Was the USSR imperialist?

[btpound]

I had a discussion with a friend the other day. We came on the topic of Russia's invasion of Poland. The discussion turned into a debate. I said that I considered the USSR to be a social imperialist nation, like Mao and Hoxha had noted, because it was supporting popular revolution in foreign countries and then making them satilites almost totally dependant on the USSR for survival. They would impose the same tactics as any other imperialist country. However, he said it was not "imperialism" in the strictest sense. He said that "imperialism" is done in the intrest of accruing capital, and since the USSR was "socialist" they produced to need not profit and their "imperialism" would be more appropriately called "expansionism". He felt it was important to draw the distinction so as to show the USSR and US as not the same, and made a special point to say that this (mine) was the arguement Liberals would put forward and we cannot give liberals one inch of ground.

Imperialism or expansionism? Your thoughts.

[BobKKKindle$]

because it was supporting popular revolution in foreign countries

The USSR did not support socialist revolutions in other countries, its government and local supporters had a central role in preventing socialist revolutions from taking place, by forcing revolutionary forces into alliances with sections of the bourgeoisie and other reactionary forces, resulting in revolutionaries losing their political independence. The clearest example of this is the Comintern's strategy in China whereby the CPC was effectively made to subordinate itself to the KMT on the grounds that China was not ready for a socialist revolution and socialism would only become a meaningful possibility after the KMT had completed the goals of the bourgeois revolution, by accomplishing national independence and introducing agrarian reform and bourgeois democracy. This strategy involved the members of the CPC joining the KMT on an individual basis and the KMT receiving arms and support from the Comintern, which the KMT then used to utterly destroy the urban base of the CPC in 1927. The events in China are by far the most horrific example of the popular front strategy of the USSR but there are examples from elsewhere as well, because popular frontism is a key component of Stalinist politics - in Iraq after the coup in 1958 the Communists were made to uncritically support the nationalist government of Qasim and to limit their political activities to demanding cabinet positions (which they were eventually given) and defending the regime against domestic and foreign enemies. In this case as in China the result was repression, as by giving up their political independence the Communists had failed to advance revolutionary politics and left themselves vulnerable. When countries were transformed into satellite states and made to join the Warsaw Pact they were not in that position because the working class had taken power and overthrown the bourgeois state, as the countries you are referring to were, in almost every case, occupied by the Red Army during the final stages of WW2, with the USSR then using violence and pressure against political opponents to install regimes that shared the same geopolitical stance as the USSR.

It is also significant that when these countries were occupied the Red Army proceeded to physically remove factories and other kinds of physical capital and transport those facilities back to the USSR so as to assist with post-war reconstruction. In Manchuria (and to a lesser extent in Eastern Europe) this meant that entire regions were deprived of basic infrastructure, such as power stations, and sizeable lengths of railway. This is essentially the same as the exploitation through the export of capital which your friend believes did not take place in the USSR and is only different from the mechanisms of imperialist exploitation that exist between other imperialist states and oppressed nations insofar as the movement of value from periphery to imperialist core was not hidden behind the veil of financial transactions, but took place openly. In addition to this early and unhidden form of exploitation the USSR also adopted more "traditional" methods which revolved around ownership and the transfer of profits back to the USSR. In several of the border states, including Romania and Bulgaria, there were companies that were partly owned by the USSR, such as the company that controlled the richest oilfields in Romania, which meant that, despite these companies replying on the efforts of local workers, a large share of their profits were transferred to the USSR, at the expense of the countries in which production was taking place. Furthermore, the USSR was also able to exploit its border states through the mechanism of unequal exchange, whereby these countries were charged high prices for goods that were bought from the USSR whilst also being made to sell their own products at low prices, having been forced into specializing in a narrow range of industries as part of the Comecon system. To take an example relating to China, taken from Cliff's book, a Soviet Zis 4-ton truck in Tianjin was sold by the USSR for a price equivalent to 50,000 Hong Kong dollars in 1952, while a comparable six-ton truck of Western make was available in Hong Kong in the same year for 15,000 Hong Kong dollars. The difference between the low import prices and the high export prices constituted an additional source of surplus value that enabled the USSR to exploit its periphery in the same way as countries like the US exploit oppressed nations today.

The motive for these various forms of imperialist exploitation was not a declining rate of profit but the need to compete with the rest of the imperialist powers in military and economic terms, which also served as the main impetus behind the high rates of exploitation and oppression to which workers in the USSR were subject after the isolation of the revolution in the early 1920s, the lesson here being that no country can isolate itself from the rest of the world, and that its choices as far as accumulation is concerned will always be limited and conditioned by other actors, in the same way that the choices of individual capitalists in a competitive market will always be limited and conditioned by competing firms.

I do recommend the chapter of Cliff's book on why the USSR was an imperialist state: http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/ch08.htm#s1

[ReggaeCat]

Firstly the invasion of Poland was made when no other choice was on the horizon since the nazis were ready to attack and ussr didnt have enough army or guns ...so they needed some territory to g ive them time and they signed the non aggresion pact of Molotov-Ribbentrop.Wich actually in a secret way divided poland in a half each of the two sides taking one.This pact also made the nazis go west in france and give the russians more time to orgnaize their army...but i wouldnt consider it imperialist in the case of poland since it was not made to use the capital of poland neither it was made just because they wanted....either way..with russians or without the poland would be occupied and then we maybe wouldn't talk about allies and russians winning the WWII...about other states...i wouldnt say it imperialistic since albania AND china criticized ussr with kruschev on being revisionist n stuff...so if they were dependant how they could cut their relations with ussr??albania after mao's death cut their relations with china for the same reason of revisionism(as far as i know they were revisionist look at china today) so i wouldnt say that russia was using other states...


Even that i aint sure about what happened in cuba when ussr tired to put missiles on the island and america reacted and stuff....somebody can expand on this alos please:rolleyes:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Can this thread be closed?

This has been argued over and over and over again for over two decades, and all that happens is that the red mist (no pun intended) descends and it turns into a Stalinist/Trotskyist little ruckus.

[Atlanta]

its not really part of the Trotsky Stalin split since Trotsky didn't think the soviet union was imperialist.....

I think social imperialism arose in the USSR with the creation of the specialization policy. that is each of the Warsaw pact nations grew one or two industries instead of large scale industrialization. Natural resources would be exported to the soviet union and resold back to them as finished products, this was part of the market reforms of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Andropov . of coarse the soviet union was not truly imperialist because it was not truly capitalist which is part of the contradictions that destroyed the Soviet Union.

[The Red Next Door]

I believe the USSR was imperialist because they invade countries in Eastern Europe and basically cause harm to those people, they say they was fighting for and the mess in nam. I do not support the imperialist invasion of that country but i think the US and USSR fuck up a bunch of people lives over political game in vietnam.

[ReggaeCat]

I believe the USSR was imperialist because they invade countries in Eastern Europe and basically cause harm to those people, they say they was fighting for and the mess in nam. I do not support the imperialist invasion of that country but i think the US and USSR fuck up a bunch of people lives over political game in vietnam.


which country in eastern europe was invaded by ussr??exept poland wihc in many topics we discussed it was the only choice???actually people in Vietnam rose to fight..if you consider every fight a political game..well :rolleyes:

[btpound]

Can this thread be closed?

This has been argued over and over and over again for over two decades, and all that happens is that the red mist (no pun intended) descends and it turns into a Stalinist/Trotskyist little ruckus.

Firstly, I would not have opened this thread if I had found one already like it. I looked, and couldn't find one.

Second, it was actually a Trotskyist who made the point to me that Russia was NOT imperialist. And I, a Maoist not a Stalinist, said they were a social imperialist nation. So where does Trot/Stalin partisanship come into play? Things aren't always black and white like that.

[Drace]

Oh I wish that had been more imperialistic so they supported the revolutions in France, Germany, and Greece

[Kléber]

Oh I wish that had been more imperialistic so they supported the revolutions in France, Germany, and Greece Well, in the case of Greece at least, it was actually Soviet imperialism (promising to abandon Greece in exchange for Allied non-interference in Poland, Romania etc) that sold out the Greek revolution. Tito also gave some limited support to the Greek fascists in their suppression of the partisans. And the KKE leading clique around "Comrade" Markos helped ensure their own failure, both by their dogged adherence to the Soviet revisionists - who practically handed them over to the enemy - and the treasonous liquidation of the Greek Trotskyist militias whose only crime was to have a correct criticism of the official line.

But back to the thread itself, Trotsky noted that Napoleon proclaimed the abolition of serfdom when he invaded Poland, but that didn't make him a democrat or his conquests democratic. So the fact that the USSR hoisted a red flag in Poland, or that Grover Furr has proved it was one of the cleanest invasions of all time, does not make it any less imperialist.

[FSL]

Well, in the case of Greece at least, it was actually Soviet imperialism (promising to abandon Greece in exchange for Allied non-interference in Poland, Romania etc) that sold out the Greek revolution. Tito also gave some limited support to the Greek fascists in their suppression of the partisans. And the KKE leading clique around "Comrade" Markos helped ensure their own failure, both by their dogged adherence to the Soviet revisionists - who practically handed them over to the enemy - and the treasonous liquidation of the Greek Trotskyist militias whose only crime was to have a correct criticism of the official line.


I had to answer only to say how unworthy of an answer this is...

[ComradeRed22'91]

Can this thread be closed?

This has been argued over and over and over again for over two decades, and all that happens is that the red mist (no pun intended) descends and it turns into a Stalinist/Trotskyist little ruckus.

Thanks.

[Kléber]

I had to answer only to say how unworthy of an answer this is...
My answers may not be worthy of some sanitized, revisionist history of the USSR, but at least I answered and didn't just stick up my nose.

[ReggaeCat]

Well, in the case of Greece at least, it was actually Soviet imperialism (promising to abandon Greece in exchange for Allied non-interference in Poland, Romania etc) that sold out the Greek revolution. Tito also gave some limited support to the Greek fascists in their suppression of the partisans. And the KKE leading clique around "Comrade" Markos helped ensure their own failure, both by their dogged adherence to the Soviet revisionists - who practically handed them over to the enemy - and the treasonous liquidation of the Greek Trotskyist militias whose only crime was to have a correct criticism of the official line.

But back to the thread itself, Trotsky noted that Napoleon proclaimed the abolition of serfdom when he invaded Poland, but that didn't make him a democrat or his conquests democratic. So the fact that the USSR hoisted a red flag in Poland, or that Grover Furr has proved it was one of the cleanest invasions of all time, does not make it any less imperialist.


we say this again and again but some people seem to have their brain RAM lagging and not responding to the user..the invasion in poland...was the only and the best choice stalin could made that time...but i guess your humanitary freedom loving and such prevents you to see that it was war....and in the war sacrifices must be made for the greater good(how many russians died and maybe the fate of the whole socialist movement wouldnt be the same if nazis had occupied all poland....because either way..poland were going down....

[Reuben]

I have no plans to close the thread. Different people join and leave.

[Comrade Anarchist]

it was both. They wanted to control the resources and modes of production to fuel their military build up. They also wanted to expand to put pressure on the western countries and nato to bolster up their image as they slowly rotted and died on the inside from bureaucracy and mistreatment of their people.

[btpound]

I think that in the Stalin period they certainly launched aggressions against other countries, but this did not coalesce into full blown imperialism until after WWII. I do think that the invasion of Poland was a tactical decision playing into the overall stragedy of protecting Russia from German invasion.

[Kléber]

the invasion in poland...was the only and the best choice stalin could made that timeThe invasion of Poland was not a surprise to Stalin, and Hitler's decision to stop halfway through Poland was not magnanimous. There were secret protocols in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Ribbentrop-Molotov.svg/750px-Ribbentrop-Molotov.svg.png

Molotov-Ribbentrop did not just concern territory either. The USSR promised to respect capitalist property rights in the "sphere" guaranteed by the Pact. That clause was later violated with the forcible sovietization of captured territory, but whether the "soviets" set up by the army had any political independence is highly questionable. Furthermore, the new territory in the Baltics and parts of Poland, Finland and Romania came at serious political costs: as per the Pact, the Comintern parties were ordered (everywhere and at once regardless of local conditions) to abandon anti-fascist propaganda in favor of "revolutionary defeatism." In Germany some Communists were even let out of the camps for the Pact's duration. This insane capitulation/about-face canceled any political gains world Communism had enjoyed over the last five years of the Popular Front. There couldn't have been a better way for all the Communist Parties to commit mass suicide. Sure enough, Stalin put what was left of the Third International to death in 1943, to clear any suspicions that his clique were still revolutionaries.

The Soviet Foreign Ministry was also purged of Jews (just like the German Foreign Ministry had been purged of Weimar old hands) to ease these negotiations. Within the USSR, propaganda against Nazi Germany ceased or was neutered. The film Aleksandr Nevsky, which was made shortly before the pact, was effectively banned during it because of its anti-Nazi undertones, and only got a proper release after Barbarossa.

Stalin's leadership may have expanded the size of the USSR (and dependent territories) at the price of political principle, but was socialism really stronger in 1945, plus a red empire, but minus the Comintern? We know what happens to red empires (the old regime gets restored), but we'll never know what the Comintern could have accomplished. The honor of Lenin's International, let alone its physical existence, was never worth trading to Hitler or Churchill in exchange for permission to set up revisionist dictatorships in Eastern Europe.