Leninism, Maoism,, and Stalinism

[CrazyModerate]

I see it is quite popular you accuse every ruling government that has ever existed, besides the oh so glorious reigns of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Castro, as being reactionary, oppressive and so on. But what did Lenin, Stalin or Mao ever do for the poor? China has a worse rich-poor gap than the cappie stink hole that is the USA. The Soviet Union was an imperialistic and militaristic giant which didn't give a crap about the people. Regardless of Cuba's social and economic conditions, it is quite obvious that Castro treats himself life an absolutist monarch, both politically, and on a personal scale, enjoying luxuries the average cuban would never encounter.

I personally prefer the actual tangible progress achieved by the scandinavian and democratic socialist governments throughout history, where there has been success in nearly eliminating poverty, as opposed to the so called proletarian revolutions. These revolutions don't achieve anything for the people, they just get more power for a certain ideology or figurehead.

These nations may not have been "as bad" as fascists like Hitler or conservatives like Reagan, but they still didn't achieve squat for the people.

[JKP]

It's useful for throwing off colonialism and feudalism.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

progress achieved by the Scandinavian and democratic socialist governments throughout history, where there has been success in nearly eliminating poverty

Granted, however so far all the countries that have been called communist, have started out extremely poor. Scandinavian social democracy has been within states that have been far more developed. They have other wealthy countries to trade with, so technology, produced by third world poor, has been relatively cheaply.

What they have not done is attempt to solve international poverty; it is purely nationalist and reactionary.


The Soviet Union was an imperialistic and militaristic giant which didn't give a crap about the people

I do not think the Soviet Union was socialist or that great in any way. However, it was isolationist; it saw threats from every border, so it had to develop an advanced military force. Something which Scandinavian countries have not needed to do.

Also, because of the massive military expenditure by the USSR, it basically crippled them over 70 years. However, people did get many free things, like healthcare, housing for example.

Cuba is a third world country, despite this, the cops don’t go around killing hundreds of homeless street children as they do in brazil. There are not homeless children, because, aside from other things, housing for all is seen as a fundamental human right, unlike many other countries.


But what did Lenin, Stalin or Mao ever do for the poor?

Well, like you I imagine, I am not too fond of these figures, but I don’t think they were consciously opposed to the poor, I think they did want to help them. They did make undeniable progress in some areas, but they were limited in what they could achieve, in a world dominated by capitalism.

If the Scandinavian social democracy was isolated from the rest of the world, how successful do you honestly think it would be? Not very, there would be massive poverty....

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 05:10 AM
I see it is quite popular you accuse every ruling government that has ever existed, besides the oh so glorious reigns of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Castro, as being reactionary, oppressive and so on.


Completely idiotic posts like these always make me wonder: fucking moron, liar, or both?

Strawman fallacy. Even the most notorious "Stalinists" or Maoists have some sort of criticism for their "heroes". Maybe someone would seriously consider what you have to say if you didn't make shit up about us(the great majority here are anti-Stalinist or even anti-Leninist, just in case you can't read either).


But what did Lenin, Stalin or Mao ever do for the poor?
Gee, gosh, you've got me there, that's a good question... :rolleyes:


China has a worse rich-poor gap than the cappie stink hole that is the USA.
Hey, has it ever occured to you that Mao has been dead for 30 years? So I don't really see how China's current condition can be blamed on him. :lol:


The Soviet Union was an imperialistic and militaristic giant which didn't give a crap about the people.
Oh, please. I can't wait to see you try and back this up. This should be good. It's always funny to see people chanting "Eastern Europe, Afghanistan!" as some sort of religious chant.


Regardless of Cuba's social and economic conditions, it is quite obvious that Castro treats himself life an absolutist monarch, both politically, and on a personal scale, enjoying luxuries the average cuban would never encounter.
Source? I remember how some magazine tried to make it look like he personally receives all the profits made by Cuban companies. :lol:


I personally prefer the actual tangible progress achieved by the scandinavian and democratic socialist governments throughout history, where there has been success in nearly eliminating poverty
Yes, great progress, awesome. Except that it isn't compatible with the capitalist economy, meaning that this economy will go to shit, people get pissed off, vote conservatives(with ever-decreasing turnouts!), and all of that will get reverted again. Then "social" "democratic" ideologues such as yourself start whining, and we'll be back where we started again. By the way, did you miss out on the "socialism" part of "democratic socialism"? Because I can't find any "democratic socialist" countries that heve ever established socialism, just some watered-down variant of capitalism that can't work because you can't have both capitalism and all kinds of welfare.


These revolutions don't achieve anything for the people, they just get more power for a certain ideology or figurehead.
Ideology doesn't get power, people get power. Durr. This doesn't even make any sense.


These nations may not have been "as bad" as fascists like Hitler or conservatives like Reagan, but they still didn't achieve squat for the people.
If you really think so, go unplug your keyboard, throw it from the roof, and then follow it yourself. :lol:

[Amusing Scrotum]

I suppose the main point of contention with regards the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China et aliae, is by which standards do we choose to "judge" these countries and their Governments by?

If we decide to "judge" these nations on the official propaganda issued by the Government and its supporters, the promises they made and so on....then they are undoubtedly total and absolute failures.

That they failed to live up to their rhetoric, would be laughable if it wasn't as serious; and the most important piece of rhetoric they failed to live up to, was of course, the creation of a communist society.

These countries were not communist and what's more, most of the time, they failed to meet even some of the standards one would expect to see in a communist society. And therefore, the "judgement" of these countries would be, to put it mildly, harsh.

Unsurprisingly, "judging" these nations by the "official criteria" of the Government, is the favoured method of both bourgeois hacks and bourgeois "historians"....after all, you can make the Soviet Union et aliae look really shit using this method.

Equally unsurprising, is that your average pro-capitalist will use the same method of historical investigation to make their "judgement"; but such an infantile method of historical investigation really doesn't help in our pursuit of knowledge.

Uninterested with the "whys", they just make history into an investigation of "heroes" and "villains". And really, you can make the case rather easily that X was a "hero" or a "villain" but, as I said, it's a really useless method with regards tying to figure out why there are "heroes" and "villains".

After all, the general argument about the Soviet Union et aliae goes something like this: communism is impossible, and that's why it failed in Russia and making everyone "equal" will only ever lead to a "Police State". Often, this is backed up by some mention of "human nature"....cause, of course, human nature is "naturally capitalist". :lol:

But, in my opinion, I'm more interested in why the Soviet Union et aliae became the way they did rather than just trying to reduce historical investigation to the level of blaming this or that poor bastard.

And if we disregard the official rhetoric and grand promises of said nations Governments and actually look at the concrete material factors that affected these nations, then, in my opinion, a rather different picture emerges.

Firstly, communism was not possible in the technologically backward geographical areas that were the Soviet Union et aliae....communism, was simply not on histories agenda for these places.

So what really happened?

Well, you had a bunch of bourgeois revolutions, like France 1789, which destroyed feudalism and started the ball rolling towards modern-capitalism.

So, as post-feudal capitalist countries, how does the Soviet Union et aliae compare with other nations of similar development? Not to bad, in all honesty.

In terms of sweeping out feudal rubbish, the former "Communist States" didn't do too badly; with regards economic development, again, their record was pretty decent; social freedom and individual rights, well....not "great" but not especially "terrible". And so on.

We could, I suppose, go really "in-depth" and discuss this or that policy that we think could have been more efficient and/or beneficial, but I think the verdict of history is that, in the main, these countries were distinctly average....neither especially "wonderful" nor especially "terrible", just average.

Of course, serious historical investigation really goes out the proverbial window when you reduce history to the level of famous personalities....no man or woman "makes history"; and nor will they ever "make history".

Human society is, quite simply, far too complicated to reduce it to the level of the whims of individual personalities.


Originally posted by CrazyModerate+--> (CrazyModerate)But what did Lenin, Stalin or Mao ever do for the poor?[/b]

I've heard that both Lenin and Stalin used to give money to beggars in their youth....but that Mao was a really tight and mean bastard! :lol:


Originally posted by CrazyModerate+--> (CrazyModerate)Soviet Union was an imperialistic and militaristic giant which didn't give a crap about the people.[/b]

You know, they actually increased the size of both the Army and the Police after the "fall of communism"....I found that slightly amusing when I first heard it.

As for the Soviet Union being "imperialistic and militaristic", well that is something that can be seriously investigated.

The first count, Imperialism, is definitely something the old USSR was after about 1948/49....though the picture painted by popular history, is often very deformed.

The Soviet Union was the "Imperial Lord" of the "Socialist bloc", but really, she didn't have the total domination that popular history says she had; even in Eastern Germany, the country were the Soviet Union meddled most, had plenty going on that was, to a degree at least, independent of Moscow.

And both Cuba and Yugoslavia, remained, more or less, completely independent with their foreign policy often annoying the leading Soviet Officials.

As for "militaristic", well again, I'd say the image painted by popular history is grossly deformed.

The old USSR spent a lot of money on her military, but it was nothing "extraordinary"....with the exception of the Nuclear Weapons programs. All in all, the Russian Army wasn't that "special" and the Soviet Union's "military threat" was greatly overblown.


[email protected]
Regardless of Cuba's social and economic conditions, it is quite obvious that Castro treats himself life an absolutist monarch, both politically, and on a personal scale, enjoying luxuries the average cuban would never encounter.

Actually, even Gusano accounts admit that Castro's lifestyle is pretty ordinary....nothing that comes close to the levels of say the British Monarchy.

Fuck, the man's been wearing the same clothes for 40 years! :lol:


CrazyModerate
I personally prefer the actual tangible progress achieved by the scandinavian and democratic socialist governments throughout history, where there has been success in nearly eliminating poverty, as opposed to the so called proletarian revolutions.

Scandinavian social-democracy was adopted by these countries rulers because of the close proximity of the Soviet Union! If you look at Europe, the countries further away from Russia, tend to have poorer social welfare programs and more "free" (and brutal) markets.

Additionally, all of this "progress" is being dismantled right now....likely because capitalism, as a system, is no longer functioning as efficiently meaning that social welfare programs are too expensive!

I reckon, that in a few decades, people with a political orientation like yours in the developed world, will seem like living fossils.

Social-democracy has been taken off the proverbial table. :o

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by CrazyModerate
I personally prefer the actual tangible progress achieved by the Scandinavian and democratic socialist governments throughout history, where there has been success in nearly eliminating poverty, as opposed to the so-called proletarian revolutions.

Your choice.

But you are ignoring the historical specificity of those "successes".

The Scandinavian countries were "blessed" with accommodating ruling classes...who were very much aware of the neighboring USSR and the example that it might set.

Secondly, those countries either heavily profited from World War II or, at least, did not suffer severe war-time damage. The war was a bonanza for Sweden and the Nazi boot rested quite lightly on Denmark and Norway. Finland was an ally of the Nazis but was not occupied by the USSR like other Nazi allies.

In all, the Scandinavian countries got lucky!

Finally, the social democracy that you so admire was a product of a particular "stage" of capitalism's development. In my opinion, that stage has ended in all of the "old" capitalist countries.

What we see now is that all the "great reforms" are being slowly (or quickly!) dismantled...returning the working class to conditions that we associate with the 19th century.

How "far" this will go remains to be seen.

But any hopes you may have for another "age of reform" are, in my opinion, doomed!

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Wanted Man]

Redstar, also note how quickly those social services were removed after 1990, when the influence of the Soviet Union was no longer felt. Even in its most horrid state-capitalist days, even on the very last day of Gorbachev, it still presented an alternative.

This has had a thorough influence on all European countries, not only the Scandinavian ones. I can't speak for other countries, but the history of the Netherlands certainly disproves CrazyModerate's crazy moderate claims. During the 70s, the social-democratic Labour Party(Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA, not to be confused with the very communist PVDA in Belgium) came into power here. It had some very ambitious plans, it even included gradually taking away power from the bourgeoisie and organising workers into councils.

However, this effort failed because of several factors that cannot be removed as long as capitalism is still in force: Having to form a government containing not only the PvdA, but also the "progressive liberals" known as the Democrats(D66, because they were founded in 1966), and the conservative Catholic People's Party(Katholieke Volkspartij, KVP), who are not as eager. That's how bourgeois politics work: you either have a system in which you have to make concessions to form a government, or you have a two-party system, with both parties being total pricks(and England and Canada have three-party systems, I suppose).

Geographic, economical and political situation: the country was extremely important in the European Community, with its port to the North Sea and the Rhine leading deep into Germany. The social-democratic leaders were also strongly opposed to the Soviet Union, so they remained loyal to NATO, which excluded a split with this imperialist alliance from the very start!

The bourgeoisie. Here comes the issue that always arouses the same reaction from social-democrats: they plug their ears and shout: "Lalalalala, I can't heeeaaarrr youuuuu..." The bourgeoisie simply does not accept a government policy that is inherently detrimental to its own power.
So, how did the little Dutch experiment turn out? Well, some of the more radical ideas like workers' councils never made it through the coalition negotiations. The government launched an immense social welfare plan, but history proved that good intentions alone don't help shit: the government was still on the leash of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie pulled the leash hard. Nine "captains of industry" wrote a letter to the prime minister saying that if his policies didn't stop, the country would go to shit.

I guess they did have a bit of bad luck: the Arabs stopped the supplies of oil because of the Netherlands' unconditional support to Israel. Bringing the whole NATO situation back into the picture.

Anyway, in the next elections, the still-popular PvdA won again, and it again tried to form the best government possible. However, the catholics bailed out on them this time. They merged with the two protestant conservative parties(the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the Christian Historical Union) into the Christian Democratic Appeal(CDA), which is still the biggest party today. That party formed a government of its own with the liberals of the VVD.

So there we have a nice lesson: as progressive as a government under capitalism may be, it still remains on the leash of the bourgeoisie. After the fall of the Warsaw Pact and all that, the PvdA had changed drastically. The former trade union leader Wim Kok proudly proclaimed that he had shed his "ideological feathers", and went into a coalition with the VVD and D66 for two terms, leading to even further stagnation and the rise of Pim Fortuyn. But that's a whole other story.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 26 2006, 08:05 AM
All in all, the Russian Army wasn't that "special" and the Soviet Union's "military threat" was greatly overblown.
There's a sea of rusting tanks in Eastern Europe that gives lie to that statement. Had Moscow given the word then the Soviet Army would have been on the French border before NATO realised what was going on. But I digress, continue on :)

[Salvador Allende]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 05:10 AM
I see it is quite popular you accuse every ruling government that has ever existed, besides the oh so glorious reigns of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Castro, as being reactionary, oppressive and so on. But what did Lenin, Stalin or Mao ever do for the poor? China has a worse rich-poor gap than the cappie stink hole that is the USA. The Soviet Union was an imperialistic and militaristic giant which didn't give a crap about the people. Regardless of Cuba's social and economic conditions, it is quite obvious that Castro treats himself life an absolutist monarch, both politically, and on a personal scale, enjoying luxuries the average cuban would never encounter.

I personally prefer the actual tangible progress achieved by the scandinavian and democratic socialist governments throughout history, where there has been success in nearly eliminating poverty, as opposed to the so called proletarian revolutions. These revolutions don't achieve anything for the people, they just get more power for a certain ideology or figurehead.

These nations may not have been "as bad" as fascists like Hitler or conservatives like Reagan, but they still didn't achieve squat for the people.
That is very easily seen. Lenin led the Revolution freeing the people's of Capitalism, but unfortunately died very soon afterwards. Stalin on the other hand, led the Soviet people from a povertous beginning, being one of the most backward countries in Europe to the most advanced in Europe by his death. The people had free healthcare, education, housing etc. The people lived quite well. The USSR became very military-centred and indeed, imperialistic in the span after Stalin's death because the Revolution was reversed in 1953 and in 1958 the Marxist-Leninists in the Party tried to lead a revolt against Khruschev, but Khruschev won that struggle and eliminated Kaganovich and Molotov and their faction from the Party.

The Soviet Union's fall into Revisionism is easily explained. It was assumed that Capitalism could never re-appear in any form in the USSR, despite Lenin's warning where he said the class struggle would intensify. Stalin led an assault on the bourgeois emerging in the Party, but he led it from his own perspective and did not truly involve the people in this act and hence, he missed many Revisionists and relied on many others and the USSR did not remain Socialist after his death.

China, led by Mao escaped the shackles of Colonialism and Feudalism and became quite industrialised during his leadership of the Party. Life expectancy more than doubled and healthcare and education were provided for all as well as housing, food and clothing. Mao saw the events in the USSR occur and saw that there was a bourgeois which naturally emerged within the Communist Party as a result of the increasing contradictions during Socialism. As a result, he led the entire masses of the proletariat, peasantry and students against the Revisionists and encouraged them to "bombard the headquarters" and criticise members of the Communist Party. Mao famously said “YOU ARE MAKING THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, AND YET DON’T KNOW WHERE THE BOURGEOISIE IS. IT IS RIGHT IN THE COMMUNIST PARTY--THOSE IN POWER TAKING THE CAPITALIST ROAD. THE CAPITALIST-ROADERS ARE STILL ON THE CAPITALIST ROAD.”1

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, from 1966 until 1977 was aimed at preventing the rise of Revisionism and preventing the Bourgeois from re-taking power. The Revisionist line of Liu Shao-chi, Teng Hsiao-ping and Peng Chen was defeated by 1969, when the military became a larger player. However, Chairman Mao made the error of not encouraging the people's control over the People's Liberation Army as well and so it became a safe-haven for many Revisionists. In 1971, Lin Piao, one of the military leaders led an attempted coup on Mao which failed. This failure led to the purging of the military leaders, but like Stalin's purges, this was not done in the style of mass-criticism and putting it under the people's control and so it ultimately only weeded out one group of Revisionists. After that, many incorrect policies occured thanks to a pervasive streak of idealism.

It was assumed that when a Revisionist made self-criticism that he was genuine and should be restored to his old capacities as the ideological struggle had defeated his old line and he had genuinly changed his line. By 1974, the Revisionist camp in China included the Gang of Four and the Teng faction, which had the support of the military. Chairman Mao died in 1976 and his successor, Chairman Hua led an assault on the Gang of Four, correctly seeing their Revisionism and moving against them. In 1977, he declared that the Cultural Revolution had accomplished it's aims. Ye Jianying and the military revisionists then began saying that Teng was a changed man and Teng Hsiaoping promised he had corrected his line and that he stood by all of the policies of the Cultural Revolution. Believing this, Teng was allowed back into the Party and began using the influence of his allies (Ye Jian-ying and Yang Shang-kun) in the military to return Peng Chen, Li Hsien-nien and other Revisionists in the Party. Chairman Hua fought back, but by 1979 was almost completely eradicated in power and it was widely recognised he would lose his main offices soon. That same year, Teng began preaching the correctness of "Market Socialism" and said that the future of China laid in that. He proceeded to, by his death in 1997, introduce Capitalism under the guise of Market Socialism and destroy the education, healthcare and other Socialist programes, denounce the Cultural Revolution, say that the bourgeois cannot emerge within the Communist Party and promote Liu Shao-chi as an excellent image of a Communist. His successor, Chiang Tse-min, ensured in 2001 that Capitalists were let in the Communist Party as part of the Party line.

The fact that China has a significant Rich-Poor gap and also the reason the USSR became Imperialist is because they were taken by the bourgeois within the Party or military, destroyed Socialism and returned the Dictatorship of the Bourgeois. They may have claimed (or still do) to be Socialist, but history shows they were not by their actions which promoted Capitalism. Despite these set-backs, the people of those countries will one day rise up again and this time Socialism will correct it's past errors. As we speak in the Philippines the Communist Party of the Philippines is leading a war against the government and the Communist Party of Nepal controls 80% of the country and every day grows closer to victory. History is full of twists and turns and indeed, the bourgeois revolution in France was also reversed, but nothing can stop the tide of history and Dialectic Materialism shows that Socialism will succeed Capitalism. Though Socialism may have hit a hard time, it will surely pass these and proceed into the future as the bourgeois revolution did in France.

The "Democratic Socialist" governments are not run by the workers and peasants. Through Imperialism they simply maintain a working class closer to the lumpenproletariat than real working proletariat. The USA has a very high standard of living and the people live far better than most, but this is only because Imperialism provides a situation where the production isn't done in the Imperialist countries, but rather, in the Third-World. The workers in that Imperialist country make a super-profit off of the low-cost, oppressed labour of the third-world. This is why the revolution will strike the third-world first. The Communist Party of China once said (though now they never speak of revolution and even oppose the Revolutions in the Philippines, Colombia and Nepal) that the third-world were like the country-side of the world and the first-world like the cities and that just like the People's War in China, the people would gain control of the country-side and then take the cities one-by-one. I believe this is true.

1- Quoted in Chairman Hua Kuo-feng's memorial speech for Chairman Mao Tse-tung, September 18, 1976.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by ComradeOm+Apr 26 2006, 01:49 PM--> (ComradeOm @ Apr 26 2006, 01:49 PM)
Armchair [email protected] 26 2006, 08:05 AM
All in all, the Russian Army wasn't that "special" and the Soviet Union's "military threat" was greatly overblown.
There's a sea of rusting tanks in Eastern Europe that gives lie to that statement. Had Moscow given the word then the Soviet Army would have been on the French border before NATO realised what was going on.[/b]

I really doubt that; those rusting tanks you mention, were rusting back then! :lol:

Granted, a "Russian Blitzkrieg" may well have got as far as France, or even Britain....but it was unlikely for numerous reasons, namely, the threat of Nuclear attack!

But even being able to invade France, wouldn't necessarily mean that the Russian Army was "special" in any way; a "French Blitzkrieg" could have reached Russia, but that wouldn't make the French Army "special" in any sense of the word.

Indeed, back in the 70's, the Neo-Conservatives who had just come to Washington, embarked on a campaign to make Russia look really threatening and even though they actually managed to stir up fear, even the CIA recognised that it was all bullshit.

The Russian Military Infrastructure which was supposedly so threating, was falling apart even back then....indeed one Neo-Conservative influenced Study Team, resorted to using Russian Training Manuals to make their case; and as you can imagine, the picture in these manuals was less than accurate. :lol:

There's actually a funny story about some CIA Director (Casey?), who was convinced that Russia posed a "great threat", but as the CIA Operatives pointed out to him, the threat he had heard about was mainly based on CIA "black propaganda". :lol:

The Russian Army was, as you put it, "rusty"&#33; <_<

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Honestly, I am tired of people ignoring the issue of Scandinavian countries and their progress. We need to come up with decent arguments if we want social democrats and democratic socialists to join in a revolution. Unfortunately, I have few. However, one should note that there is no substantial evidence suggesting the progress in Scandinavian countries is from social democracy. It could easily be from grassroots action or anarcho-syndicalism. Furthermore, it is also possible that capitalists are shifting their ideology. Perhaps they seek to give the people a bit of what they want (now realizing that it isn&#39;t always a bad thing) to perpetuate their wealth? Sure, Scandinavian countries have great health care. The businesses can work with that - less people are coming in sick. How much of Scandinavian politics is really about decreasing class division? The overall standard of living might simply be higher.

I am no fan of Leninism, Maoism, or Stalnism myself. I&#39;d easily put social democracy above any of those philosophies (although that doesn&#39;t imply that I believe in such reformist nonsense).

[ComradeOm]

I strongly disagree. The Soviet Army was "special" in that it dwarfed that of the NATO and was dedicated to armoured warfare. A T-72 with a Soviet crew, fighting under Soviet aircraft and as part of a Soviet formation would have been a much different machine to the burnt out ones that now litter Iraq. The USSR had three tank armies in East Germany, arrayed against a small NATO force in a hopeless position along the German border.

I have to admit that part of me would love to see a NATO v Warsaw Pact war circa 1985. Now that would have been the mother of all battles.


Granted, a "Russian Blitzkrieg" may well have got as far as France, or even Britain....but it was unlikely for numerous reasons, namely, the threat of Nuclear attack&#33;
Well nukes are the only real reason. A comparison of the available armies and their strategies shows that Ivan would have simply blown through the NATO defences. Its hard to appreciate just how devastating a massed armour column can be when all you see in the news is small bush wars. The Soviets spent decades refining their techniques developing what they called the operational art of war.


But even being able to invade France, wouldn&#39;t necessarily mean that the Russian Army was "special" in any way; a "French Blitzkrieg" could have reached Russia, but that wouldn&#39;t make the French Army "special" in any sense of the word.
Hardly <_<

The French army, as with all Western armies, was a pale shadow of the Soviet Army at its height. Furthermore it was geared almost exclusively towards defence while that of Russia was first and foremost an offensive tool. Its nearly impossible to imagine NATO reaching Moscow but the Soviets had detailed plans to reach the Rhine within a week&#33;

[Andy Bowden]

The USSR could probably have conquered most of Western Europe easily, through sheer military strength.

What would have mattered was if the USA would have been able to reinforce european NATO members.

Basically, if they could outsmart soviet subs.

Either that or I shouldnt read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy as much :D