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The "Get Political" Book Series
Book review:
Lenin: Revolution, Democracy, Socialism by Paul Le Blanc
London: Pluto Press, 2008
Reviewed by Bryan D. Palmer
I think that 30 million more deaths by 1946 in the Soviet Union was the ultimate in terrorism by which all other acts of terror last century to this one are measured. If any countries had reason to declare a state of national security and for raising an iron curtain, it was the former Soviet Union.
Are you referring to Stalin's reign of terror or are you talking about Soviet deaths in World War 2? I think you should make that clear.
The Great Purge years produced anywhere from 600,000 to 1.2 million deaths depending on whether declassified Soviet documents or western numbers are used. This is nowhere near the 20 to 27 million figure for the former USSR occurring between the years 1939 and 1946, again, depending on whether Soviet or western estimates.
Roughly 13% of the the Soviet Union's population were dead and missing as a result of WW II. By comparison perestroika, or the Western world's eonomic plan to destroy the USSR, killed off another 10% of Russians in the 1990s and left the population declining by 700,000 a year. The switch to gangster capitalism produced nearly as many orphans in Russia as Soviet WW II casualites. It was an inside job or top-down revolution with Yeltsin fending off democracy for them.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I tend not to make apologies for the former USSR. It was what it was by the end, which was a corrupt empire lacking national investment in infrastructure, social development and technology. However, the general consensus among the CIA and most Sovietologists is that the USSR could have continued despite the dirty wars waged by the west and despite trade embargoes. Boris Yeltsin and company's counterrevolution eliminated the Soviets, their best hope for democratizing the former USSR. It's my opinion and that of many that dissolution of the USSR was a terrible tragedy of the last century.
I agree with you, except for the use of the word "empire", which was never used until after Yeltsin's counterrevolution, and was then coined by the triumphalist imperialists. There are good reasons why it was never used, in that there are many characteristics of an "empire" that did not apply to the USSR. I eschew the term myself, but avoid arguments over terminology, where very little is at stake.
I also disagree on the alleged lack of "national investment in infrastructure, social development and technology". They did beat the USA into space, for example. And they did turn a feudal backwater into an industrial giant and made huge strides in providing universal medical and education systems.
I agree with that assessment. But, afterall, they did "invade" Afghanistan to put down a popular people's rebellion against Soviet "aggression." We know now, though, that the CIA, ISI and Saudi royals were meddling in Afghanistan by about half a year before. The Sovs were invited into the country by the PDPA government to help them fend off what was essentially a foreign-armed insurrection led by theocratic feudalists, Afghan drug barons etc opposed to the PDPA's land redistributions, women's rights etc. Zbigniew Brzezinksi's maniacally racist comments about "a few stirred-up Muslims" were made while admitting to the west's clandestine interventions in Afghanistan well beforehand. After more than three decades' worth of U.S. and British meddling in Afghanistan, it is a failed nation state. Democracy prevention and destabilization is the imperialist's game all along. Straightjacketing whole countries by indebtitude to a western banking cabal is the new imperialism. We are told by Harvard professors that wars and military aggressions are declining in frequency since the last century and due to the peaceful new world order of neoliberal capitalism. Marauding capital is supposed to achieve today what standing armies did on behalf of the blue bloods and oligarchies over the course of centuries, although the Atlantic Alliance's luftwaffe is still needed to enforce the rules from time to time. NATO armies are a long way from the Atlantic region nowadays.
There has been a transition from cold war to a state of liquid terrorism, "civil wars", and destruction of economic and national sovereignty paving the way for marauding capital and NATO interventions. While citizens of various countries including the U.S. want more national security, their actual response is privatizations and subcontracting everything from security to public services. Some have said that neoliberalism is a prescription for a new dark ages. Imperialist ends today are achieved by funding proxy armies and mercenaries for hire as it was in 1980s Afghanistan, 1990s Bosnia, Libya and now Syria. The cold war never ended and Atlantic Alliance has continued surrounding Russia and China militarily. The new peace of Westphalia, or neoliberalism, is not democratic as was observed in Pinochet's Chile through counterrevolution in 1990s Russia and today's ongoing destruction and destabilizations of former Soviet republics. I agree with American Michael Hudson when he says he doesn't advocate for, for example, Belarus' economic setup, which is also corrupt. But Hudson says they are still far better off under the present arrangement than having neoliberalism foisted on them. Maintaining economic and monetary independence from the west is key according to rogue economists like Hudson. A better situation is then possible.