What Is To Be Done? The book that helped spark the Russian Revolution
onepercentrule.substack.com
onepercentrule.substack.com
The whole novel is great, but Chapter 5 (the biography) is a beautiful introduction to possibly the worst writer in all of Russian literature.
American professor Mearsheimer has interesting interviews with Dugin discussing foreign policy and US-RU relations
They could be, but, you know, priorities.
Without going into deeply detailed arguments for why, they essentially threw these large, geographically and socially rich countries back by decades from levels of wealth and power that they could have achieved much earlier to become stronger rivals for dominance before was actually the case in modern history.
The USSR did eventually industrialize itself into a major military and economic power under Stalin, but only at grotesque cost in human lives, resources and efficiency that first had to overcome the vast destruction that had happened between 1917 and 1933 or so. The Nazi invasion didn't help after that but the communist system had already done considerable damage by itself.
When Russia embraced capitalism, they become a shadow of what they once where, and the main threat to West hegemony is now a socialist country that managed to retain and adapt their communist path to the change of times.
This is confirmed by the western actions, that always resort to violence to prevent marxist parties to have influence in any country and create strong economic sieges against the ones that succeed, instead of encouraging them.
However, during this prolonged period of industrialized communist administration, it slowly hollowed itself out until (without taking a more market oriented path, regardless of what political system it maintained), the USSR was a shell masquerading as a powerful force, leading to its economic collapse. The country could have maintained the communist facade and authoritarian government, while streamlining internally through capitalistic mechanisms, but it didn't before simply dissolving, and thus the sheer poverty that it had brought itself to, absent real economic reforms, was laid bare by the end of the 1980's.
Had the Russian Empire simply maintained the pseudo-capitalistic system under authoritarian rule that was the case under the czars, or even embraced the progressive liberal socialist (but partly capitalist) system that it was starting to develop between the February 1917 revolution and the Bolshevik coup of late 1917, Russia could have grown enormously and early as both an economic and political power in a way that would have made it into a very strong power indeed leading up to the 21st century.
It was soviet communism that slowly destroyed it, but first it did make it stronger through the sheer brute force of command industrialization and militarization at all costs, these mainly being huge and completely unsustainable costs in resources, sound economic practice and human life. This industrialized strengthening under a communist command economy was not at all sustainable for the long run in the case of the USSR. It had no choice but to either rot and collapse, or reform into a guided authoritarian market economy as happened in China (coming to that momentarily)
The chaotic lunacy of post-1991 Russia had little to do with any sort of functional, organized market system. It was instead closer to a stateless anarchy with a minimal, dysfunctional facade of a working central government riding on top of it. It was only after consolidation of administrative control under Putin that Russia started to redevelop economically, though still very imperfectly because under Putin too, things remain deeply corrupt, often poorly administered, though more functional and closely controlled by central authority than they were under Yeltsin.
In the case of China, it only became a truly serious competitor to U.S. dominance once it started embracing market economics and completely abandoning centralized, command economy communism as of the 1980's. Prior to that, with the exception of a very big army and possession of the nuclear bomb (produced also at huge human cost), it was in most ways a very backward, clumsy power, albeit one with enough sheer weight to have at least some regional push.
Modern China is by far closer to a fascist, authoritarian capitalist economy than a country following anything resembling a communist path. In other words, it has more in common with the Nationalist system envisioned (but very, very ineptly implemented) by Chiang Kai Shek than with anything that the Marxist Chairman Mao had in mind. If the ghosts of both men are by chance wandering the landscape of modern China, I think it would be Chiang who you'd find nodding in approval much more often than Mao.
Ironic really, but definitely not a case of capitalism weakening political power.
* The west is very afraid when a competitor follows Marxism. It is something that it tries to avoid at all costs, and employs the maximum violence to prevent any country to become communist. A country becoming fascist? Not a big deal. Religious fanatics is taking the power? Well, the west helped a lot of them in the past and in the present. But becoming communist? This never is allowed.
* The only time that western hegemony was threatened by non-western countries in modern times, they followed a variation of Marxism with revolutionary origin.
These two facts are completely at odds with your explanation.
You defend that Marxism was detrimental to the development of the countries. Of course, everyone agrees, even Marxists, that the years following a revolution are very hard and it takes time to recover, both because of the internal struggle, and because the western countries launch a violent offensive trying to destroy by military force the revolution. And yet, even with this problem, no non-western country ever was able to threaten western hegemony, except after adopting Marxist theory. And several of them tried.
Russia was a feudal country at the time of revolution. It was in the past considered a traditional and powerful country, but at the time they had become very backward country, with feudal serfdom and very little industries. This can be seen in how humiliatingly they lost a war with Japan. Japan, and all European countries were much more modern than Russia. And after revolution, in some decades, they were sending satellites to space, spaceships to the moon, before all other countries, even USA. This is a fact. You can use the "No true Scotsman" argument, saying that they are not capitalist enough, and this explains why they are a shadow of their past. But when they were more capitalist? At that time in the past, when they were doing huge leaps and developing at astonishing speed or nowadays?
You talk a lot about "huge human costs". You are aware that capitalism genocided an entire continent to develop, right? And after this, for a long time, we had first slavery, then brutal colonialism, followed by great war between capitalist powers disputing colonies and markets... I do not know any other system that had a so high human cost.
Moreover,having markets it is not at odds with Marxism and communism. Even Lenin tried to develop some form of marked based on cooperatives in USSR. True communist cannot succeed isolated in a capitalist world anyway. In my definition, what defines a country as socialist, (or "communist" using the naming more common in USA) is which is the dominant class. The bourgeoisie in China indeed have power and is taken into account, but I do not think that the country is ruled by bourgeoisie and the capital, like in capitalist countries. But I know that this is a polemic opinion. Anyway, they still have five-year plans and centralize long-term decisions. And indeed, they are being successful into achieving their long-term centralized goals.
In any case, the best we can do is to have a look at the countries that adopted Communism (the Eastern bloc) and compare them with their neighbors that didn't (have to). From that perspective, the answer is clear.
OTOH, if instead of Stalin Russia had a wise ruler, if instead of a police state it allowed people to explore various ideas and develop them, I bet we could see some very interesting results.
Regarding this: "the best we can do is to have a look at the countries that adopted Communism (the Eastern bloc) and compare them with their neighbors that didn't (have to)"
This does feel like an informative perspective. I suppose it assumes that Eastern bloc countries would be left to their own devices in the absence of the Lenin/Stalin USSR, which may be fairly safe to assume.
Like Lenin? I mean - yeah, he was an intellectual. He was also the one who in his letters and written orders expressed the will to terrorise and kill more people than some can imagine.
PS: just trying to point out that people sometimes confuse smart\intellectual people and something magical like "good" people.
Besides, Russia is "winning" Western elections, and who doesn't like to be on the winning team.
Finland and Sweden voted to join NATO; Europe re-arms. Trump may not be pro-Ukraine, but his energy policy will wreck Russia's oil-dependent pocketbook while his China and Iran strategies will also hurt Moscow. Russia's other potential pillar, arms sales, is having its reputation trashed as the world watches 90s-era Western kit take out its "cutting edge" hardware.
Add to that the declining population and it's difficult to see the Russian nation continuing in its present form for more than a few generations. Maybe we'll see an independent Chechnya or even Siberia [1] in our lifetimes.
They seem to be pretty successful in sowing discord overseas with their propaganda but it's not getting them much in the long run. Their domestic problems are the biggest thing killing them and hosing the rest of the world down with bullshit won't help them there.
Russia's elites don't care about this either. They want to be rich and will support anyone in charge who lets them be.
Anna Politkovskaya was an anti Putin writer, also killed by poisoning.
Kasparov is fairly close. "Although I'm half-Armenian, half-Jewish, I consider myself Russian because Russian is my native tongue, and I grew up with Russian culture." He's written a well reviewed book and not been killed just yet. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Coming-Vladimir-Enemies-Stop...
Tsar Nicholas II made an unforced error.
Russia was in a war (World War I) and 1905 was already a rebellious year in Russia. It was idiocy to keep 100k forcibly conscripted peasants in the capital. His minister warned Nicolas that it was dangerous but he did not listen. Those troops were very unhappy peasants waiting to be sent to their deaths and communists and others had easy time to convince them to do something else than die.
Vladimir Putin is unlikely to make the same error.
Putin made almost the exact same mistake with Prighozin.
Prighozhin was 1000km away from Moscow and was allowed some freedome only thanks to some limited support of a fraction of population, mostly what you'd call "rednecks".
One call and he had stopped the theatrics. And was zeroed two months later.
Substitute peasants with prisoners and a straight shot to Moscow versus already in and you've got the same situation. Putin didn't have enough materiel between Moscow and Prighozin to keep the fight from getting to Moscow.
Hence why I said "Putin didn't have enough materiel between Moscow and Prighozin to keep the fight from getting to Moscow." Prighozin couldn't have unilaterally seized Moscow. But he could have brought the fight to it. At that point, a new set of political calculations--ones I'm not qualified to speculate about--come into play.
Putin can be toppled, but it will be just rearrangement among powerful groups. There is no change of popular rebellion or intellectuals pushing change in Russia.
1000km vs already in, right.
>Putin didn't have enough materiel between Moscow and Prighozin to keep the fight from getting to Moscow.
Putin had at least 600k military personnel around the country at the time (200k even if we take into the account that a good part of this number are paperworkers and such). Not to mention all kinds of police, special units etc.
This was a political problem for him (using your own military against Prighozhin would at least make him look week or even illegitimate at the time). Not a "technical".
He's in a much-stronger position than the Tsar was. The peasants in Moscow were the proximate cause of the Tsar's fall, but it wasn't the ultimate one.
At which point a monarchy makes sense.
Dictatorships are unstable. They tie the fate of an immortal nation to the mortal whims and needs of a man. We came up with monarchy as a solution to this problem, and then swept it away when the modern republic was invented.
But republics aren't for everyone. Democracy requires compromise, and staring the uncertain and unknowable honestly in the eye. It may be high time that we admit that some populations prefer the certainty of autocracy. And within the domain of autocracy, the time-tested model is heridatory constitutional monarchy.
The biggest strength of autocracy is the ability to be more long-sighted. Democracy, taken to it's natural extremes, leads to a system where you have representatives spending most of their time in office planning for the next election, which is to say fund raising and focusing on things that'll pay-off before the next election cycle.
So you get an obsession on the very short-term stuff, and a tendency to trend towards oligarchy (though Plato would claim it trends to tyranny).
But the problem with autocracy (that monarchy only exasperates) is that a single bad leader can undo generations of achievements of skilled leaders. Aurelius was one of the wisest and most capable leaders to have lived. His only son was one of the worst.
Democracy's weakness is it's strength there - even the most inept (or perhaps senile) leader can't do that much and they'll be out of office in a few years anyhow.
----
Also, as I seem to end up debating with you in these little geopol threads often enough - let us hold one another to our predictions. Told ya on South Korea. ;)
Which thread are you referring to? (I was in Seoul for Yoon's impeachment, so it's not surprising a HN discussion got lost in my memory.)
My debate partner was under the might makes right pov, and felt that a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity, particularly when reasonably enabled by law.
I was arguing that autocracy, in spite of lack of accountability, generally cannot sustain itself without relatively broad support.
Once it became clear that South Korea was in no mood to let an unpopular man declare himself dictator, we then debated his fate. I predicted death/imprisonment (as is practically a tradition in South Korean politics) while my debate partner was expecting him to get away scot-free, impeached at worst, arguing that no laws were broken in the President's attempt.
I never said this. What I may have argued is folks in the military following orders (note: not top brass) were not clearly breaking any laws so long as parliament hadn't overturned the martial law order.
> a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity, particularly when reasonably enabled by law
Out of order, but I would have never said this either. No man rules alone is like rule one of politics. Rule two is the law flows from power; being legally correct and politically wrong is a historical footnote to losing power.
- soldiers gladly obeyed orders to essentially end all democracy
- soldiers mostly seemed to stop obeying their dictator's orders when they got confused about who's even in charge and what was legally standing rather than the public will.
- Yoon is not dead, not even imprisoned
Given all that mess, I can see aspects of both of your claims being true. It's quite interesting!
I don't think my paraphrasing was inaccurate.
This bit, on the other hand, is totally unsubstantiated: “a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity.” Nobody argued that.
Also: “I was arguing that autocracy, in spite of lack of accountability, generally cannot sustain itself without relatively broad support.” <— You never said this. The closest we came to this was in what adversarial states would want.
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[me, quoted by you] maintaining power without relatively widespread support is quite difficult
[you] Strange claim in a thread about the Korean peninsula.
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I'm sure you know that Yoon was/is extremely unpopular. This was the crux of the issue. If Yoon had an 80% approval, I believe he would be the dictator of South Korea today instead of impeached and with a warrant out for his arrest.
Now obviously you agree with that as well. So where did we disagree? Right, on what happens when an unpopular man tries to declare himself dictator.
They also tried democracy and failed wholly at that.
Russia tried monarchy as an empire and with an absolute ruler. Something like the Kuwaiti monarchy might suit them better. Though I’m not sure it works since the modern Russian state sort of remains an empire, something made clear by their conscription discrepancies between Moscow and peripheries.
Louis XVI had a weak but what we would call progressive reign. Louis enacted religious tolerance, abolished imprisonment without trial, and abolished letters de cachet which subjected the monarchy edicts to approval of regional parliaments.
USA supported liberal reforms in Central Europe/Warsaw pact countries like Hungary Romania Poland where shock therapy provided transition from communist economy to liberal market economy, and their currency was supported by the IMF/WB/US from severe shocks.
US literally lent money to Central European countries to ease their transition and not kill their economies.
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/ky53w3k2273hhec...
According to Jeff Sachs, the author of shock therapy in Poland, the same shock therapy was prescribed to Russia, but no support was provided. Russian liberal reforms were betrayed by USA. Which led to severe currency and economic crisis.
Crisis led to garage sale of all state assets and privatization by foreign financial groups (oligarchs), which created a very deep sense of unfairness among Russians. This led to ascencion of Putin as he returned some of that unfairly privatized property from oligarchs
>It inspired pure panic, as people had never seen anything but utter certainty from their leaders
Russians are not uncomfortable with actual democratic openness. There were periods in Russian history when actual democratic openness was an option. Right before the USSR formation and around 1990s
The problem is that after 1991 you've got a few generations of people who are used to ussr socialism and its ways and guarantees.
You can't expect people to switch from one way of thinking to the other. The state had beed paying them all their lives. Sometime only because they had some kind of job at all. Many of them developed an addiction to their "salary for existence".
You can't go and tell them that starting tommorow they will have to compete on a market that is yet to be build. And that the whole new shiny system like that of the West will be functional 2-3 decades later. And right after they were playing (from their perspective) the same game waiting for the communism.
As Stalin has been quoted as saying "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"-- subsequent purges/famines following the revolution resulting in roughly 25% of the Russian population (without even counting WWII casualties) being killed, so it's not exactly a strong sell for "intellectuals sparking social changes".
There's one scene where one of the Russian nobleman who has often lived in Paris suggests to some Russian Orthodox priests that he had heard it said in Paris that the worst socialists were not the atheistic ones, but the Christian Socialists. The Priest takes umbrage with this asking if the nobleman was lumping these priests into that category. This on the heels of a multi-page discussion on the separation of church and state and whether the state will eventually subsume the church or whether the church will eventually subsume the state.
That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. It is a work of fiction. You can't use it as evidence of what was going on in Russia. At best it can be used as evidence of what were the topics the author were thinking about, and as such an indirect proof of what was discussed in the zeitgeist.
Similarly I could write a book set in 2025's America where everyone constantly talks about how the collapse of the bubblegum markets wiped them out, and discusses the benefits and ills of bubblegum trading. Doesn't make it true.
I suppose "The Lord of the Rings" is a true history of England?
It's evidence based, not faith based. Try me!
In contrast, I am not religious any longer because I could not find any evidence of its reality.
> and uninteresting
I can't help with that.
P.S. I'm giving a talk on code generators on Jan 16 at nwcpp.org. Come join in!
I know it is true because I read it in a book. Except it is not, it is completely made up and none of it is true. One can accidentally stumble upon true statements in the book. For example there is indeed a Kings Cross station both in the real world London and the fictional one.
> You can say the same thing about any book ever written,
Not really. There are this class of books called "nonfiction" where the stated goal of the author is to write true things. For example if you say "Socialism was already in the air in 1870s Russia, I read it in Peter Kenez's A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End" that would be not mistaken.
It is a discussion, not war. Nobody got attacked. That comment is not an attack, this comment is not an attack.
> it's the widely known history, and are we attempting to contradict that?
No. One can reach true statements with faulty reasoning. Just because the statements are true doesn't mean that the logic behind them is right.
> I don't think OP claimed the book as "proof" of radical socialist fervor in the first place
I can't read the sentence I quoted from their comment in any other way.
> Socialism was already in the air in 1870s Russia such that it's often discussed by characters in the novel.
Socialism was in the air therefore it was discussed in the novel.
You interpreted it as “Socialism is discussed in the novel therefore it was in the air,” but that’s not what was said.
Yes. I still read it that way.
> but that’s not what was said.
If you say so. I re-read the comment and I interpret it the same way still. If we are not using the book as evidence of what was going in Russia, but evidence of what topic was interesting to its audience then I'm happy with that.
This is the trajectory of the Russian intellectuals striving for the "better world".
There is an interesting quote by him (regarding the so-called "NATO's expansion"): "This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc."[0]
Paradoxically, it wasn't NATO who did this 20 years later but his beloved Putin.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn#On_the_...
20? No, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belovezha_Accords were signed in 1991, much earlier.
The Americans knew that NATO expansion into Ukraine could provoke Russian intervention, and they did it anyway.[0] What security benefits were to be gained that were worth risking this horrific outcome?
The whole thing reminds me of the British security guarantee for Poland in '39. If it was intended to gin up an excuse to fight, it was masterful. If it was a good-faith attempt at securing the peace, it was asinine and catastrophically counterproductive.
Its true that NATO (not just the US) understood that as a Russian concern, and that’s why they acceded to Russia’s demand not offer Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans in 2008.
Leading immediately to Russia invading Georgia in 2008, and then invading Ukraine – who had no active efforts on either the Ukraine or NATO side toward NATO membership – in 2014, immediately after Ukraine threw out the Russia-aligned government that had taken over while Russia was militarily occupied in Georgia (unsurprisingly, this invasion led to a renewed Ukrainian interest in NATO membership.)
But given the actual sequence of events, its pretty hard to claim that NATO expansion in Ukraine – which literally was not progressing until after the 2014 invasion – lead to Russian intervention in Ukraine. In fact, both 2008 and 2014 events support the idea that the reason that Russia was concerned about NATO expansion in Georgia and Ukraine is that it would complicate their existing intent to intervene in those countries with or without NATO involvement.
Encouraging Saakashvili to resolve Georgia's territorial issues by taking over breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And then Russian intervened. [0]
>who had no active efforts on either the Ukraine or NATO side toward NATO membership
The efforts were quite active during pro-Western president's rule and were halted by pro-Ukrainian president.
>Ukraine threw out the Russia-aligned government
No, Yanukovich was thrown out by pro-Western coup 'mid-wifed' by the US. [1]
"The night before the clashes, Right Sector called on all of its members to ready themselves for a "peace offensive" on 18 February. <...> That morning, around 20,000 demonstrators marched on the parliament building as that body was set to consider opposition demands for a new constitution and government. Around 09:45, the demonstrators broke through the police barricade of several personnel-transport trucks near the building of the Central Officers' Club of Ukraine and pushed the cordon of police aside. The clashes started after some two dozen demonstrators moved a police vehicle blocking their path to parliament." [2]
Right Sector is "the right-wing, paramilitary confederation of several ultranationalist organizations" [3]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-wi...
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#Protest_...
They did something worse:
While NATO consisted of twenty-seven allies, Bush knew that the Alliance was divided right down the middle on the issue. He understood MAP was controversial but he also had many leaders from NATO allies, largely but not only from Central and Eastern Europe, coming through the Oval Office that spring urging him to push for it. In Bush’s mind, the final decision would boil down to a handful of countries and personalities who held the key votes—himself, Merkel, and Sarkozy—and who would be decisive in shifting the debate one way or the other. Bush also sensed a fault line in the German position. While Merkel and Steinmeier both opposed MAP, they did so for very different reasons. In Bush’s mind, Merkel’s thinking was not driven by concern over Russia, which meant she could still be persuaded to move. She, too, believed in the advancement of democracy and freedom and was willing to stand up to Moscow. He hoped he could personally appeal to those instincts over the heads of those in her government who focused, too much, in his mind, on Moscow.
<...> Adamkus stepped in to echo B_sescu’s point: “Do we agree that these countries should become NATO members?” Merkel replied, “We agree on that. Where we don’t agree is on timing.” The response of the three presidents was immediate and spontaneous: “Then let’s write that down!”
<...> Listening to Merkel, the Central and Eastern European leaders sensed an opening. NATO had never before stated explicitly that a country would become a member. None of them had ever had such a pledge. Most of their Western European counterparts, in all likelihood, would never have suggested this approach. They doubted if Merkel’s foreign minister would have either, but he was not in the room. If Merkel agreed, it could be a major step forward. Merkel then took out her pen and wrote on a sheet of paper: “We agree today that Georgia and Ukraine shall one day become members of NATO.” After studying the wording, B_sescu said: “Madame Chancellor, in our part of the world saying ‘one day’ means nothing and does not commit you to anything—it means never.” Kaczy_ski chimed in: “Absolutely.” Merkel agreed to delete “one day” <...>
<...> British prime minister Gordon Brown leaned over to President Bush at the Council table and half-jokingly said, “I am not sure what we did here. I know we did not extend MAP. But I’m not sure we didn’t just make them members of NATO.”
The question now was how Russia would react—and whether Putin would keep his promise to Bush not to create a problem at the summit.
<...> Moscow’s very public goal had of course been to ensure that Georgia and Ukraine did not get MAP. Technically, of course, NATO had not given it to them. But these countries had received something that was arguably better and stronger—an explicit political promise from NATO heads of state that they would one day became members. That had never happened before.
<...> The Russian president was even tougher on Kiev—describing Ukraine as an artificial creation and a state whose final formation was not complete. He noted that large parts of Ukraine were dominated by ethnic Russians and had been given to Ukraine by Moscow in an arbitrary fashion under Stalin, and asked, “Who can say that we do not have interests there?” The issue of NATO membership, he claimed, could threaten the very existence of Ukraine. “We should act very, very carefully. We do not have a right to veto [such a decision] and we probably don’t even want one, but I want all of us to realize, when deciding such issues, that we have our interests there as well.” At the press conference afterwards, Putin was also polite, but he was clear in reaffirming his opposition to NATO enlargement. Russia viewed “the appearance of a powerful military bloc” on its borders “as a direct threat” to its security, he said. “The claim that this process is not directed against Russia will not suffice,” he continued. “National security is not based on promises.” [0]
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Little-War-That-Shook-World/dp/023061...
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
These are not the behaviours of a 'neighbourhood watch.'
Not black and white but worse and better. And Russia is so much worse (Its main offerings seem to be destruction and thievery) that nearly all of its neighbours tried to join NATO.
This doesn't even mean I "want Russia to win" or whatever, but I definitely would like NATO to put on its adult pants.
You've been lied to. Instead of propagating the lie, please consider informing yourself. Begin by understanding the fact that any such promises were made to a state that no longer exists by people who were unauthorized to make them. Moving on, consider that nobody spends billions of dollars or Euros preparing to defend themselves against countries who are not a genuine threat to peace and stability, particularly those whose leaders have stated their revanchist goals publicly and unequivocally.
Then, go back to the people who lied to you, ask them why they did so, and ask them not to do it again. Chances are, someone lied to them, too.
NATO was created as an anti-Soviet bulwark. The Soviet Union is gone, yet NATO has continued to expand in a manner which seems designed to weaken the strategic position of Russia. Add to that America's history of color revolutions and military aggression, and it would be difficult not to interpret this as anything other than a threat.
Imagine China entered into a "defensive" military alliance with Mexico. Imagine you spoke to a Chinese friend about it, and they demanded that you justify "what makes Chinese proximity so bad for America?", as though the Chinese have just as much reason to place their military assets along our southern border as we do! Would you consider such a question to be in good faith?
> Do they actually think NATO would use it to launch invasions? Do they have no idea how much Europe hates war and military combat?
Within living memory, 10 million Soviets were killed in an unprovoked invasion from Europe. It's hardly unreasonable for them to be concerned.
Correction. WWII costed Soviet Union between 20 and 30 million lives [0]. Main thrust of the German onslaught in 1941 went through Ukraine. The same happened in WWI when in 1914 Germany and Austria invaded Russia through Ukraine.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the...
So while the "Soviet Union" is gone, Russia remains, weakened by it's loss of territories, still as irredentist and imperialist as ever. Hence why ex-Soviet and Soviet client-states begged to join.
Wow, that sounds pretty bad. But I seem to remember that when Ukraine unilaterally declared its independence from the Soviet Union, Russia let them go without a fight. That's hardly what you'd expect from an evil empire, is it? Imagine how poorly you'd think of them if instead they had chosen to wage an unconstitutional war, suspended habeus corpus, shut down newspapers and imprisoned dissenters! Imagine the low regard you'd hold them in if they had invaded the "rebel" territories, killing the very people they insisted were their countrymen, burning their homes and property until they surrendered, then unconstitutionally altering the terms of their membership in the empire.
You mean like what Russia is now doing to Ukraine?
The USSR's collapse was rather peaceful not by their own choice. The USSR was in such a deep shit by the final days that officers were forcing conscripts into street prostitution to earn money for food. Secret services and armed forces became completely demoralized. Officers and soldiers sat in their bases, ignored orders in total apathy, and were busy drinking or selling off anything they could, even copper wiring from the walls of their barracks was sold for scrap. You could buy a truckload of binoculars directly from the gates of a military base for less than $100. Radars, missiles, fighter jets too - anything for the almighty dollar. Survival until the next day was the only concern; little else mattered.
The US civil war comparison alluded to is superficial nonsense. They're only similar if you ignore all the details that matter like states voluntarily joining with full knowledge they were giving up sovereignty, actual federal political representation and that the Confederacy started the war by attacking Union soldiers first. Nor was there anything unconstitutional about waging a war, putting down a rebellion or even suspending habeas corpus - those are explicitly enumerated powers - powers that several of the seceding states helped draft.
The idea that Sumter justified the Yankees' war of aggression is one of the greatest canards in human history. The Yanks were occupying foreign soil at Sumter (an act of war). They lied about their plans to leave. They attempted to resupply the occupiers but were foiled by an attack... which resulted in zero Union dead. Ergo the Yanks had to wage total war? Lmao.
Read Spooner.
Russia declared independence from the Soviet Union before Ukraine did.
NATO is not a living organism that expands. It is composed of free countries who can join it if the rest agrees (the rest didn't agree on Georgia or Ukraine). Whenever a country like Finland or Sweden feels threatened by Russia, they can join NATO and immediately gain protection from Russia. That's why Putin hates NATO as it limits his option for potential invasion. So far, he could only invade Georgia and Ukraine - only because they are not in NATO.
Yeah. I'd be worried if I was a US citizen. Because China has a recent history of pushing airspace boundaries and behaving in an expansionist manner. But the comparison there is more accurately with Russia rather than NATO. Russia is continually making minor incursions into NATO and European airspace and waters, for example, whereas the reverse is very rare. I'm no fan of US foreign policy, but it pales in comparison to Russia's.
> Within living memory, 10 million Soviets were killed in an unprovoked invasion from Europe.
Believing that the political reality of Europe in the 1940s is anywhere close to today is bizarre.
It makes Russian interference in its neighboring countries more difficult.
surely you would like to be surrounded by people who are adversaries to you and your family, you woild flock to move to a neighborhood like that :)
I mean, I wouldn't feel 100% comfortable but I wouldn't launch an invasion over it. Especially since it predictably encourages other bordering countries like Finland to accelerate their membership, and Ukraine itself will definitely be pushing for membership as soon as possible once the war is over. It was neither a proportionate nor a productive course of action, if that was the reason.
Except that's not what happened.
It's just a soundbite you heard somewhere, but has no basis in reality.
You can follow this thread, if of interest:
Ukraine decided to break the Budapest Memorandum by seeking the NATO ascension, and GW Bush promised them NATO in 2008, and then in 2014 CIA/State Department organized a coup (just a mere month before official elections) and pro-western puppet leader was put in charge (search Victoria Nuland's call where she decided to appoint pro-western Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister after the coup) who decided to seek EU and NATO membership.
Thus, Ukraine effectively nullified the neutrality clause of the Budapest Memorandum.
So it was Ukraine that walked back from Budapest Memorandum by giving up neutral status, that nullified the territorial sovereignty guarantees given by Russia.
if you think about it, it kinda makes sense. Russia can tolerate friendly and aligned country on its border that is 70% comprised of Russian speakers and/or Russian ethnicity.
But Russia cannot tolerate NATO member on its border, the same way that USA cannot tolerate Canada/Mexico that are in military alliance with Russia/China.
Ask yourself, what would USA do if tomorrow Canada/Mexico decided to join exclusive economic and military alliance with China ?
Did you generate your post with an AI tool? It's such a strange collection of undisputably incorrect statements, from the wrong year of the Budapest memorandum to the invalid reference of upcoming elections in 2014.
In August 2014, and only after Russia invaded both the Crimea and the Donbas. In fact even after the invasion of just the Crimea (in March) his government was still playing it safe, and renouncing any intent to join NATO (Reuters, March 18):
Ukraine's new pro-Western leadership is not seeking membership of NATO, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Tuesday, in comments intended to reassure Russia and Ukraine's large number of Russian-speakers.[0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-nato-idUKB...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas#August_2014_inva...
Basically the expansion of NATO and the EU screwed up the Kremlin's plans to weaken Russia's Western neighbours and bring them into its sphere of influence. Poland and Romania are the new West Germany. In fact Moldova was part of Romania before it was occupied by the USSR after WW2, so it's pretty much in a similar situation to East/West Germany. It became independent after 1991 because Russia wanted to control it. They are using narratives such as the "Moldovan language" (in fact Romanian) since at least the 70s and later blackmail using Transnistria in order to divide and control. Moldova being admitted into the EU is basically on a path to de facto unification.
I think fear of NATO is pretty reasonable, but it's likely it's rather seen by Russia and others as moving the limit of the possible in international law and war.
Except they didn't.
The footnote you cite describes Burns's concern, but not what actually happened: NATO rejected Ukraine's membership appliction in 2008, and Ukraine itself formally disclaimed aspirations of joining NATO in 2010, stating that Ukraine would remain a "European, non-aligned state."
And there the situation sat until 2014, when Russia invaded anyway, making any objections it might have had to Ukraine joining NATO instantly and forever moot.
This idea that the West was aggressively dragging Ukraine into NATO is just a soundbite you heard somewhere, but has no connection to reality.
No, its not. The Russo-Ukrainian war started when Ukraine had a neutrality commitment and no one was pushing for changes from the NATO side, either.
Now, immediately after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and invaded and begin direct (with “deniable” forces) and local proxy wars in other parts of Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine dropped that commitment and resumed attempts to join NATO, but the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is about Russia trying to take over Ukraine despite their being no active efforts toward NATO membership, not about NATO offering membership to Ukraine.
This is what Putin says now. The actual reasons are clearly spelled out in the article published by TASS after Putin started the invasion:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240
As you can see, they have nothing to do with NATO expansion - Putin just wanted Ukrainians to be part of Russian empire just like Belorussians are.
NATO could, it chooses not to.
> Even now after 2 years, NATO cannot establish air defenses over Ukraine.
“Cannot” implies it has tried and failed, rather than simply repeatedly deciding not to try.
> So what is the point of the expansion? To make the whole NATO weaker?
Expansion doesn’t make NATO weaker. (Except insofar as NATO’s consensus decision making make decision-making dependent on the least-reliable member, which is actually a problem recently, and potentially about to become a much bigger one with the new US administration.)
So they're lying, because they have repeatedly said to Ukraine that they're committed to protect them against foreign aggression.
> Expansion doesn’t make NATO weaker.
Of course it can, if you include a geographic area you cannot defend, that's by definition adding a weakness.
No, they haven’t.
They have repeatedly said they will provide material assistance to Ukraine in the current emergency with Russia, but they have pointedly not committed the alliance to protect Ukraine, and have in fact stalled every Ukrainian request for such a commitment since 2008. They have indicated that at some future time they expect to be willing to make such a commitment, but that’s…very different than making it now.
(There have been several NATO members discussing making a similar commitment outside the confines of the alliance, and more directly intervening in the conflict, but that is both still just talk, and distinct from the commitments of the alliance itself.)
What history tells us, though, is that the best time to stop Putin was 2014, and the second best time is now.
Holodomor sounds like a great justification for guarding against populism or even pure democracy.