d1dca82d   
   XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc-culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   From: holman@mappi.helsinki.fi   
      
   In article , James A. Donald   
    wrote:   
      
   > Eugene Holman:   
   > > The USSR had no desire or motive to invade Finland   
   > > after WW II.   
   >   
   > Of course they had a motive.  In your worldview, and in   
   > the communist world view, Finland was "colonizing"   
   > Russia - against which colonization obviously the   
   > oppressed Russians needed to defend themselves.   
      
   Finland was "colonizing" the USSR only in the sense that it was buying   
   cheaply and selling dearly, while the Soviets were selling cheaply and   
   buying dearly. Nither side was iterested in adjusting this asymmetry,   
   since the Soviets were simply unable or unwilling to produce the consumer   
   goods that the Finns produced and which their population so desperately   
   wanted.   
      
   The Soviets had nothing to defend themselves against. The Finns knew that   
   the Soviets were not going to slay the goose that was laying golden eggs,   
   and the Soviets knew this as well. During the entire existence of this   
   asymmetrical trade the buzzword was "mutually beneficial trade relations"   
   (*molemminpuolisesti hyödylliset kauppasuhteet*). The Finns got to use   
   their bloated industrial infrastructure, thus ensuring profits and jobs,   
   the Soviets received consumer goods that they did not want to produce, but   
   which their population craved, while showing to the world that countries   
   with communist and capitalist socio-economic systems could coexist   
   peacefully and benefit mutually from expolitation of their differences.   
      
   > Socialists always have a reason, indeed a morally   
   > compelling duty, to attack anyone who does not submit,   
   > for failure to submit is aggression.  The peasant who   
   > keeps his grain maliciously starving the proletarian.   
   > The socialist worldview leads to the violence and   
   > continual threat of violence or else the domination and   
   > submission that characterized every border of every   
   > communist country throughout the entire twentieth   
   > century.   
      
   I cannot agree with you on that. The USSR lost between 25,000,000 and   
   30,000,000 citizens during WW II, an exceptionally high number of them in   
   the vicinity of Finland. Even if what you wrote above were true, it takes   
   a generation or more to recover from losses on this scale. If you compare   
   the intrnational behavior of the USSR with that of the USA from 1945 until   
   1991, you will see that the USA was far more aggressive towards and   
   intolerant of those countries that did not submit to its will than the   
   USSR was. We have Iran, Guatamala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam,   
   Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, and Grenada vs. East Germany, Hungary,   
   Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan.   
      
   > You tell us how peaceable socialists are in the same   
   > breath as you tell us what enormous grievances   
   > socialists have, grievances that entirely justify the   
   > wars that you tell us socialists have no interest in   
   > making.   
      
   I don't regard the USSR as an exemplification of socialism. It was an   
   extreme form of state monopoly capitalism masquerading as socialism. The   
   Nordic countries have socio-economic systems which, while mixtures of   
   capitalism and socialism, come closer to what socialists have been   
   striving for: societies in which collective responsibility takes   
   precedence over individual self-interest, with both being regarded as   
   necessary for a healthy society.   
      
   Regards,   
   Eugene Holman   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)