Was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Imperialistic in nature...

Was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Imperialistic in nature? What about the early expansion into territories formerly held by the Russian Empire? Why or why not? Was it ok when the USSR did it?

Other urls found in this thread:

marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/
marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1976/khruschevites/06.htm
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Only when Stalin wasn't at the helm

t. fuckin 4s

Was the end goal economic domination and exploitation of the indigenous population? If no, then no, it wasn't imperialism.

When it comes to reconquest of former Russian Empire terytories it went somewhat like this:

You forgot the part where Poland stole and colonized large parts of Ukraine and pretty much all of Belarus.

Oh it's only imperialism if exploitation is the goal
Whether it happens or not is irrelevant because we totally didnt mean to guys

That map is butt. Here's a better one.

Well, did it happen?

Not at all, they were overly reluctant in coming to the aid of a fellow revolutionary socialist state to the point that they only decided to send troops once a coup had occurred and Taraki had been coup'd and murdered by Amin. Only then did the geriatrics in the USSR decide that they had to intervene because: (1.) the US was already actively supporting isalmist insurgents against the moderate Taraki government and (2.) Amin was a bastard who the Soviet leadership feared would induce repressions which would just exacerbate internal resistance.
Its something that should be take on a case by case basis but for the most part the October revolution was at the time one of the epicenters of a world revolution with uprisings occurring allover the place and spreading like wildfire. Those uprisings which connected with others tended to survive (resulting USSR) and those that did not tended to be suppressed (Germany, China, Hungary, etc.). As for the case of supposed 'russian domination' the baltics, caucasian, central asian and ukrainian regions, they were given the greatest degree of self-representation they had seen. As soviet republics they had their own supreme soviets, proportional representation in the all-union Supreme Soviet as well as over-representation to balance the interests of smaller republics against the larger in the Soviet of Nations. The larger Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan even had their own representation in the UN when it was established.
Those countries which were not reached by revolution and in which their own revolutionary uprisings had been crushed were certainly not better served, the Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Belorussians in the borderline fascist tyranny of the Poles, or the Finnish bourgeois government which brutally repressed the popular finnish communist movement.
The economic argument is also important and even a cursory analysis indicates that the wealth, modernisation and industrialisation of all Soviet Republics indicates their relative autonomy within the union and a lack of a general benefactor employing imperialism to exploit the weaker states. In fact the Baltic republics enjoyed substantial building up as a Soviet industrial heartland and the Central Asian republic enjoyed prosperity which has not been seen since thanks to the support of the rest of the Union. There's a very poor argument to be made for Soviet imperialism in the creation of the USSR.

Tbh that definition ignores strategic imperialism, where a country falls under imperial domination because of its military or political strategic value. South Korea is a good example of this. Imo the real question about whether or not something constitutes imperialism is far simpler: whether or not the people of a country are having their political autonomy reduced or revoked by a foreign power.

t. not a commie

What's wrong with it though? Obviously that's not the definition used by Lenin, but calling "a country having their political autonomy reduced or revoked by a foreign power" imperialism (in a more general sense) sounds reasonable to me.

So if USSR was next door to a Pinochet-tier dictatorship that sold out their country to international corporations and butchered its people, it would be wrong to invade them, because imperialism?

Not really. South Korea was an economic colony of the US before it was developed. It didn't surpass the North until really about 1980.

There are elements of imperial lackeyism left in SK but its also clear its bourgeoisie has a large degree of independence as shown by their decision to break bread with Kim Jong Un at the Olympics.

No. It wasn't even an invasion, they were invited by the Afghanistani government. However, it was a major strategic error, was poorly executed, and exhibited chauvinism.

That doesn't exist. Either it's for economic exploitation, or it's not imperialism.

read this book if you haven't:
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

The answer is clearly yes. I'll defend the soviet union for a lot of shit, but they were undoubtedly imperialist at the very least after Stalin, though arguably during Stalin aswell, with the annexation of the Baltic states and eastern Poland. The argument that they only annexed them so that Hitler couldn't get them first doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Poland can fuck off back to the Curzon line.

Are you implying this is not the case? Imperialism has a very precise definition and you can't just fit any expansionist military endeavor into it.

it was imperialist
end of discussion

Read a fucking book.

...

about as honest a claim as america protecting the freedoms of their imperial conquests

I wonder who could be behind this post.

...

No. Read a fucking book.

That's pretty specifically not imperialism.

Maybe im a brainlet, but if annexing a nation isn't imperialist then wtf is?? Were the UKs African colonies somehow not imperialist??

Do you know what the difference between annexation and colonization is and why the use of borders is very important for this?

I do understand the difference between annexation and colonialism, so perhaps my UK comparison was poor, but is annexation not still imperialism?

Which part of "economic domination and exploitation" did you not understand? War is just a means to an end.

No. Unless you're a capitalist country with an already existing second-class of citizens you exploit, and all/most of the people in the annexed territory will become second-class within their own country.

You're directly stealing (usually raw) resources at gunpoint from a colonized area while using the local labor to extract it. An annexed area is actually part of the national economy unless you're going to just enslave the entire region, at which point, why bother with annexation?

Okay that actually makes sense, thanks. We can still agree surely that annexation is at least immoral in our modern age?

No.

Why? A bourgeois state offers no representation to the interests of the working class. A revolutionary workers' state should by all means eliminate all bourgeois state apparatuses.

muh spooks etc.
in any case, why? what makes it such?

Why don't people read basic theory before shitposting? Why do you use jargon you don't understand when you haven't even read anything Lenin wrote on the subject?

Because they come from Holla Forumseddit and Plebbit.

Well annexation of a nation of another culture (particularly by a bourgeois state) inherently means the subjugation of the conquered by the conquerors. I should make it clear i generally mean annexation by a modern bourgeois state.

Anything and everything a modern bourgeois state, and the bourgeois it represents, do is immoral. Including drawing breath and existing.

I agree, but when i say annexation is immoral of course i mean by a bourgeois state, cus the vast majority of states are bourgeois states

Read Lenin.

Imperialism isn't just a land grab or an eviction. It's a capitalist relation by which a non-indigenous bourgeoisie exploits the local proletariat.
Imperialism in it's early 20th/late 19th century form is dying though, as the various national bourgeoisie are coalescing into a global bourgeoisie, and nation-states wither away under the influence of capitalist crisis and acceleration.

user, if it was imperialistic, what good reason do you have for conquering the wasteland of Afghanstan? It fucking sucks. They did it to try and justify Khruschevite revisionism and it fell apart because Khrushchevism sucks ass.

In line with that it would make sense that the empire that finally conquers Afghanistan will have to be the one that actually understands the human condition.

I don't think the invasion of Afghanistan was imperialist. I'm fairly critical of the intervention in Czechoslovakia but in Afghanistan the Soviets were fighting hardcore Islamists, total enemies of socialism.
That was just a wave of revolutionary fanaticism that often follows successful revolutions, like the French Revolutionary Wars, Iran after 1979 or Europe itself during 1917-1923. Even the Hungarian Soviet Republic attacked Romania over the Transylvanian issue.

read a book then

…oil?

user are you retarded? Afghanstan is the desert shithole. They had to make up an excuse to invade Iraq for oil.

dumbass Afghanistan barely has any oil

Supporting the April Revolution against counterrevolutionaries and foreign imperialists? It was the Afghan government that requested military support to the Soviets

yeah OK
marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1976/khruschevites/06.htm

Tank logic.

Yes it does. Do you think the US maintains troops in Okinawa because they are benefiting from it economically? Do you think that France is drawing vast wealth from Djibouti? There are numerous examples of imperial powers taking control of a region because it serves their broader strategic imperial interests, even if they aren’t extracting wealth from the region itself. The Brits did this constantly because of how far flung their empire was, Gibraltar, Cyprus, the Falklands, and Malta are just a few examples. All of these places were controlled because of their strategic value in extending the operational range of the British fleet. This is why Lenin’s definition falls short.

yes

How so? What resources are there that the US is extracting? It’s a tiny little pacific island with the population of a mid sized city. The only thing it has is strategic geographical value.

it's strategic for imperialism.

That’s literally what I’ve been saying, but by Lenin’s definition the US occupation of Okinawa isn’t imperialism itself, which is why it’s a bad definition.

>Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
0/10

but it is
what is bad is your reading comprehension

By that logic the US didn’t invade Vietnam. That being said I still wouldn’t consider the Soviet Afghan war an example of imperialism under any definition. It’s just that using the invitation of a superpower into a tiny backwards country as a justification for military occupation is flimsy at best.

How so? The US isn’t occupying Okinawa because of any economic exploitation of the island, then how does it count as imperialism?

The PDPA requested military support to the Soviets

Get a load of this shitkid.

And the Saigon government requested the military support of the US. That’s why I made that comparison.

I’m fully aware of French involvement in Africa, but Djibouti is a clear case of a territory that is occupied because of its geographical/strategic importance and not its material wealth.

Tbh these comparisons make no sense to me, one government literally wanted to make life better for its people, the other was set up as a puppet state for the US

I agree, but I’m just pointing out that an official invitation doesn’t necessarily make military occupation acceptable, as we can see in the case of Vietnam.

No. Stomping on islamic fundamentalists is what makes it acceptable.

I would also agree with that. I’m firmly pro-Soviet on this issue, I’m just pointing out why the invitation excuse is a bad one in and of itself.

fuck off anal water