--snip ---
>Did the bourgeoisie understand what it was getting into when it "conquered"
>world Communism? Apparently not. What it has done is raise the level of
>class contradictions to a higher level than ever before.
--- snip ---
>human behavior. What is also problematic for imperialism is that it has not
>been able to create a social layer in the country that is the counterpart
>of the pro-US Nicaraguan middle-class. The pro-US social layers in the
>former Soviet Union are cowardly gangsters.
I think Louis gives American imperialists too much credit, and the reason for that is that he underestimates the reactionary role of the intelligentsia under the Soviet system (cf. Konrand & Szelenyi, _Intellectuals on the road to class power_, NY: 1979).
The Soviet system did not implode under the American pressure - it was torn apart from within, especially by industrial managers and technocrats who always resented the curtailment of their occupational autonomy imposed by the party rule (cf. Kennedy, _Professionals, power, and Solidarity in Poland : a critical sociology of Soviet-type society_, Cambridge: 1991). As soon as they sensed that the winds of the perestrika weakened the iron fist that kept them in their place since the Stalin's rule, they grabbed for whatever power they could, effectively partitioning the power of the central government. This is the history of boyarschina (feudal magnates in tsarist Russia) repeating itself as a farce.
The Thatcherites and Reaganites who advise the Russian government did not invade that country, they came there by invitation of Soviet technocrats spawned by the Soviet system itself.
Best regards,
Wojtek Sokolowski