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We didn't win the ideological battle against communism through liberal democratic means. That's a common misconception. The war against communism was fought and

We didn't win the ideological battle against communism through liberal democratic means. That's a common misconception. The war against communism was fought and won with violence. Sometimes this violence was meted out directly by the US (in the case of Vietnam (about 0.5 million civilian casualties), North Korea (1 million), Cambodia (150k)), and in a lot of cases by local militias armed and trained by the US (Indonesia 0.5M dead, the Chile coup leading to Pinochet being in power). The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented. Heck, we even armed and trained Bin Laden in the fight against communism! Maybe within the US itself it was fought with liberal democratic means (although, McCarthyism is a thing), most of the world by population had to be convinced violently. That isn't to say that all communists were all nice and peaceful like the ones in Chile and Indonesia; Pol Pot and Stalin need no introduction. But to say we won the war with words and ideas dismisses the suffering and pain of millions as non-existent. And no matter where you stand on the debate, that's a bit disrespectful.

ngcazz 2y ago
Manufacturing Consent defines anti-communism as the US's national religion and a pillar of political power...
Jensson 2y ago
> The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented. This is nonsense, there are plenty of very leftist countries that USA didn't attack, so that provably wasn't the reason. Communism is first and foremost anti democratic and authoritarian in these countries, that is the main issue. If you take Sweden that was very close to going towards worker owned economy in the 80's USA didn't do anything to them, same with rest of Europe. Sweden since then became much more right wing and moved away from those ideas, but at the time it looked very likely.
- ah27182 2y ago
  The point the parent comment made still stands, why did the US fund so many coups/regime changes up until the modern day? Your answer as to why seems to be “communism is antidemocratic and authoritarian”. If that’s the case, why were so many Western backed regimes also antidemocratic and authoritarian?
  - Jensson 2y ago
    I don't know, I am not an expert, but I can say for sure it wasn't just "they did something left wing". My main point the attacks happened for some other reason, it could be more noble but could also be more ulterior like economic control etc. They aren't a raging lunatic that attacks anyone who tries to do left wing things, at worst they are a cold calculating evil villain that manipulates the world to their own benefit.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    American interventionism in the Cold War largely got started under Eisenhower. His administration’s policy could be best described as a reaction against Soviet moves (or perceived Soviet moves) in the countries affected. And so by engaging in regime change, the rationale was that this prevented that state from aligning with the Soviets. This seems to have worked in many cases but not in others, but I won’t get into the historical details here. The point is that lot of people seem to forget that the USSR wasn’t sitting at home, either, and was deliberately funding political actions around the world as a part of the Cold War. Whether that “justifies” US interventionism is a different question, but people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum.
    - ah27182 2y ago
      > people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum The Cold War ended more than 30 years ago, yet the same “interventionism” continues? This is isn’t ancient history, we fought two whole imperial wars since the with the same exact thought process without the USSR even existing anymore. I don’t deny that there was some kind of context to American imperialism and I have no interest in whitewashing what the Soviets were doing. But to say that these “interventions” were a purely defensive/reactionary measure against communism is silly, the US has a vested interest in protecting its hegemony control. It’s that simple.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  Name one.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    I did. Edit: Sweden started transitioning towards worker based ownership in the 80's, that is extremely leftist. Why did USA do nothing to stop them? Didn't even sanction them. > Wage Earner funds,[1] is a socialist version of sovereign wealth funds whereby the Swedish government taxed a proportion of company profits and put into special funds charged to buy shares in listed Swedish companies, with the goal of gradually transferring ownership in medium to large companies from private to collective employee ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds So there, clear proof USA didn't mindlessly commit hostilities against any country doing anything leftist. So you were just wrong here.
ozgrakkurt 2y ago
It is kind of funny how delusional western people are on these subjects. This is similar to reading books on economic success by western people, they go through 50 hoops to explain why africa is doing bad but don’t mention the slaughter, exploitation etc. Those countries suffered and how it made first world countries even richer. It just seems like the stronger crush the weak and write the history always, the most obvious and undeniable example is israel situation
- Jensson 2y ago
  > they go through 50 hoops to explain why africa is doing bad Africa were doing bad before white people intervened, answering why isn't trivial at all. They did trade over Sahara, technological advancement and knowledge was there but Africa didn't manage to take advantage of it unlike the Arabs, Asians and Europeans.
keiferski 2y ago
Almost all of the American military actions you mentioned were in response to Soviet or communist actions. In no way were they just the American government being violent for the sake of it. Maybe you think that America and allies should have just stepped aside and let communist armies capture the various states, but geopolitics in real life is a little more complex than that.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  Indonesia's communist party was a social democrat one. They never armed themselves. Allende was democratically elected, no armed struggle from his end. I'm not claiming that what America did was right or wrong. Sometimes violence is the right answer, maybe here too. But to pretend that we won the ideological battle through conversation and ideas is just factually false.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I didn’t claim that the West won through conversation and ideas, I pretty much said the opposite.
    - wesselbindt 2y ago
      Ah sorry, I always make the assumption I'm talking to parent comments. Parent comment is claiming the cold war was won through liberal democratic means. I claim that the tools employed by the US were violent incursions. I'm not claiming the US was violent for violence's sake. They were calculated actions with the intent of smothering any left leaning movement in the third world. Specifically the Indonesian case is egregious because their communist party was about as left wing as Bernie Sanders, and still a US-backed genocide was carried out against (suspected) leftists in Indonesia. Similar with the case in Chile. This was a democratically elected center left president, and the US-backed coup installed a violent dictatorship for the next 15 years.
      - keiferski 2y ago
        No problem; and yes I think the best way to look at the Cold War is via the game theory approach of two powers battling each other. Each of them had ideologies that were integral to their actions, but not exclusively so, and they acted in ways contrary to those ideologies if it was deemed necessary in a realpolitik sense - which usually meant because the country in question was going to be influenced by the other player.
enugu 2y ago
It is not clear that the wars you cited, especially Vietnam, were necessary to fight and defeat communism, anymore than the Iraq was needed to reduce WMDs. This might be the reason for the wars given by the government, even a sincerely held position, but that is not to say that it is correct. Having a better economic system relative to communism, diplomacy with China to part ways from USSR - these seem more important. That great violence unleashed in various wars wasn't actually necessary for realizing the goals of the countries involved is a very important history lesson which can prevent future violence. (Similarly, one of the motivations for World Wars - who gets control of the colonies, seems futile in hindsight as the system of colonies was anyway dismantled.)
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  > It is not clear that the wars you cited, especially Vietnam, were necessary to fight and defeat communism But that's not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that they were a big part of America's toolkit in the cold war. To say that we won the battle through liberal democratic means is absolutely false. We toppled democratically elected left leaning governments time and again. Democracy was neither our means nor our end.
  - enugu 2y ago
    US did X is different from saying US defeated communism by doing X. I am not disputing the former and indeed there were terrible actions including bombing of civilians, and the removal of elected governments. But that is not to say that X was the cause of victory. For too many cases, it actually lead to a backlash with regimes which were not friendly to US interests coming to power(Iran, Vietnam,..). Also, the USSR did similar acts (Hungary, Afghanistan) but could not win. That the US prevailed owes a lot to its economic dynamism relative to USSR. (As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric.)
    - Jensson 2y ago
      > As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric That isn't true, taxes has remained constant since ww2. The tax distribution might have changed, but the total amount collected hasn't changed much. Can see the curve looks about the same as always. The marginal tax rate barely matters for total taxes collected since there are so few rich people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law
deah12 2y ago
Lol no, the US won the battle by not collapsing in on itself. The Soviet model was on its own timer from the start. China has a decent amount of structural issues, the US just has to hold on until they explode without exploding itself.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  You realize communism exists outside the Soviet union right? Closing your ears and eyes and loudly going "lalalala" doesn't make the violence and death the US inflicted on most of the third world (yes, 3rd, i.e., not the Soviet union) go away. Millions dead, and you're making light of it. You should be ashamed of yourself.

ngcazz 2y ago

Manufacturing Consent defines anti-communism as the US's national religion and a pillar of political power...

Jensson 2y ago

> The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented. This is nonsense, there are plenty of very leftist countries that USA didn't attack, so that provably wasn't the reason. Communism is first and foremost anti democratic and authoritarian in these countries, that is the main issue. If you take Sweden that was very close to going towards worker owned economy in the 80's USA didn't do anything to them, same with rest of Europe. Sweden since then became much more right wing and moved away from those ideas, but at the time it looked very likely.

ah27182 2y ago
The point the parent comment made still stands, why did the US fund so many coups/regime changes up until the modern day? Your answer as to why seems to be “communism is antidemocratic and authoritarian”. If that’s the case, why were so many Western backed regimes also antidemocratic and authoritarian?
- Jensson 2y ago
  I don't know, I am not an expert, but I can say for sure it wasn't just "they did something left wing". My main point the attacks happened for some other reason, it could be more noble but could also be more ulterior like economic control etc. They aren't a raging lunatic that attacks anyone who tries to do left wing things, at worst they are a cold calculating evil villain that manipulates the world to their own benefit.
- keiferski 2y ago
  American interventionism in the Cold War largely got started under Eisenhower. His administration’s policy could be best described as a reaction against Soviet moves (or perceived Soviet moves) in the countries affected. And so by engaging in regime change, the rationale was that this prevented that state from aligning with the Soviets. This seems to have worked in many cases but not in others, but I won’t get into the historical details here. The point is that lot of people seem to forget that the USSR wasn’t sitting at home, either, and was deliberately funding political actions around the world as a part of the Cold War. Whether that “justifies” US interventionism is a different question, but people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum.
  - ah27182 2y ago
    > people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum The Cold War ended more than 30 years ago, yet the same “interventionism” continues? This is isn’t ancient history, we fought two whole imperial wars since the with the same exact thought process without the USSR even existing anymore. I don’t deny that there was some kind of context to American imperialism and I have no interest in whitewashing what the Soviets were doing. But to say that these “interventions” were a purely defensive/reactionary measure against communism is silly, the US has a vested interest in protecting its hegemony control. It’s that simple.
wesselbindt 2y ago
Name one.
- Jensson 2y ago
  I did. Edit: Sweden started transitioning towards worker based ownership in the 80's, that is extremely leftist. Why did USA do nothing to stop them? Didn't even sanction them. > Wage Earner funds,[1] is a socialist version of sovereign wealth funds whereby the Swedish government taxed a proportion of company profits and put into special funds charged to buy shares in listed Swedish companies, with the goal of gradually transferring ownership in medium to large companies from private to collective employee ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds So there, clear proof USA didn't mindlessly commit hostilities against any country doing anything leftist. So you were just wrong here.

ozgrakkurt 2y ago

It is kind of funny how delusional western people are on these subjects. This is similar to reading books on economic success by western people, they go through 50 hoops to explain why africa is doing bad but don’t mention the slaughter, exploitation etc. Those countries suffered and how it made first world countries even richer. It just seems like the stronger crush the weak and write the history always, the most obvious and undeniable example is israel situation

Jensson 2y ago
> they go through 50 hoops to explain why africa is doing bad Africa were doing bad before white people intervened, answering why isn't trivial at all. They did trade over Sahara, technological advancement and knowledge was there but Africa didn't manage to take advantage of it unlike the Arabs, Asians and Europeans.

keiferski 2y ago

Almost all of the American military actions you mentioned were in response to Soviet or communist actions. In no way were they just the American government being violent for the sake of it. Maybe you think that America and allies should have just stepped aside and let communist armies capture the various states, but geopolitics in real life is a little more complex than that.

wesselbindt 2y ago
Indonesia's communist party was a social democrat one. They never armed themselves. Allende was democratically elected, no armed struggle from his end. I'm not claiming that what America did was right or wrong. Sometimes violence is the right answer, maybe here too. But to pretend that we won the ideological battle through conversation and ideas is just factually false.
- keiferski 2y ago
  I didn’t claim that the West won through conversation and ideas, I pretty much said the opposite.
  - wesselbindt 2y ago
    Ah sorry, I always make the assumption I'm talking to parent comments. Parent comment is claiming the cold war was won through liberal democratic means. I claim that the tools employed by the US were violent incursions. I'm not claiming the US was violent for violence's sake. They were calculated actions with the intent of smothering any left leaning movement in the third world. Specifically the Indonesian case is egregious because their communist party was about as left wing as Bernie Sanders, and still a US-backed genocide was carried out against (suspected) leftists in Indonesia. Similar with the case in Chile. This was a democratically elected center left president, and the US-backed coup installed a violent dictatorship for the next 15 years.
    - keiferski 2y ago
      No problem; and yes I think the best way to look at the Cold War is via the game theory approach of two powers battling each other. Each of them had ideologies that were integral to their actions, but not exclusively so, and they acted in ways contrary to those ideologies if it was deemed necessary in a realpolitik sense - which usually meant because the country in question was going to be influenced by the other player.

enugu 2y ago

It is not clear that the wars you cited, especially Vietnam, were necessary to fight and defeat communism, anymore than the Iraq was needed to reduce WMDs. This might be the reason for the wars given by the government, even a sincerely held position, but that is not to say that it is correct. Having a better economic system relative to communism, diplomacy with China to part ways from USSR - these seem more important. That great violence unleashed in various wars wasn't actually necessary for realizing the goals of the countries involved is a very important history lesson which can prevent future violence. (Similarly, one of the motivations for World Wars - who gets control of the colonies, seems futile in hindsight as the system of colonies was anyway dismantled.)

wesselbindt 2y ago
> It is not clear that the wars you cited, especially Vietnam, were necessary to fight and defeat communism But that's not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that they were a big part of America's toolkit in the cold war. To say that we won the battle through liberal democratic means is absolutely false. We toppled democratically elected left leaning governments time and again. Democracy was neither our means nor our end.
- enugu 2y ago
  US did X is different from saying US defeated communism by doing X. I am not disputing the former and indeed there were terrible actions including bombing of civilians, and the removal of elected governments. But that is not to say that X was the cause of victory. For too many cases, it actually lead to a backlash with regimes which were not friendly to US interests coming to power(Iran, Vietnam,..). Also, the USSR did similar acts (Hungary, Afghanistan) but could not win. That the US prevailed owes a lot to its economic dynamism relative to USSR. (As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric.)
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric That isn't true, taxes has remained constant since ww2. The tax distribution might have changed, but the total amount collected hasn't changed much. Can see the curve looks about the same as always. The marginal tax rate barely matters for total taxes collected since there are so few rich people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law

deah12 2y ago

Lol no, the US won the battle by not collapsing in on itself. The Soviet model was on its own timer from the start. China has a decent amount of structural issues, the US just has to hold on until they explode without exploding itself.

wesselbindt 2y ago
You realize communism exists outside the Soviet union right? Closing your ears and eyes and loudly going "lalalala" doesn't make the violence and death the US inflicted on most of the third world (yes, 3rd, i.e., not the Soviet union) go away. Millions dead, and you're making light of it. You should be ashamed of yourself.