File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/94-08-17.000, message 202


Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 15:23:17 +0800 (PST)
From: <hfspc002-AT-huey.csun.edu>
Subject: Re: Marxism and academia


Stephen Grossman writes:  "Stalin and those who followed him created the
largest, fastest growing empire in history, one which, by 1980, was
capable of winning WW3 with merely 20 million dead Soviet citizens. My
guess is that Marxist leaders want to use this military supremacy to
strengthen (with its threat) the ongoing active measures and
disinformation which is opening Western polities to revolutionary
politics."

While I agreed with some of the post, I think this statement is the
reading of history that the Reagan administration and the Pentagon would
have had us believe in the 80s.  The Soviet Union was never able to "win"
World War 3, in Europe or anywhere else.  They couldn't even beat down
the class and ethnic struggle in Afghanistan.  While this argument helped
justify the Carter and Reagan military buildups of the 70s and 80s, the
soviets never had strategic superiority in nuclear or conventional
weaponry.  The entire purpose of the myth of Soviet superiority was used
to justify the US acquisition of a first-strike nuclear capability which
could be used to intimidate the Soviet Union and allow the US to flex its
military and economic muscle worldwide in the "national" interest (i.e.
the interest of the military and corporate elites).  I think that Soviet
military power and the cold war in general is the only thing that
prevented nuclear war since 1945 (note that the Johnson and Nixon
administrations both considered using nuclear weapons but decided not to
for fear of Soviet retaliation).  And I think that the Bush
administration's ability to bully and blackmail world leaders into
accepting the slaughter in the Persian Gulf indicates the extent to which
the end of the cold war has encouraged US aggression abroad.  (At no other
time in history would the Soviets have accepted 500,000 US troops only 700
miles from their border!  yet in the Gulf War the Bush admin. not only got
acquiescence but active support from them).  

Ben Attias




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