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The Real Evil Empire

"From the late 20's, when Stalin decreed 'socialism in one country', Soviet foreign policy was geared towards stability and security. The primary reason Stalin set up so many satellite states in Eastern Europe was to give the Soviet Union a security buffer between it and what he considered a resurgent and aggressive west.

The Russian experience in WWII meant that they were (to an extent understandably) scared witless of a surprise attack from the West, be it fascist or capitalist. This gives a lot of context to Soviet actions in the Cold War - the Berlin Blockade as a response to what they considered Western intransigence over a unified and neutral Germany, Cuba as a response to American SRBM's in Turkey, right the way through to Afghanistan as a way to secure their southern border.

So Russian aims in the Cold War weren't to 'defeat' the west (they believed this would happen anyway, through the Marxist doctrine of the historical inevitability of the collapse of capitalism), but rather to secure the safety of the USSR - whereas the USA was clear about it's desire to turn the USSR into part of the wider capitalist world."

-Alasdair Russell

Above is, I believe, the reason the West was able to drive the USSR and its satellites in to collapse. The soviet intent was never to conquer, western propaganda notwithstanding. The soviet bloc was more interested in securing their future, while they waited for, and helped along here and there, the worldwide Revolution. It was the US and its allies who were bent on conquest in order to expand the capitalist paradigm.

If you are reading this, you are probably not a great big fan of capitalism or capitalists, so it should come as no surprise to you to hear that the West was the aggressor, not the plucky underdog just trying to survive. The West was, and still is, the neighborhood bully, doing everything it can to force everyone else to submit to their ideology. 

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