It has to be remembered that the West did not fight the USSR and win. The USSR collapsed in on itself. The West did not conquor nor occupy Russia so how was it supposed to rule it? In West Germany in 1945 the main administration became American (with a little help from the British and French and more than a little discouragement from the USSR) and therefore rebuilding monies were still in the hands of American administartors to spend. We could not, did not and should not have tried to rule Russia and just giving the Russian government money would have led to exactly what there is now – but they’d have all been much richer than they are now (if that is possible).
Little mention that it was the US who aided and abetted the looting of the ex-Soviet state in the 1990s. They won the Cold War, and to the victors the spoils. Of course the man who put a stop to that, Putin, has been vilified ever since.
Also I note that Alexievich states people just want to “live” and not serve some grander plan. As a counter to that I’d point out the rates of depression and other mental health issues which are proliferating in the non-grand plan having West. Russians may not understand it, but their lives are aided when the state has an actual long-term ideology to guide it.
You seem to imply that the Russians were passive victims here. They had not been conquered by the Americans and the Yeltsin government asked for western advice as they saw fit.
The main looters were the ex-Communist industry directors etc, and Putin ‘put a stop to it’ only of course by becoming the biggest looter of the lot!
The reforms largely worked in Eastern Europe, but the West was hubristic and probably naïve in thinking that the introduction of a market economy could bring rapid improvements after 70 years of Communism.
They had not been conquered by the Americans and the Yeltsin government asked for western advice as they saw fit.
The Yeltsin government was little more than a comprador regime that was willing to allow American transnational corporations to take over large swathes of the Russian economy (those parts that did not end up in the hands of Yeltsin’s mates at home). He stole both elections that he supposedly won and maintained power through brute force (e.g. the shelling of the Russian parliament in October 1993).
The reforms largely worked in Eastern Europe
Sure, if by ‘working’ you meaning causing a surge in poverty, plummeting life expectancies, rapid deterioration in the general health of the population and the profileration of anti-social behaviour and the problematic use of narcotics of all kinds. In that case, the IMF-led neoliberal restructuring worked spledidly.
Well the eastern Europeans are free to go back to communism if they choose. And this time it could be on their own terms, not enforced at gunpoint. I don’t seem to be hearing about a huge clamor for that, though. Is it just being kept quiet?
Well the eastern Europeans are free to go back to communism if they choose.
1) They never had communism.
2) Any effort to establish an actually communist society in Eastern Europe or anywhere else would entail a protracted struggle on the part of the masses. It isn’t something that could simply be freely chosen.
Michael K
2 years ago
I’m not sure if it was really the transition to capitalism that was painful, or rather just the aftereffects of the Soviet state.
Of course it will “wash”. There is no version of Communism in which its subjects are free and prosperous, and just because there are versions of free market capitalism which don’t work as well as it can, that in no way allows you to draw some sort of equivalence here.
that in no way allows you to draw some sort of equivalence here.There is no version of Communism in which its subjects are free and prosperous
Communism has never existed, unless you want to count some hunter-gather tribes.
just because there are versions of free market capitalism which don’t work as well as it can
Free markets have never really existed anywhere. As for freedom and prosperity within actually existing capitalism, I’d argue that, to the extent that anyone who is not at least comfortably well off in ‘Western’ societies enjoys any degree of freedom and prosperity at all, it is to a large extent a legacy of generations of struggle from below (i.e. despite the capitalist system and the state which created it and sustains it, not because of either of those things).
that in no way allows you to draw some sort of equivalence here.
So the Soviet Union was doing great from the ’20s through the ’80s? Seems odd they would collapse in that case rather that the countries that had already been doing capitalism that whole time. Or why they would be buying grain when they controlled two of what are today the world’s top 4 grain-producing countries. Or why they relied on arms sales, in particular tanks, for such a ridiculous percentage of their hard currency. Or why the countries in their sphere had to ban people from leaving rather than put restrictions on immigration.
So the Soviet Union was doing great from the ’20s through the ’80s?
It depends on what you mean by ‘doing great’. In strict material terms, the lot of the average Soviet worker was indubitably immeasurably better in 1991 than the lot of the average peasant in the Romanov empire in 1917. You can’t reasonably blame the legacy of the old sytem and regime for the calamitous consequences of neoliberal re-structuring in the former USSR and former Soviet bloc more generally (at least not entirely), not when neoliberal economics have consistently been socially ruinous wherever they’ve been applied.
Seems odd they would collapse in that case rather that the countries that had already been doing capitalism that whole time.
The USSR was capitalist. It was state-capitalist.
Or why the countries in their sphere had to ban people from leaving rather than put restrictions on immigration.
Not really a fair comparison. The USSR and its satellites started from a far, far lower base than most ‘Western’ countries.
John Riordan
2 years ago
“As a westerner, it is hard to read all this without squirming.”
No it isn’t. Why are we in the West implicitly asked to take some sort of responsibility here? The West beat Communism without the slaughter of yet more millions and in particular without the horror of nuclear war, and we’re entitled to regard that as enough on its own. Why is it somehow our fault that Russia evolved in the way it did?
We did not, after all, decide that our job was to go into Russia and implement regime change did we? And this is something we have learned, through other mistakes, generally doesn’t work, so I am going to insist here and declare that the West’s non-intervention in post-Communist Russia was the correct position to adopt and in no way becomes questionable as a result of Russia’s failure to take proper advantage of the opportunities presented by liberty from the tyranny of Soviet Communism.
This point becomes particularly obvious when we recall that the USSR was not just Russia, it was Russia, the European hinterland and the Eastern bloc, a grouping of nations which are now pretty much unanimous apart from Russia itself in asserting that it’s better to be part of the West. So no, try peddling your unwanted guilt somewhere else, quite frankly.
The West beat Communism without the slaughter of yet more millions
I would invite you to tell that to the (at minimum) 1 million people slaughtered by Suharto during his rise to power, when the CIA supplied the names of suspected communists for his troops to massacre, or the 4 million slaughtered by the US in Indochina when it bombed the shit out of that part of the world during the Vietnam war, or the countless others slaughtered by the various dictatorships that the US supported around the world (and in some cases, installed) in the upholding of its commercial and geopolitical interests, but … well, those people are all dead.
The USA was in the Vietnam War for the right reason – it was trying to prevent the spread of Communism unopposed throughout Asia. There are many places in the region where the USA either failed or did not act in this respect, and the death toll from that failure or lack of action entirely falsifies your attempt to draw some sort of moral equivalence here.
I was of course in any case referring to the collapse of the USSR, and I maintain that it was bloodless on the part of the West and its allies not least because a great many of those allies were Russians themselves.
The USA was in the Vietnam War for the right reason – it was trying to prevent the spread of Communism unopposed throughout Asia.
Engaging in apologia for the US’ barbarism against Vietnam on the basis of ‘MUH ANTI-COMMUNISM’ now, are we? The ethical bankruptcy of the defender of US imperialism and its atrocities and outrages at its finest!
There are many places in the region where the USA either failed or did not act in this respect, and the death toll from that failure or lack of action entirely falsifies your attempt to draw some sort of moral equivalence here.
Well, Pol Pot was actually helped into power by the CIA if that’s what you’re referring to, but you’re right that there is no moral equivalence – US imperialism was far more baleful for southeast Asia (and, for that matter, the world more generally) than the USSR ever was. The USSR certainly had blood on its hands, but nothing compared to the oceans of blood spilled by the US in pursuit of its commercial and geopolitical interests during that period.
Vietnam was a defensive war. The Republic of Vietnam was being invaded. We never invaded its invader, just held them off while we were there. And then the ARVN managed on their own for several years, even fending off the largest invasion to date which included some shocking surprises such as the NVA suddenly having 600 main battle tanks that the ARVN was neither equipped nor trained to deal with (they ended up destroying 2/3rds of them, yet no one was trying to claim then that this meant tanks are obsolete the way some are now after the much-less-severe beating Russian armored forces are taking in Ukraine at the hands of well-equipped soldiers).
The Republic of Vietnam was certainly never an ideal democracy, not even close, but democracy always struggles in wartime, and that country never knew a day of peace in its existence. Even the Republic of Korea, today a much better functioning democracy than much of western Europe, took quite a while to turn into a true one. But it found itself at war very soon after it was born as well, a war which has never officially ended, and where skirmishes continued for decades after the armistice. In fact just within the past few years the North has launched artillery against the ROK, and not too long before that they even sank one of its ships. But getting away from true active combat gave them a chance to build a functioning country, an opportunity the Republic of Vietnam never had. Compare how little time it survived with how long it took France, or England (or even the UK, to narrow the timeline a bit), or any other western country to turn into one. And unlike say, England, Vietnam didn’t have a history as a country. Treating that as one nation was a French colonial invention, which of course was yet another obstacle to turning it into a functioning modern country. The North took the easy route: use force and Stalinist purges. It worked in Russia, it worked in China, and it worked there. But it’s also horrible.
There was nothing defensive about the US’ involvement in Vietnam, unless you’re talking about as the US coming to the defence of its puppet regime in Saigon, which had a tenuous grip on power. There was an armed uprising within South Vietnam against the regime in Saigon, which the North supported. The US bombing the shit out of Vietnam was essentially about propping up a discredited regime that had been friendly towards its commercial interests in the region.
Jeffrey Chongsathien
2 years ago
I scanned this article looking for mention of Jeffrey “Wrong about everything” Sachs. There was none, therefore this article lacks substance.
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
Oh dear it’s somehow the West’s fault-again. What an evil bunch of countries that everyone wants to emigrate to. They must be delusional.
‘The West’, and more specifically, the IMF, absolutely do have a hand in this.
John Riordan
2 years ago
“If there is anything worse than spending years performing hard labour in Siberia, using your fist for a pillow, feeling your teeth come loose with scurvy, it is discovering that you did all that for nothing.”
Sounds a bit like Stockholm Syndrome this – the mistake of imagining that what was done to you was for your own benefit and not, in truth, an atrocity inflicted upon you by a regime that cared nothing whatsoever about you except that you be less of an inconvenience to itself.
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
A very good analysis. The West was undoubtedly arrogant and made a lot of missteps. I suppose though one difference from the German case is that Germany had been utterly militarily defeated and occupied by the Allies.
This was not the case with the Soviet Union, which actually unravelled to a significant extent on its own accord and because of Gorbachev’s would be reforms. It was the Yeltsin government which for both political and social economic reasons tried to bring about a (probably too) rapid transition to full capitalism, and asked for western advice as they saw fit.
Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
David Whitaker
2 years ago
An excellent article. I was one of the management consultants who swanned about Russia and the FSU rubbing salt into the wound rubbishing the way everything had been done. I felt uneasy at the time, and I am ashamed now. I and my colleagues didn’t even speak Russian. But I am also reminded of what a missed opportunity the Clinton presidency was: it turns out that there was a big task to be done, and (arguably) he had the ability to do it; instead, the need wasn’t recognised and one of the most able presidents in recent years frittered his time away.
Martin Logan
2 years ago
Making the wrong choices does have consequences–as the French discovered in 1815, and the Germans in 1945.
It could only have been different if the West has occupied Russia after 1991. Germany progressed because of 45 years of Allied occupation.
Left to their own devices, however, Muscovite Russians reverted to a model that originated some 500 years ago.
Now, Ukraine is teaching them an important lesson: that model is wrong.
Germany progressed because of 45 years of Allied occupation.
East Germany could also be characterised as having progressed, certainly economically, despite the USSR exacting reparations from it instead of supporting it financially.
Karl Juhnke
2 years ago
The West wanted capitalism in Russia. Not democracy. Same as with China. It appears we are heading the same way.
This is the ‘US runs the world’ school of thought. The US is a democracy, so it’s rather odd to say they don’t want democracies elsewhere despite the rather overwhelmingly evidence that they do. They have in fact being naïve and self defeating in this in some societies without any democratic, liberal or even national traditions. Open elections WERE held under the aegis of the Americans in Iraq, for example, when they need not have been. Became of the big Shia majority population, this has ended up strengthening the position of Iran to the strategic cost of the US.
The Americans did collude to overthrow some Left wing governments, but this was largely in the context of a Cold War with a totalitarian and murderous adversary. I for one am very pleased the West won. At its worst, someone like Pinochet killed a few thousands, utterly appallingly, but the other side countless millions.
This is the ‘US runs the world’ school of thought.
The US has been, for some decades, the hegemon within the capitalist world order, and the world’s foremost imperial power.
The US is a democracy
The democratic credentials of the US compare unfavourably even to other so-called ‘liberal democracies’ (which, to someone like me, is saying something).
it’s rather odd to say they don’t want democracies elsewhere despite the rather overwhelmingly evidence that they do.
Sure, they do. That’s why they continue to bankroll and arm to the teeth every Persian Gulf autocrat. That’s totally the behaviour of a state that is interested in seeing democracy thrive everywhere!
The Americans did collude to overthrow some Left wing governments, but this was largely in the context of a Cold War with a totalitarian and murderous adversary.
… whose threat to the world beyond its borders was grossly exaggerated by ‘Western’ governments and media outlets for self-serving reasons.
At its worst, someone like Pinochet killed a few thousands
Pinochet is far from the most egregious instance of the implication on the part of the US and its allies in atrocities around the world during the Cold War. A succession of US-backed governments in Guatemala (mostly military dictatorships) slaughtered perhaps as many as 200,000 people between 1960 and ’96, which included a genocidal campaign against the Maya population in Guatemala. There’s Suharto, to whom the CIA supplied lists of suspected communists for his troops to murder during Suharto’s ascension to power, which they did – at least a million ‘communists’ were massacred between 1965 and ’67. Then there’s Pol Pot, who, yes, was helped into power in Cambodia by the CIA, and who may have been responsible for the slaughter of as many as 2.5 million people during his reign of terror. Those are just a few examples off the top of my head. Additionally, the US has plenty of blood directly on its hands from that time period too (e.g. when it slaughtered possibly as many as 4 million people in Indochina during the Vietnam war). The US and its allies’ role in the world during the Cold War was utterly abominable, and there’s no excusing it.
It has to be remembered that the West did not fight the USSR and win. The USSR collapsed in on itself. The West did not conquor nor occupy Russia so how was it supposed to rule it? In West Germany in 1945 the main administration became American (with a little help from the British and French and more than a little discouragement from the USSR) and therefore rebuilding monies were still in the hands of American administartors to spend. We could not, did not and should not have tried to rule Russia and just giving the Russian government money would have led to exactly what there is now – but they’d have all been much richer than they are now (if that is possible).
Excellent comment!
Little mention that it was the US who aided and abetted the looting of the ex-Soviet state in the 1990s. They won the Cold War, and to the victors the spoils. Of course the man who put a stop to that, Putin, has been vilified ever since.
Also I note that Alexievich states people just want to “live” and not serve some grander plan. As a counter to that I’d point out the rates of depression and other mental health issues which are proliferating in the non-grand plan having West. Russians may not understand it, but their lives are aided when the state has an actual long-term ideology to guide it.
The looting of Russia never ceased. All that changed was who’s doing it.
You seem to imply that the Russians were passive victims here. They had not been conquered by the Americans and the Yeltsin government asked for western advice as they saw fit.
The main looters were the ex-Communist industry directors etc, and Putin ‘put a stop to it’ only of course by becoming the biggest looter of the lot!
The reforms largely worked in Eastern Europe, but the West was hubristic and probably naïve in thinking that the introduction of a market economy could bring rapid improvements after 70 years of Communism.
The Yeltsin government was little more than a comprador regime that was willing to allow American transnational corporations to take over large swathes of the Russian economy (those parts that did not end up in the hands of Yeltsin’s mates at home). He stole both elections that he supposedly won and maintained power through brute force (e.g. the shelling of the Russian parliament in October 1993).
Sure, if by ‘working’ you meaning causing a surge in poverty, plummeting life expectancies, rapid deterioration in the general health of the population and the profileration of anti-social behaviour and the problematic use of narcotics of all kinds. In that case, the IMF-led neoliberal restructuring worked spledidly.
Well the eastern Europeans are free to go back to communism if they choose. And this time it could be on their own terms, not enforced at gunpoint. I don’t seem to be hearing about a huge clamor for that, though. Is it just being kept quiet?
1) They never had communism.
2) Any effort to establish an actually communist society in Eastern Europe or anywhere else would entail a protracted struggle on the part of the masses. It isn’t something that could simply be freely chosen.
I’m not sure if it was really the transition to capitalism that was painful, or rather just the aftereffects of the Soviet state.
I’m not sure that you can disentangle the two; the Soviet state falling apart was part and parcel of the capitalist system coming into being.
This is just a lame attempt to blame ‘TEH COMMUNISMZ’ for the ruinous effects of neoliberal restructuring on Russia. It won’t wash.
Of course it will “wash”. There is no version of Communism in which its subjects are free and prosperous, and just because there are versions of free market capitalism which don’t work as well as it can, that in no way allows you to draw some sort of equivalence here.
Communism has never existed, unless you want to count some hunter-gather tribes.
Free markets have never really existed anywhere. As for freedom and prosperity within actually existing capitalism, I’d argue that, to the extent that anyone who is not at least comfortably well off in ‘Western’ societies enjoys any degree of freedom and prosperity at all, it is to a large extent a legacy of generations of struggle from below (i.e. despite the capitalist system and the state which created it and sustains it, not because of either of those things).
I’m not trying to draw any kind of equivalence.
Silly straw man arguments, and yes, of course you were trying to draw an equivalence.
What straw men? How have I misrepresented anything you’ve said?
That, right there, is a straw man.
So the Soviet Union was doing great from the ’20s through the ’80s? Seems odd they would collapse in that case rather that the countries that had already been doing capitalism that whole time. Or why they would be buying grain when they controlled two of what are today the world’s top 4 grain-producing countries. Or why they relied on arms sales, in particular tanks, for such a ridiculous percentage of their hard currency. Or why the countries in their sphere had to ban people from leaving rather than put restrictions on immigration.
It depends on what you mean by ‘doing great’. In strict material terms, the lot of the average Soviet worker was indubitably immeasurably better in 1991 than the lot of the average peasant in the Romanov empire in 1917. You can’t reasonably blame the legacy of the old sytem and regime for the calamitous consequences of neoliberal re-structuring in the former USSR and former Soviet bloc more generally (at least not entirely), not when neoliberal economics have consistently been socially ruinous wherever they’ve been applied.
The USSR was capitalist. It was state-capitalist.
Not really a fair comparison. The USSR and its satellites started from a far, far lower base than most ‘Western’ countries.
“As a westerner, it is hard to read all this without squirming.”
No it isn’t. Why are we in the West implicitly asked to take some sort of responsibility here? The West beat Communism without the slaughter of yet more millions and in particular without the horror of nuclear war, and we’re entitled to regard that as enough on its own. Why is it somehow our fault that Russia evolved in the way it did?
We did not, after all, decide that our job was to go into Russia and implement regime change did we? And this is something we have learned, through other mistakes, generally doesn’t work, so I am going to insist here and declare that the West’s non-intervention in post-Communist Russia was the correct position to adopt and in no way becomes questionable as a result of Russia’s failure to take proper advantage of the opportunities presented by liberty from the tyranny of Soviet Communism.
This point becomes particularly obvious when we recall that the USSR was not just Russia, it was Russia, the European hinterland and the Eastern bloc, a grouping of nations which are now pretty much unanimous apart from Russia itself in asserting that it’s better to be part of the West. So no, try peddling your unwanted guilt somewhere else, quite frankly.
I would invite you to tell that to the (at minimum) 1 million people slaughtered by Suharto during his rise to power, when the CIA supplied the names of suspected communists for his troops to massacre, or the 4 million slaughtered by the US in Indochina when it bombed the shit out of that part of the world during the Vietnam war, or the countless others slaughtered by the various dictatorships that the US supported around the world (and in some cases, installed) in the upholding of its commercial and geopolitical interests, but … well, those people are all dead.
The USA was in the Vietnam War for the right reason – it was trying to prevent the spread of Communism unopposed throughout Asia. There are many places in the region where the USA either failed or did not act in this respect, and the death toll from that failure or lack of action entirely falsifies your attempt to draw some sort of moral equivalence here.
I was of course in any case referring to the collapse of the USSR, and I maintain that it was bloodless on the part of the West and its allies not least because a great many of those allies were Russians themselves.
Engaging in apologia for the US’ barbarism against Vietnam on the basis of ‘MUH ANTI-COMMUNISM’ now, are we? The ethical bankruptcy of the defender of US imperialism and its atrocities and outrages at its finest!
Well, Pol Pot was actually helped into power by the CIA if that’s what you’re referring to, but you’re right that there is no moral equivalence – US imperialism was far more baleful for southeast Asia (and, for that matter, the world more generally) than the USSR ever was. The USSR certainly had blood on its hands, but nothing compared to the oceans of blood spilled by the US in pursuit of its commercial and geopolitical interests during that period.
Vietnam was a defensive war. The Republic of Vietnam was being invaded. We never invaded its invader, just held them off while we were there. And then the ARVN managed on their own for several years, even fending off the largest invasion to date which included some shocking surprises such as the NVA suddenly having 600 main battle tanks that the ARVN was neither equipped nor trained to deal with (they ended up destroying 2/3rds of them, yet no one was trying to claim then that this meant tanks are obsolete the way some are now after the much-less-severe beating Russian armored forces are taking in Ukraine at the hands of well-equipped soldiers).
The Republic of Vietnam was certainly never an ideal democracy, not even close, but democracy always struggles in wartime, and that country never knew a day of peace in its existence. Even the Republic of Korea, today a much better functioning democracy than much of western Europe, took quite a while to turn into a true one. But it found itself at war very soon after it was born as well, a war which has never officially ended, and where skirmishes continued for decades after the armistice. In fact just within the past few years the North has launched artillery against the ROK, and not too long before that they even sank one of its ships. But getting away from true active combat gave them a chance to build a functioning country, an opportunity the Republic of Vietnam never had. Compare how little time it survived with how long it took France, or England (or even the UK, to narrow the timeline a bit), or any other western country to turn into one. And unlike say, England, Vietnam didn’t have a history as a country. Treating that as one nation was a French colonial invention, which of course was yet another obstacle to turning it into a functioning modern country. The North took the easy route: use force and Stalinist purges. It worked in Russia, it worked in China, and it worked there. But it’s also horrible.
There was nothing defensive about the US’ involvement in Vietnam, unless you’re talking about as the US coming to the defence of its puppet regime in Saigon, which had a tenuous grip on power. There was an armed uprising within South Vietnam against the regime in Saigon, which the North supported. The US bombing the shit out of Vietnam was essentially about propping up a discredited regime that had been friendly towards its commercial interests in the region.
I scanned this article looking for mention of Jeffrey “Wrong about everything” Sachs. There was none, therefore this article lacks substance.
Oh dear it’s somehow the West’s fault-again. What an evil bunch of countries that everyone wants to emigrate to. They must be delusional.
‘The West’, and more specifically, the IMF, absolutely do have a hand in this.
“If there is anything worse than spending years performing hard labour in Siberia, using your fist for a pillow, feeling your teeth come loose with scurvy, it is discovering that you did all that for nothing.”
Sounds a bit like Stockholm Syndrome this – the mistake of imagining that what was done to you was for your own benefit and not, in truth, an atrocity inflicted upon you by a regime that cared nothing whatsoever about you except that you be less of an inconvenience to itself.
A very good analysis. The West was undoubtedly arrogant and made a lot of missteps. I suppose though one difference from the German case is that Germany had been utterly militarily defeated and occupied by the Allies.
This was not the case with the Soviet Union, which actually unravelled to a significant extent on its own accord and because of Gorbachev’s would be reforms. It was the Yeltsin government which for both political and social economic reasons tried to bring about a (probably too) rapid transition to full capitalism, and asked for western advice as they saw fit.
An excellent article. I was one of the management consultants who swanned about Russia and the FSU rubbing salt into the wound rubbishing the way everything had been done. I felt uneasy at the time, and I am ashamed now. I and my colleagues didn’t even speak Russian. But I am also reminded of what a missed opportunity the Clinton presidency was: it turns out that there was a big task to be done, and (arguably) he had the ability to do it; instead, the need wasn’t recognised and one of the most able presidents in recent years frittered his time away.
Making the wrong choices does have consequences–as the French discovered in 1815, and the Germans in 1945.
It could only have been different if the West has occupied Russia after 1991. Germany progressed because of 45 years of Allied occupation.
Left to their own devices, however, Muscovite Russians reverted to a model that originated some 500 years ago.
Now, Ukraine is teaching them an important lesson: that model is wrong.
East Germany could also be characterised as having progressed, certainly economically, despite the USSR exacting reparations from it instead of supporting it financially.
The West wanted capitalism in Russia. Not democracy. Same as with China. It appears we are heading the same way.
This is the ‘US runs the world’ school of thought. The US is a democracy, so it’s rather odd to say they don’t want democracies elsewhere despite the rather overwhelmingly evidence that they do. They have in fact being naïve and self defeating in this in some societies without any democratic, liberal or even national traditions. Open elections WERE held under the aegis of the Americans in Iraq, for example, when they need not have been. Became of the big Shia majority population, this has ended up strengthening the position of Iran to the strategic cost of the US.
The Americans did collude to overthrow some Left wing governments, but this was largely in the context of a Cold War with a totalitarian and murderous adversary. I for one am very pleased the West won. At its worst, someone like Pinochet killed a few thousands, utterly appallingly, but the other side countless millions.
The US has been, for some decades, the hegemon within the capitalist world order, and the world’s foremost imperial power.
The democratic credentials of the US compare unfavourably even to other so-called ‘liberal democracies’ (which, to someone like me, is saying something).
Sure, they do. That’s why they continue to bankroll and arm to the teeth every Persian Gulf autocrat. That’s totally the behaviour of a state that is interested in seeing democracy thrive everywhere!
… whose threat to the world beyond its borders was grossly exaggerated by ‘Western’ governments and media outlets for self-serving reasons.
Pinochet is far from the most egregious instance of the implication on the part of the US and its allies in atrocities around the world during the Cold War. A succession of US-backed governments in Guatemala (mostly military dictatorships) slaughtered perhaps as many as 200,000 people between 1960 and ’96, which included a genocidal campaign against the Maya population in Guatemala. There’s Suharto, to whom the CIA supplied lists of suspected communists for his troops to murder during Suharto’s ascension to power, which they did – at least a million ‘communists’ were massacred between 1965 and ’67. Then there’s Pol Pot, who, yes, was helped into power in Cambodia by the CIA, and who may have been responsible for the slaughter of as many as 2.5 million people during his reign of terror. Those are just a few examples off the top of my head. Additionally, the US has plenty of blood directly on its hands from that time period too (e.g. when it slaughtered possibly as many as 4 million people in Indochina during the Vietnam war). The US and its allies’ role in the world during the Cold War was utterly abominable, and there’s no excusing it.