• EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        Fucking unbelievable that you’d just leave out the fact that Germany was under literal Nazi rule. Unironically a Nazi sympathiser… East Germany thrived under USSR just so you know.

        There was no unequal exchange. Which is what Western Imperial powers do to countries that can’t fight back.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        8 hours ago

        Colonialism/neocolonialism/imperialism involves setting up a system of international plunder. The USSR did not do that.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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          6 hours ago

          I would say it’s a little more complicated than that. Imo imperialism has to entail more than just a colonialist money grab. If we don’t acknowledge things like ethnic hierarchy and expansionism then there isn’t really a good term to describe the expansions of countries like Germany or japan during and before ww2. The same goes for the empirical expansion of the past.

          I especially don’t think west Germany would be an example of colonialism or imperialism, but I think you could argue with some degrees of success that imperialism happened in places like Kazakhstan during Soviet rule.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            6 hours ago

            It’s more complicated, but for someone trying to find out why the soviet union was different from the entirely imperialist west, it’s more than sufficient.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            8 hours ago

            The same as it was doing by helping national liberation movements in Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, and more: trying to spread socialism and weaken imperialism, which is what was holding the USSR in siege.

            • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              Didn’t those counties welcomed help from the USSR and the countries I mentioned not. What your saying just sounds like a different flavor of “spreading democracy” to me.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                7 hours ago

                Germany was governed by Nazis prior to the establishment of the GDR. In both countries, existing communist organizing existed, and like with other countries the USSR aided them. The key difference between the USSR spreading socialism and the US Empire “spreading democracy” is that the USSR really did spread socialism, while the US Empire instead spread death and destruction to plunder these countries.

                • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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                  22 minutes ago

                  The USSR spread socialism by force though, did the not? Weather your spreading democracy or socialism, using tanks and violence against an occupied people seems bad to me.

                  Also, what about Afghanistan?

                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    20 minutes ago

                    Spreading good things is good, spreading bad things under the guise of spreading good things is bad. The USSR said they were spreading socialism and actually did so, the US Empire claims it spreads democracy but actually spreads genocide and violence, in order to establish imperialist relations.

          • deathmetaldawgy@lemmy.ml
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            7 hours ago

            Read about literacy rates, poverty and life expectancy for starters. “Building hospitals and schools” is the answer to “so what was the ussr doing in those countries” lmao get better propaganda. The prop I choose to follow is atleast backed by LOTS of history.

      • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        of course they were did you like not witness the terror of Stalin’s gigantic spoon?

        Stalin had 2 million scientists design it and then of course as Stalin does best, he executed them… with his spoon…

        • orc girly@lemmy.ml
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          11 hours ago

          Tankies pretend otherwise, but according to experts he also had a giant straw that he used to drink everyone’s smoothies