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Comment by l332mn | Hacker News Reader

Over a 100 years ago this was part of Lenins analysis of capitalism, and the closely connected aspect of imperialism, both military and economic. This is not new, it has been a central part of a Marxist (in particular Marxism Leninism) understanding of the world in its economic expression long before it became obvious to Eisenhower.

The value of that money is the continued global class oppression by the international financial bourgeoisie, and the US-lead western hegemony.

The Afghanistan stalemate served several purposes as I see it.

1) To funnel money to the military industrial complex.

2) To contain China's Belt and Road initiative.

3) To maintain an active military presence in oil producing regions in order to dominate and control trade and to ensure supply (same for Iraq and Libya).

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If only Brezhnev had listened. Or were you talking about the American invasion?

America's invasion. BRI wasn't a thing back then. Also, the USSR was invited by the Afghanistan government to contain a rebellion, it wasn't an aggressive (imperialist) invasion.

My comment was sarcastic. Your points about the imperialist "Afghanistan stalemate" fit the Soviets equally well with only minor modifications.

How? The planned economic system of USSR means that wartime production is a net economic loss serving no financial purpose. In contrast with the capitalist system, where war serves as a basis for the transfer of capital to the war profiteers, i.e. the national bourgeoisie. The comparison is invalid.

The power dynamics are identical.

I think you'd have to be quite naive to maintain that the USSR didn't have its local equivalent of a bourgeoisie. Or that a nominally Marxist economy like North Korea isn't really a dynastic monarchy hiding behind Marxist iconography.

The USSR did not have a bourgeoisie nor a "local equivalent" thereof.

I found this relevant question on Quora that had some pretty good answers: https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-social-classes-in-Soviet...

A lot of people have opinions on the class structure in the USSR. What is common to most of these people is that they don't understand or use Marx's conception of class, and instead use their own intuitions based off a liberal perspective, and often confusing state function with private power. The USSR was not classless, but it did not have a ruling bourgeoisie-like class (although bourgeois ideology lay latent in society).

>The planned economic system of USSR means that wartime production is a net economic loss serving no financial purpose.

It's a net loss under capitalist systems, too. Both systems can and do commit huge amounts of resources to pointless, destructive forever-wars. The political/military/security bureacracy of the USSR watched out for its own interests and sought ways to justify its own existence just as the military-industrial complex does in the USA.

The Soviet invasion enriched fewer bureacrats, but it also (compared to the NATO invasion) killed 10x more civilians and 3x more invaders in half the time, so in that sense I suppose we can say it was more efficient.

> Both systems can and do commit huge amounts of resources to pointless, destructive forever-wars.

Only in capitalist systems is this a process of enrichment of the ruling class. The transfer of wealth in the US to the richest % on the basis of war has been immense. They're not pointless geopolitically either, since it serves to stifle and subjugate foreign governments into US alignment to support western predatory and exploitative economic policies (enforcing predatory loans and commanding oil trade). Hence aggressive imperialism combines several aspects of maintaining economic and military hegemony.

> invited by the Afghanistan government

A government which was installed through a communist sponsored coup anyways

A government which the Soviets then immediately and violently overthrew:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War#Red_...

>On 27 December 1979, 700 Soviet troops dressed in Afghan uniforms, including KGB and GRU special forces officers from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target, the Tajbeg Palace. The operation began at 19:00, when the KGB-led Soviet Zenith Group destroyed Kabul's communications hub, paralyzing Afghan military command. At 19:15, the assault on Tajbeg Palace began; as planned, General Secretary Hafizullah Amin was killed. Simultaneously, other objectives were occupied (e.g., the Ministry of Interior at 19:15). The operation was fully complete by the morning of 28 December 1979.

So yes, moreover than that then. It was a commie coup, followed by another commie coup, followed by a full blown invasion.

Funny fact, a lot of Taliban oldtimers are in fact former radical Marxists, and Maoists.

>>>Also, the USSR was invited by the Afghanistan government to contain a rebellion, it wasn't an aggressive (imperialist) invasion.

Another way to articulate that moment in history: "the USSR was disappointed with the main strongman in their puppet regime so they sent their best operators to murder him in the night".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm-333

Afghanistan and the USSR were on good terms, and had signed a treaty which included military assistance. The USSR was called upon to assist Afghanistan to contain uprisings. However, only after the Soviet-friendly leader of Afghanistan was assassinated by his own party members, did they intervene.

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