansionist, but many of its top functionaries were not from Russia. Stalin and Kaganovich, responsible for the Holodomor, were from Georgia and Ukraine. Other leaders like Brezhnev were born in Ukraine or had ties to it. A Georgian woman alleges to be Putin's mother (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Putina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Putina) and looks quite similar on the Wikipedia photo.

lisasays 3y ago
Brezhnev considered himself Russian, as did Khrushchev. Kaganovich's background is more complex, but that's splitting hairs. What's more important is that, to a first order approximation -- the way the SU conducted itself geopolitically was as a continuation of the Russian empire. Including in particular the strategy of maintaining as many buffer / vassal states between itself and perceived competitors as possible. And as holiday resorts, etc. Which is of course basically Putin's strategy, and his prime motivation for subjugating / neutralizing Ukraine as well.

natpalmer1776 3y ago

The comment you’re replying to just used this issue as an example from a book to emphasize a point on propaganda framing public discourse, not necessarily arguing that the framing of this particular issue was in any way incorrect. Sometimes (usually) propaganda is necessary to get the general public to reach the correct conclusions and ask the right questions, so whether the framing of this issue was right or wrong isn’t necessarily being contested as unethical or wrong, merely highlighted as a well known case study of this method of propaganda.