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Cool. The USSR still invaded and annexed Estonia. And Lithuania. And Latvia. And Armenia. Shall I go on?
Military invasion =/= imperialism, I'm surprised I have to explain this to a leftist.
Funny, invading multiple countries and making them part of your country sure sounds like it fits that definition to me.
Invading another country preventively in the wake of WW2 and the threat of Nazism =/= imperialism, I'm sorry buddy. Not defending the invasion of Estonia, but categorising it as imperialism is dumb and ahistorical.
Invading another country preventively
That's quite the excuse. Seems to me Putin is using the same one about Ukraine right now...
Also, what did annexing Armenia prevent? How about annexing Uzbekistan?
That's quite the excuse. Seems to me Putin is using the same one about Ukraine right now...
Again, I'm not defending the invasion of Estonia, and obviously not that of Ukraine, the context of WW2 was clear, and the fact that the USSR didn't invade and annex any country after WW2 kinda tells you all you need to know about the actual reasons of the expansion during WW2.
Also, what did annexing Armenia prevent?
Most likely the defeat of Armenia against Turkey in an incumbent war, and the furthering of the Armenian genocide.
How about annexing Uzbekistan?
Women in Uzbekistan before the USSR were 99%+ illiterate and were basically slaves to their husbands, and the whole country was a poor, agrarian, backwards regime. The USSR brought equality and development, healthcare, education, pensions, industrialization, and an overwhelming betterment of the living conditions of Uzbeki people by basically all accounts. Maybe that's part of the reason why in the 1991 referendum to preserve the USSR, 95% of Uzbeki voted "yes".
Are you actually claiming that the Soviets invaded and annexed Armenia to prevent an Armenian genocide and that the Uzbeks were so stupid that they deserved to be invaded and annexed? Because the first is ludicrous and the latter is just racist.
Social development and class struggle aren't matters of stupidity or superior races, but of material and historical conditions. Uzbekistan didn't have the material and historical conditions up to 1917 that allowed for the emancipation of women. Hell, 90% of Tsarist Russia were serfs bound legally to the lands they worked, how progressive can we imagine these people were? It was only through socialism that women were able to considerably (though not completely) liberate themselves, thanks to the work of intellectual feminists like Kollontai and to the social progress achieved in the 20s in the RSFSR and posterior Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks liberated Uzbekistan from their feudal system and their most oppressive customs, while maintaining the language and culture in the region, which again explains why 95% of people in Uzbekistan voted to stay in a socialist USSR.
Dude, "we civilized them" is literally a colonizer's excuse.
And suggesting any vote in the Soviet Union was fair or the vote count accurate is laughable.
Dude, "we civilized them" is literally a colonizer's excuse.
Colonialists use that excuse, I'm very aware, the difference is that they're lying when they say it. Number of hospital beds per capita, salaries, number of teachers per capita, conservation of local language through language choice in education and written publications such as books or newspapers in the local language, industrialization of the area... Literally no metric points towards colonization. You can't say the same of, say, modern Puerto Rico, or colonial India under the British rule. That's the difference.
And suggesting any vote in the Soviet Union was fair or the vote count accurate is laughable.
So I assume the 1991 referendum in Estonia whereby 75+% of the population wanted to secede the USSR was also invalid? Have some rigor, there's no question on the validity of the referendums that took place over the USSR in its final moments.
Colonialists use that excuse, I’m very aware, the difference is that they’re lying when they say it.
Yes, also a defense of colonialism. "The others are lying, but it's true in our case." Which is, by the way, not an excuse to annex a sovereign nation and make it part of yours. That literally makes it a colony.
And we have no idea if the Estonian vote was valid or not, no. I hope it was.
Colonialists use that excuse, I’m very aware, the difference is that they’re lying when they say it. Number of hospital beds per capita, salaries, number of teachers per capita, conservation of local language through language choice in education and written publications such as books or newspapers in the local language, industrialization of the area
Holy shit, literally "The British built schools hospitals in Africa" level colonization apologia. Jesus Christ. And tankies wonder why I don't view them any differently than any other authoritarians.