> Michael Dawson wrote:
>
> >What are you even thinking of? What "insurgency" has ever existed that
> >"needed to be defeated" via war? Let's hear your list.
>
> Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan!, to quote one of Workers Vanguard's
> classic headlines. The USSR conducted the war brutally, but they were
> more right than the side the US was supporting.
>
> Doug
---------------------------------
Couldn't you also argue on this basis that the Soviets were justified to
suppress the risings in E Germany 1953, Hungary 1956, and Czechoslovakia
1968, as Soviet supporters did? These episodes foreshadowed the collapse of
the East European state-owned economies in 1989 - including in the Soviet
Union itself. All subsequently embarked on a reform process which finally
led them back to capitalism. Did this warrant their suppression? Not in my
view. They were all popular nationalist uprisings, encompassing a broad
range of both socialist and anti-socialist opinion, with the political
balance between the opposing factions varying in each situation. The
opposition in Afghanistan was certainly the most reactionary. Even so, I
don't think the USSR was right to intervene in 1979 in support of the
left-leaning government there. The Afghan left took power with much too
narrow a base in a very traditional society and, while its modernizing
impulse was admirable, it could only hope to push through the desired
changes through widespread repression and outside military intervention. The
Soviets would have done much better to have dissuaded the leftist coup
against the monarchy, but it its national security interests probably
influenced it to go along in what became a political catastrophe.
MG