Soviet Imperialism

I'll be brief. I'm looking for your opinions on Soviet imperialism, notably regarding the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and the Soviet War in Afghanistan in 1979. I appreciate your responses.

Well I wouldn't be to quick to suggest that those military conflicts were acts of imperialism. At least not the way Marxist's under stand 'imperialism'.

I haven't done too much research on the subject (I will now because I'm interested), so my knowledge is fairly limited.

Does anyone have good resources are documents regarding these two cases?

Well, let me clear this up. I don't necessarily believe anything the Soviet Union does was 'imperialist,' as imperialism is, as Lenin said, 'the highest stage of capitalism.' The Soviet Union may have embraced capitalist reforms after Stalin's death, but it was not a fully-developed exploiter nation. At least, not in my opinion. These acts are often referred to as Soviet imperialism, thus why I named the thread as such.

So tell me this. If we, as Marxist-Leninists, respect the right to self-determination for all nations, how can we say that either of these interventions were justified? I mean, if we're talking about oil, it's in the United States' interest to invade Iraq then, since it's in their economic interests. Of course, Afghanistan shared a border with the Soviet Union, but I don't think control over resources would justify intervention.

So tell me this. If we, as Marxist-Leninists, respect the right to self-determination for all nations, how can we say that either of these interventions were justified? I mean, if we're talking about oil, it's in the United States' interest to invade Iraq then, since it's in their economic interests. Of course, Afghanistan shared a border with the Soviet Union, but I don't think control over resources would justify intervention.

The revolutionary government in Afghanistan requested that the Soviet Union send military aid to fight against rebels armed by the US. I don't think oil had much of anything to do with the conflict; if anything it was to counter American influence as well as supporting a legitimate revolutionary government under attack by imperialist elements and counter revolution.

Let’s address all the wars waged by the revisionists after Stalin, concisely:

• Hungary—a counter-revolution organized by social-fascists, much like Kronstadt. Even during the Sino-Soviet Split Mao and Hoxha both referred to it as the “Hungarian Counter-Revolution.” If it were Stalin in charge I would support it, but it was Khrushchev, so I don’t choose a side. Unlike Czechoslovakia, there was no military coup, and Hungary was not “capitalists vs. revisionists,” but at the time more like “revisionists vs. Marxist-Leninists vs. capitalists.” Basically just.

• Czechoslovakia—Unjust. In the case of Czechoslovakia the ultra-revisionist clique there took over for the old slightly-less-revisionist clique. I view it to be a gross violation of the self-determination of Czechoslovakia and therefore condemn it.

• Afghanistan—Unjust. Usually the most controversial of the invasions. Taraki alienated everyone in Afghanistan by engaging in reforms based on the revisionist USSR. As a result, he failed to captivate the masses and as a result, has uprisings everywhere—literally every district. Some were probably funded by General Muhammad Ziq-ul-Haq, this is true, but most were spontaneous. They don't even have the excuse of Afghanistan being a Warsaw state. Also, the “socialist” government there came to power due to a military coup by revisionists.

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

Karmal headed the Parcham faction of the PDPA, which was reformist and moderate. Amin and Taraki headed the Khalq, who were, well, less reformist, and not moderate. The Khalq faction represented the joint interests of the working class, peasantry and the national capitalist class. Due to the weak working class, it was dominated by the perspective of the national capitalist class. Parcham came to represent the interest of the feudal and monarchist landowners.

i agree about czechoslovakia

Uprising in hungary was nothing but counter revolution with many suspicious fractions