Did nuclear weapons impede the growth of Socialism?

[Red Eagle]

It seems historically speaking nuclear weapons have deterred the USSR and China from spreading Socialism out of fear of nuclear war. And since the atomic weapons impeded the growth it left socialism confined eventually helping revisionism take hold. What do you think?

[RedMaterialist]

It seems historically speaking nuclear weapons have deterred the USSR and China from spreading Socialism out of fear of nuclear war. And since the atomic weapons impeded the growth it left socialism confined eventually helping revisionism take hold. What do you think?

It seems to me that nuclear weapons prevented the capitalist west from invading the USSR and China. A lot of people think the USSR and China were never socialist at all but were, and in the case of China, are still capitalist.

[gombicek]

I think that they mainly prevented USSR in spreading its influence into Western Europe. But its true that on the other hand they prevented USA and USSR going into direct war, which is probably a good thing.

[Invader Zim]

It seems historically speaking nuclear weapons have deterred the USSR and China from spreading Socialism out of fear of nuclear war. And since the atomic weapons impeded the growth it left socialism confined eventually helping revisionism take hold. What do you think?

The assumption here being that the Soviet Union was 'Socialist' with a capital 'S' by the development of the Atom Bomb, an assumption which has no grounds that I can see. The Soviet Union was underpinned by slavery, repression and massively favoured those at the upper-end of the established bureaucratic hierarchy. The issue of 'revisionism' is a moot Stalinist talking point, because neither the Stalinist or Maoist regimes conformed to anything recognisable as 'socialism' by any coherent definition.


It seems to me that nuclear weapons prevented the capitalist west from invading the USSR and China. A lot of people think the USSR and China were never socialist at all but were, and in the case of China, are still capitalist.

How, precisely, was the West ever going to invade the Soviet Union and China? You get that during the Second World War, the Soviet Union produced more tanks and artillery pieces, and had more military personnel than the the British or Americans? In terms of conventional forces, the Soviet Union was sufficiently powerful to make attack fool-hardy militarily, devastating economically, and unfathomably appalling in terms of humanitarian terms.


I think that they mainly prevented USSR in spreading its influence into Western Europe. But its true that on the other hand they prevented USA and USSR going into direct war, which is probably a good thing.

This is certainly true on both counts, but the unwritten assumption appears to be that Soviet influence on Western Europe would have been of benefit - which, under the post-war regimes is questionable at best.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

The spread of soviet-style 'socialism' was not exactly prevented by nuclear weapons. Considering that atomic bombs were dropped in 45 and most of the spread of soviet style 'socialism' happened during and after 45 (Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba etc.). Of course, it's highly questionable that these had much to do with socialism but that's neither here nor there.

There's always this poem:
Then raise the workers' bomb on high,
beneath its cloud we'll gladly die.
For though it sends us all to hell,
it kills the ruling class as well.

[piet11111]

Not really i can honestly say stalinism was far more damaging then atomic weapons :laugh:

[The Red Star Rising]

Nuclear weaponry largely served to make full scale clashes between great/superpowers so dangerous to the health of everyone involved as to make the very idea of trying for a third world war basically asking for pact suicide.

Even without nuclear weaponry, a third world war would have likely been ruinously destructive even being as optimistic as possible and thus would have been a hard-sell for either side (note that even when only the U.S had nuclear weapons, the United States still considered Operation Unthinkable utterly insane and sacked MacArthur when the Soviet Nuclear arsenal was flatly not capable of reaching America when he tried to push for nuking and invading China) given that throughout the cold war the colossal hardship experienced in the first half of the 20th century would still be in living memory. Also generally speaking people tend not to be all that hyped up for wars unless they're convinced that there's a good reason for it.

There's also the problem of a thing called logistics. The Soviet Union and China really didn't have what it took to seriously invade the United states on its own shores. Not when the American Navy was a vast colossus and even measley cross-channel invasions against a foe with no serious naval power is extremely difficult if the enemy is prepared. I mean, look at all the effort that went into planning Operation Overlord and the bloodbath that was expected for Operation Downfall, against an already battered Germany with no real naval power at that point and a Japanese empire that was heavily starved and bombed and whose fleet was basically obliterated by 1945.

Invading America? You've got a lot more water to cross against an enemy with the strongest navy in the world with a substantial logistical advantage due to shorter supply lines, can cut its losses and build up a vast defensive network if it sees that it's losing in the Old World (NATO probably would get crushed by the Warsaw pact's overwhelming numerical advantage and their largely even technological ability particularly before Reagan when NATO's strategy amounted to "hide behind Nukes because we're screwed conventionally", and SEATO is getting squashed like a bug between China and India) to make any invader's day a living hell.

You'd need a colossal build up and a committance to a long, grinding war of Naval attrition against the Western powers (because the Navies of places like France and Britain will flee to the U.S if they see that their Nations are lost) and then you'd need to supply tens of millions of troops (you'll need all of them to conquer the U.S) across two huge oceans and across the breadth of a very large nation. And of course you'll also need to divert troops to holding newly liberated lands in Eurasia and potentially Africa, Oceania, and South America.

This isn't Red Alert 3 where you can just blow up the statue of liberty and achieve instant victory.

[Guardia Rossa]

No power really could or wanted to destroy eachother.
Cold war was jsut like WW1: one side lost because it couldn't keep fighting, due to inner unrest and unwillingness to continue the war, if Germany held out one more year it would win as both France and England would surrender (USA really did almost nothing), Germany didn't lost because it was fully occupied like other wars.
Wars between big powers will most probably restricted to atriction at this Era.

Or blitzkrieg the capital and main cities with soldiers in subs and drones, FFS.

[John Nada]

I was just think of it in another way. Did the nukes promote revisionism, not in the USSR or the PRC, but in capitalist countries? The stakes were raised. Directly aid for the revolution could mean nuclear destruction. Even in countries it succeeded in, it'd be better to mind their own business than take a side, becoming a nuclear target. This turns even lip-service for a global revolution into something purely defensive. Sure, this prevented the capitalist from going too far in harassing the Soviet Bloc, but their existence is based on, at least in theory, an eventual global revolution. It turns into a game of attrition, which one side won.