thats a great expansion on the subject, i appreciate your passion and input. it reads as a bit aggressive, but i respect your willingness to disagree with an agreeable statement. and to be honest i am not a fan of hostile debate, and am more of a casual conversationalist more than anything. that being said ill address some of what you said between mouthfuls of soup, and ill try to keep it as accurate as i can considering the inherent biases and interpretations that are inherent in this hotly debated subject.
No. They really weren’t. The Whites were spent as a force within Russia by '23. The only Whites who remained active were emigres in other countries who spent most of their time moping and begging from their hosts.
you can argue that the whites and former white army members, loyalists, anarchists, bolsheviks, and general opposition to stalin didnt attempt to undermine him consistently through his reign, even out of fear of death, but they did. even after they were seemingly “wiped out” you cant argue that there was no opposition, they simply no longer advertised their prior loyalties (at least not as openly). thats like saying every single german was a nazi during world war 2, and that there was no ideological resistance or simple sabotage. was it rare to find open opposition? absolutely, open opposition was a death/prison sentence in most cases, but underground movements and western funding for those movements in addition to their own domestic abilities were still happening periodically through the existence of the USSR.
Neither of those claims are true. The birth of the GULAG system arguably has its roots in the Tsarist regime, but its most infamous incarnation under Lenin was applied to political prisoners in general; and under Stalin simply whoever caught their neighbor’s ire at a given point in time
this felt like disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. so i wont spend much time on this one. you even mention it was arguable yourself, so i can assume you know what i meant and move on. blue dress, gold dress. if you want ill say EXPANDED and ravamped GULAGS. if thats a more agreeable statement for you.
Only until the Russian Civil War was over. Fuck, man, most of Stalin’s industrial reforms were enabled by Western material and technical assistance in the 1930s.
when i say after the revolution, im speaking about everything after the revolution. not just the 1930s. but the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and so on. should have been more clear on that, i guess. also its a known fact that stalin disliked the western influence that differed from his ideals of strict central planning during this period you mentioned, and he was correct in thinking that it wasnt just a simple exchange of goods and services, western trade unions, workers rights, cultural exchanges of foreign workers, etc, and he generally viewed any kind of investment, loans, or technical aid as capitalist penetration. and there was recorded intent for that as well from the west. so he wasnt wrong to question it from his standpoint. there was a mixture of cultural influence, political influence, and technological influence that he did not find agreeable to his standards. these “micro” aggressions were some of the many reasons that lead to further aggression from both sides that lead tonthe cold war.
Again, the post-WW2 situation was outright hopeful in the West until it was clear to even the most naive that Stalin had no intention of keeping any of the promises he made.
you said it yourself, it was clear, hence why they undermined russia in the coming decades whenever they could get away with it. everything from denying credit, trade embargos, tariffs, distribution of propaganda, even rebel radio networks. it wasnt always direct aggression. it had far more nuance than you are letting on.
The Golden Mean Fallacy is just that. The truth between Alex Jones claiming 10,000 water-breathing human hybrids in vats created by the UN and sane people claiming 0 is not 5,000. The truth is the truth, regardless of the range between claimants; and claimants can be completely correct or completely incorrect.
thats an entirely different argument and id argue in this case a false equivilence. history is written by the victors and dead men tell no tales. we can only surmise based off of available historical evidence and the words of historians who base their arguments on said evidence. and the evidence dictates that there was western influence in the USSR during lenin, stalin, and so on, with the express intent to simultaniously uplift profitable aspects, and undermine other less profitable aspects. and the various forms that takes to achieve it.
im not disagreeing with anything you are saying, in fact i understand everything you are saying, im just arguing that there is more nuance to what you are putting out there. its not as cut and dry or absolute as you are saying.
thats a great expansion on the subject, i appreciate your passion and input. it reads as a bit aggressive, but i respect your willingness to disagree with an agreeable statement. and to be honest i am not a fan of hostile debate, and am more of a casual conversationalist more than anything. that being said ill address some of what you said between mouthfuls of soup, and ill try to keep it as accurate as i can considering the inherent biases and interpretations that are inherent in this hotly debated subject.
you can argue that the whites and former white army members, loyalists, anarchists, bolsheviks, and general opposition to stalin didnt attempt to undermine him consistently through his reign, even out of fear of death, but they did. even after they were seemingly “wiped out” you cant argue that there was no opposition, they simply no longer advertised their prior loyalties (at least not as openly). thats like saying every single german was a nazi during world war 2, and that there was no ideological resistance or simple sabotage. was it rare to find open opposition? absolutely, open opposition was a death/prison sentence in most cases, but underground movements and western funding for those movements in addition to their own domestic abilities were still happening periodically through the existence of the USSR.
this felt like disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. so i wont spend much time on this one. you even mention it was arguable yourself, so i can assume you know what i meant and move on. blue dress, gold dress. if you want ill say EXPANDED and ravamped GULAGS. if thats a more agreeable statement for you.
when i say after the revolution, im speaking about everything after the revolution. not just the 1930s. but the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and so on. should have been more clear on that, i guess. also its a known fact that stalin disliked the western influence that differed from his ideals of strict central planning during this period you mentioned, and he was correct in thinking that it wasnt just a simple exchange of goods and services, western trade unions, workers rights, cultural exchanges of foreign workers, etc, and he generally viewed any kind of investment, loans, or technical aid as capitalist penetration. and there was recorded intent for that as well from the west. so he wasnt wrong to question it from his standpoint. there was a mixture of cultural influence, political influence, and technological influence that he did not find agreeable to his standards. these “micro” aggressions were some of the many reasons that lead to further aggression from both sides that lead tonthe cold war.
you said it yourself, it was clear, hence why they undermined russia in the coming decades whenever they could get away with it. everything from denying credit, trade embargos, tariffs, distribution of propaganda, even rebel radio networks. it wasnt always direct aggression. it had far more nuance than you are letting on.
thats an entirely different argument and id argue in this case a false equivilence. history is written by the victors and dead men tell no tales. we can only surmise based off of available historical evidence and the words of historians who base their arguments on said evidence. and the evidence dictates that there was western influence in the USSR during lenin, stalin, and so on, with the express intent to simultaniously uplift profitable aspects, and undermine other less profitable aspects. and the various forms that takes to achieve it.
im not disagreeing with anything you are saying, in fact i understand everything you are saying, im just arguing that there is more nuance to what you are putting out there. its not as cut and dry or absolute as you are saying.