Paul.L wrote, "I have rebutted almost all of the ridiculous things you have suggested recently ..."

Well, I, for one, beg to differ. As I have already said (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7710#121008), why not let the others be the judge of that?

Paul.L wrote, "Did you just suggest that the Soviet Union could not possibly have been involved in actively spreading communism because they at one time put pressure on the Vietnamese communists to accept a less than equitable settlement of their war of Independence?"

Well, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the Vietnam War was the central battle in the struggle of the "Free World" against Communism.

I ask again, if the rulers of the USSR and China were bent on imposing totalitarian communism on the world using local communists as their tools, then why did they make them give up so much of the territory that they had conquered at such terrible cost? This included not only the southern half of Vietnam, but also nearly all of 50% of Laos they had wrested from the French ("The Vietnam Wars" (1991), Marilyn Young p 41). (see also http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6974&page=0#106544).

Also, this didn't happen just "at one time". It happened before, from 1945-1946 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh#Independence_movement http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue23/goldne23.htm) when the Vietnamese communists under Stalin's orders welcomed the British and French back after the end of the war and murdered Vietnamese who opposed to their return.

The same happened in Greece and would have happened in Yugoslavia if Tito had not refused to obey Stalin's orders.

As for your version of the Greek Civil War, you clearly don't know what you are talking about as even the flawed Wikipedia account at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War#Confrontation:_1944 will reveal.

As I said before, to argue that the U.S. rulers could have possibly believed that they were resisting the spread of totalitarian communism, when they overthrew democratically elected governments and suppressed popular political movements, is a lie.

I don't see what Kruschev's recklessly irresponsible bluster over nuclear weapons has to do with this

However, it is generally acknowledged that the USSR behaved with restraint during the Cuban missile crisis. Furthermore, the US has repeatedly spurned the challenge by the USSR to commit itself not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict.

Paul.L wrote: "I’m not even going to bother responding to that, ..."

I hardly see what difference it will make. I see little in the way of substantive responses to my arguments, anyway.

Paul.L, the betrayal of the Greek people by Stalin occurred in 1944, before Yalta, which occurred in February 1945. The agreement to give Greece to the British would have been reached earlier. Whatever, it is not an agreement that I supported either in Eastern or Western Europe. It is most instructive that you apparently do.

OK,

You have again totally ignored those parts of my argument that don’t fit..

You say “Well, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the Vietnam War was the central battle in the struggle of the "Free World" against Communism.”

You’re wrong, totally. The Vietnam war (I assume you mean the American one) was ONE battle among many over the 40 odd years of the cold war. To suggest, as you are doing, that the Soviet actions during this conflict are the SOLE measure of their ambitions is just totally incorrect. In any case, the Soviets and the Chinese supplied most of North Vietnams arms requirements.

You say >> “the betrayal of the Greek people by Stalin occurred in 1944 .. “

As I’ve already said, the Allies divided up Europe into spheres of influence and Greece was agreed to be part of the free world. The Greek people themselves ratified this decision by NOT electing the communist/socialists when they had the chance so your hysterical suggestion that there was a betrayal is nonsense. Furthermore, MANY of the Greek men who joined ELAS were not socialists; they were merely joining the most effective partisan organization then in operation.

You say >> ‘Whatever, it is not an agreement that I supported either in Eastern or Western Europe. It is most instructive that you apparently do.

I never said that I agreed with the decision to divide up Europe into Soviet and British/French/US spheres of influence. Show me where I did. And anyway, it is beyond irrelevant whether you agree/d with the carve up of Europe or not.

You say >> “Also, this didn't happen just "at one time". It happened before, from 1945-1946 …”

Yes BEFORE the cold war started in earnest after the crisis in Berlin, Stalin held to his part of the bargain regarding the fate of the liberated countries. That includes, Greece, Yugoslavia and Indochina among many others. To suggest that Soviet actions BEFORE the Berlin Crisis are emblematic or representative of their actions AFTER that incident is again, totally incorrect.

TBC

CONT,

You said >> “Yes, I am suggesting that { the USSR was not intimately involved in the spreading of international communism } and I am suggesting that the U.S. rulers knew perfectly well that to be the case.”

Sorry, What do YOU think Khrushchev was getting at when he said "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. WE will bury you"?? ?? You ignored that the first time around.

And you totally ignored the Brezhnev Doctrine, in which he claimed the right to violate the sovereignty of any country attempting to replace Marxism-Leninism with capitalism saying “when forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but A COMMON PROBLEM AND CONCERN OF ALL SOCIALIST COUNTRIES."

The Berlin crisis is one example of the Soviets trying to expand their influence. Then there was the Korean war, where the Chinese attempted to expand communist influence across all of Korea. The Soviet were involved in communist activities in Mozambique, Cuba, Burma, Angola among many others. But the most blatant and obvious expansion was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

US Charge d’affairs in Moscow George Kennan sent this telegram in 1946

“The USSR still lives in antagonistic “capitalist encirclement” with which there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence....[the Kremlin has a] neurotic view of world affairs....we have here a political force [Communism] committed fanatically to the belief that with [the] U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life destroyed, the international authority of our state broken, if Soviet power is to be secure. A totalitarian regime bent on expansion....In general, all Soviet efforts on the unofficial international plane will be negative and destructive in character, designed to tear down the sources of strength beyond the Soviet control”

In case some may be wondering, I started up a different discussion thread, largely to cover some of the issues, which are not directly related to this discussion. The Forum is entitled "Was the subversion of democracy in the 'free world' necessary to fight the 'evil' of 'communism'?" and it can be found at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2121&page=0

Paul.L wrote: "There is a whole school of economics called economic liberalism which believes in the privatization of State Owned Enterprises. There is much evidence to back up their claims that such privatization almost always benefits the consumer."

As daggett wrote on another thread "The end of neoliberalism?" at http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/08/the-end-of-neoliberalism/#comment-217106

... economic neo-liberalism is barely more scientifically
based than the religious dogma peddled to ordinary people in
previous times in order to get them to accept socially iniquity.
It was concocted by a bunch of unconscionable frauds, including
Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, who met in 1947 at Mont
Pelerin as described in George Monbiot’s "How Did We Get Into
This Mess?" (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/08/28/how-did-we-get-into-this-mess/)
of 28 August 2007. As Monbiot wrote:

"Their purpose was to develop the ideas and the language
which would mask the real intent of the programme – the
restoration of the power of the elite - and package it as a
proposal for the betterment of humankind."

I suggest if anyone wants to further defend economic neo-liberalism they do it there.