Well, back on September 13 I agreed with Luke's comment that "Soviet imperialism (and that's what it was) in Afghanistan was justified," observing that: "There are things much worse than really existing socialism of the Brezhnevite flavor. And we see them today."
Brad DeLong %%%%%
CB: Removing historical hindsight in one moment of analysis is a difficult discipline to exercise.
(The reason I would say that the Soviet international system was not imperialism is that it was not an exploitative economic system . The Soviet Union did not net rip off Cuba, Angola, Viet Nam in trade. It did not have the aim of exploiting Afghanistan. The presence of a military force is not what constitutes imperialism. Cuban troops in Angola were internationalist heroes, akin to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain, not imperialists. The exploitative relation is essential for it to be imperialism. You probably know how true this is more than I , as an economist.)