[lbo-talk] Re: Worker's Paradise (was: Gulag query)

[H. Curtiss Leung]

That the Hungarian uprising and invasion of Afghanistan were supported by
most of the USSR's population jusitifies neither those actions nor the US
invasion of Iraq.  Likewise, neither does Chris's reporting of that fact 
make him an apologist for the ancien regime.  


> 
> I'm not sure I follow you, Curtiss.  I was replying to the claim that 
> "the crushing of the Hungarian uprising and the invasion of 
> Afghanistan were both supported by the bulk of the Soviet 
> population."  By that logic, popular support in the U.S. for an 
> invasion of Iraq makes that defensible (and I don't think it is, just 
> for the record).  Whether you have unanimity in a dictatorship 
> through intimidation or in a "democracy" through more subtle means 
> (corporate-controlled media, advertising, etc.), "popular opinion" 
> has to be taken with a big grain of salt.  And even if the Soviet 
> population was really, truly in favor of the '56 and '68 invasions, 
> surely that didn't make it right to send the tanks in?
> 
>     --Dave.
>