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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   27922 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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You seem to be confusing different historical periods. When USSR took over Poland, there wasn't even the Cold War - in fact, most of it happened while US and USSR had been allies and fought together against Hitler. Opening that question back then would hardly be possible. However, things were much different years later, when the Cold War was in full swing.

I disagree with that historiography, the first red scare happened decades earlier. Enmity between the Capitalist USA and the USSR started with the latter's birth, or preceded it.

I don't know how you're making your assumptions about what does or doesn't impact credibility other than assuming the consequent.

Enmity between the Capitalist USA and the USSR started with the latter's birth, or preceded it.

This is true, but that initial enmity has officially ended in 1930s by FDR, and turned into an alliance in the 1940s and had highs and lows since then. You seem to be making some kind of a point that there was one constant policy over seven decades of USSR existence, but it was a multitude of different policies. Sometimes US chose to fight, sometimes they chose to sit aside, sometimes they chose to ally with USSR against common enemy.

I'm not sure what you mean by "credibility" here. My point is very simple - if US chose to never fight, it would not lose any specific wars to USSR, but it would lose everything, and in that hypothetical world, we'd still have USSR right now, probably owning most of Europe, Africa, Latin America and China owning Asia. Fortunately, we live in a better world - the one when US sometimes chose to fight, and ultimately won, even despite losing some wars. I don't see any possibility of avoiding any lost wars in advance, except giving up from start and not fighting at all.

You seem to be making some kind of a point that there was one constant policy over seven decades of USSR existence, but it was a multitude of different policies.

Global Communism had one consistent policy towards Western Capitalism from before the birth of its avatar to today: the historical inevitability and moral advisability of a proletarian revolution. That proposition gaining or losing credibility and relevance globally among the masses and among intellectual elites. That policy and that conflict didn't pause because of any alliance or detente signaled or signed by either the USA or the USSR.

My point is very simple - if US chose to never fight, it would not lose any specific wars to USSR, but it would lose everything,

I really don't understand this argument. Is it that the choice is more or less random and you win some you lose some? Is it that Vietnam was a good choice, and the loss was bad luck despite good odds?

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