• 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.