Which Russia was better?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

There has never been a state in human history more depraved and evil than the USSR.

Oh come on. I get what you're trying to communicate here, but come on. It wasn't even the most depraved and evil Marxist-Leninist state.

The one thing that I will say about the USSR is that it’s imperialism makes it a unique force of evil. For example, Nazi Germany may have have been more evil with what it did within its borders, but it’s carnage was intended to be limited to the confines of Europe. The USSR had clear intentions to export its ideology and practices to every corner of the globe.

"Oh wow, just like another messianic superpower I know of!"

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

There has never been a state in human history more depraved and evil than the USSR.

Oh come on. I get what you're trying to communicate here, but come on. It wasn't even the most depraved and evil Marxist-Leninist state.

The one thing that I will say about the USSR is that it’s imperialism makes it a unique force of evil. For example, Nazi Germany may have have been more evil with what it did within its borders, but it’s carnage was intended to be limited to the confines of Europe. The USSR had clear intentions to export its ideology and practices to every corner of the globe.

'Nazi Germany wasn't imperialist'

Truly the best take.

Nazi Germany’s imperialism extended only to about half of Europe. The Soviet Union desired every square inch to be under its control, either directly on indirectly. These two scenarios are not comparable.

It's the other way around.

Soviets wanted a buffer zone to insulate Moscow, that's it.

Lebensraum is quite different.

The Soviet Union did not want a “buffer zone,” they wanted the entire domination of the whole world. There’s a reason why pretty much every single Marxist-Leninist political party got such intense funding from the Soviet Union, and why they invaded countries such as Afghanistan whenever any sort of rebellion against that order happened.

The Soviet Union was against the coup in Afghanistan, against the faction that became more powerful in the PDPA (hope I remember the acronym correctly), and, generally, against most Third World revolutions. The oddities of Marxism-Leninism demanded one or more developmental stages in developing countries before the transition to a proletarian party-state could be effected, and as such the Soviets were often loathe to support the ambitions of small elite minorities (usually located in the military) who imagined they could create a socialist society overnight. The official Soviet policy instead was usually to primarily support "bourgeois nationalists", which would oversee the transition to some form of industrial capitalism (broad definition) first. This is of course ironic given the Soviet Union's own origins, but I digress.

Nevertheless, when a partner country was (a) riddled with palace chaos, and (b) facing open rebellion in the countryside, they intervened. Sound familiar? Criticizing the USSR specifically for wanting to promote its Way of Life is laughable from the perspective of an American (which I am left to assume you are, given that Vatican City residence is unlikely), especially considering the great caution and reluctance with which they did so.

Now as to the content of that Way of Life? If it looked anything like most Warsaw Pact countries or the USSR itself, I agree, it's not a good worth exporting. But any skilled rhetorician could say the same thing about liberalism--especially with how it arrived in the Third World.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

There has never been a state in human history more depraved and evil than the USSR.

Oh come on. I get what you're trying to communicate here, but come on. It wasn't even the most depraved and evil Marxist-Leninist state.

The one thing that I will say about the USSR is that it’s imperialism makes it a unique force of evil. For example, Nazi Germany may have have been more evil with what it did within its borders, but it’s carnage was intended to be limited to the confines of Europe. The USSR had clear intentions to export its ideology and practices to every corner of the globe.

'Nazi Germany wasn't imperialist'

Truly the best take.

Nazi Germany’s imperialism extended only to about half of Europe. The Soviet Union desired every square inch to be under its control, either directly on indirectly. These two scenarios are not comparable.

It's the other way around.

Soviets wanted a buffer zone to insulate Moscow, that's it.

Lebensraum is quite different.

The Soviet Union did not want a “buffer zone,” they wanted the entire domination of the whole world. There’s a reason why pretty much every single Marxist-Leninist political party got such intense funding from the Soviet Union, and why they invaded countries such as Afghanistan whenever any sort of rebellion against that order happened.

The Soviet Union was against the coup in Afghanistan, against the faction that became more powerful in the PDPA (hope I remember the acronym correctly), and, generally, against most Third World revolutions. The oddities of Marxism-Leninism demanded one or more developmental stages in developing countries before the transition to a proletarian party-state could be effected, and as such the Soviets were often loathe to support the ambitions of small elite minorities (usually located in the military) who imagined they could create a socialist society overnight. The official Soviet policy instead was usually to primarily support "bourgeois nationalists", which would oversee the transition to some form of industrial capitalism (broad definition) first. This is of course ironic given the Soviet Union's own origins, but I digress.

Nevertheless, when a partner country was (a) riddled with palace chaos, and (b) facing open rebellion in the countryside, they intervened. Sound familiar? Criticizing the USSR specifically for wanting to promote its Way of Life is laughable from the perspective of an American (which I am left to assume you are, given that Vatican City residence is unlikely), especially considering the great caution and reluctance with which they did so.

Now as to the content of that Way of Life? If it looked anything like most Warsaw Pact countries or the USSR itself, I agree, it's not a good worth exporting. But any skilled rhetorician could say the same thing about liberalism--especially with how it arrived in the Third World.

I don’t get your argument. I never that the USA wasn’t imperialist, it was arguably just as imperialist as the Soviet Union. It’s just that the Soviet Union was undeniably more imperialist than Nazi Germany. Anyone who brings up “socialism in one country” is committing a massive red herring- that policy only existed for roughly a decade before the very man who instated it began to invade other countries to annex them. Clearly, “socialism is one country” wasn’t taken very seriously as official state policy for the duration of the Soviet Union.

And the Soviet Union’s ideology was significantly worse than the United State’s. So yeah, their imperialism of spreading it was worse than our imperialism of spreading ours. 

My argument is that the cartoonish image of Soviet officials conspiring to blanket the world in red through military conquest or social revolution is unrealistic. Saying that the Soviet Union had global ambitions is literally correct, but it is correct in the same way that saying liberals have global ambitions because they assume democracy is inevitable and desirable.
 

Nazi Germany wanted to spread their revolution to half of Europe. The Soviet Union wanted their revolution to every single corner of the globe, and would’ve done it without hesitation had they been stupid enough to not realize it would’ve led to their death (notice how they stopped invading countries in naked forms of aggression with the advent of the nuclear bomb).

If the bolded were true, the makers of Soviet foreign policy would have been actively supporting and cheering on the coups in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and just about every other country where socialist takeovers were successful. Instead, they were either opposed to them, or completely blindsided by them. For analysts in the government and the party, the inevitable "socialist revolution" that their style of Marxism foretold and demanded was a social science fact (which could be engaged with in a variety of ways), rather than conspiratorial master plan.