[ckaihatsu]

Can *anyone* here tell me what event started the Cold War?

[late]

Can *anyone* here tell me what event started the Cold War?

There wasn't a single event. But it does have an air of inevitability about it.

[ckaihatsu]

There wasn't a single event. But it does have an air of inevitability about it.

Oh, there you are.

[T]he Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

So were the Soviets correct, or was it better to see Europe *colonized* like that -- ?

[late]

So were the Soviets correct, or was it better to see Europe *colonized* like that -- ?

Odd choice of words.

When I was in Austria, in the early 70s, they had leftover equipment from WW2 and WW1. It was not a rich country. If you drove into Hungary, you could see state of the art tanks, including small fast ones designed to run around defenses and mess up comms and supply lines.

We didn't colonise Europe. Look at our relationship with France through the early years of NATO. What a pain in the ass.

On the other side, the Soviet boot was on their neck, and stayed there.

Are you really that gullible, or are you trolling because you don't like losing.

[wat0n]

Wow, those Europeans and their colonialism. They even colonize Europe!

[ckaihatsu]

Odd choice of words.

When I was in Austria, in the early 70s, they had leftover equipment from WW2 and WW1. It was not a rich country. If you drove into Hungary, you could see state of the art tanks, including small fast ones designed to run around defenses and mess up comms and supply lines.

We didn't colonise Europe. Look at our relationship with France through the early years of NATO. What a pain in the ass.

On the other side, the Soviet boot was on their neck, and stayed there.

Are you really that gullible, or are you trolling because you don't like losing.

'Losing' -- ? Losing what?

Here's some corroboration:

[P]rices were so high that average people could not afford to shop, especially since prices were free-ranging but wages still fixed by law. Therefore, in the summer of 1948 a giant wave of strikes and demonstrations swept over West Germany, leading to an incident in Stuttgart where strikers were met by US tanks ("Stuttgarter Vorfälle"). Only after the wage-freeze was abandoned, Deutschmark and free-ranging prices were accepted by the population.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_ ... ncy_reform

Many argue that the structural adjustments that it [the Marshall Plan] forced were of great importance. Economic historians J. Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen call it "history's most successful structural adjustment program."[7] One effect of the plan was that it subtly "Americanized" European countries, especially Austria, through new exposure to American popular culture, including the growth in influence of Hollywood movies and rock n' roll.[104]

The political effects of the Marshall Plan may have been just as important as the economic ones. Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. The communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region, communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan. The trade relations fostered by the Marshall Plan helped forge the North Atlantic alliance that would persist throughout the Cold War in the form of NATO. At the same time, the nonparticipation of the states of the Eastern Bloc was one of the first clear signs that the continent was now divided.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_ ... and_legacy

[ckaihatsu]

Austria, in the early 70s

"Americanized" European countries, especially Austria,

Hi.


x D

[ckaihatsu]

The beast you feed, bro.


x D

[late]

'Losing' -- ? Losing what?

Here's some corroboration:

You seem to be under the illusion you've made a point.

Know why Russia built the Berlin Wall? To stop people leaving. Which started before the Russian army entered Germany.

It wasn't hard to see the way things were going to go...

From your own source:

"The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels.[64] The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically."

While behind the Iron Curtain life sucked, with Soviet soldiers remaining as an occupying army, with the KGB putting together nasty organisations like the Stasi.

[ckaihatsu]

CORRECTION:

Austria, in the early 70s

---

So were the Soviets correct, or was it better to see Europe *colonized* like that -- ?

[...]

You seem to be under the illusion you've made a point.

Yeah, the point is right there -- that U.S. imperialism also colonized *Europe* to an extent, postwar, though obviously not as much, or as destructively, as it did to Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

And since this is all a 'Great Empires' rivalry, it makes sense to *start* with U.S. / NATO / Western imperialism.

Know why Russia built the Berlin Wall? To stop people leaving. Which started before the Russian army entered Germany.

It wasn't hard to see the way things were going to go...

From your own source:

"The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels.[64] The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically."

While behind the Iron Curtain life sucked, with Soviet soldiers remaining as an occupying army, with the KGB putting together nasty organisations like the Stasi.

[late]

Yeah, the point is right there -- that U.S. imperialism also colonized *Europe* to an extent

noun: colonisation

the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.
"Africa boasts a tradition of higher education institutions that predate Western colonization"
the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use.

What we did was not colonisation. What you keep running away from is that Russia did settle in and establish control.

Which is why Russia needed machine gun towers to keep their people from leaving, it was awful. While Europe had democracies that often ignored our wishes.

[ckaihatsu]

Know why Russia built the Berlin Wall? To stop people leaving. Which started before the Russian army entered Germany.

And, this, btw, is just straight-up *bullshit*, since the Soviet Union's Berlin Blockade was set up in 1948-1949, in Germany, which was *well before* the construction of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] (About this soundlisten)) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin.[2] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[3] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" from building a socialist state in East Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

[ckaihatsu]

noun: colonisation

the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.
"Africa boasts a tradition of higher education institutions that predate Western colonization"
the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use.

What we did was not colonisation. What you keep running away from is that Russia did settle in and establish control.

Which is why Russia needed machine gun towers to keep their people from leaving, it was awful. While Europe had democracies that often ignored our wishes.

No-argument on the Stalinist 'Iron Curtain'.

But this *was* the Cold War, meaning respective superpowers' spheres-of-influence worldwide, and that dynamic includes the U.S. / NATO, which 'colonized' Europe into the Cold War:

[P]rices were so high that average people could not afford to shop, especially since prices were free-ranging but wages still fixed by law. Therefore, in the summer of 1948 a giant wave of strikes and demonstrations swept over West Germany, leading to an incident in Stuttgart where strikers were met by US tanks ("Stuttgarter Vorfälle"). Only after the wage-freeze was abandoned, Deutschmark and free-ranging prices were accepted by the population.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_ ... ncy_reform

viewtopic.php?p=15195130#p15195130

---

The Marshall Plan, the scheme to revive the economies of Europe under US hegemony, soon followed. It was presented as an offer of aid to all of Europe, including those areas under Russian occupation. But W W Rostow, an economist who worked on implementing it—and who later played a key role in the US’s war against Vietnam—reveals that the plan was part of an ‘offensive’ which aimed ‘to strengthen the area still outside Stalin’s grasp’.266 Within weeks of the announcement of the plan, and prompted by the US, the parties of the right and centre had forced the Communists out of the governments in France and Italy.267 This was Thorez and Togliatti’s reward for their three years of work opposing strikes (including a major strike at Renault in Paris at precisely the time the government crisis erupted). In the spring of 1948 the US poured funds into Italy to try and prevent a joint list of Communist and Socialist candidates winning the general election—and began to recruit ex-fascists to an armed underground organisation, Gladio (later to come under NATO’s wing), in case they did win.

Stalin was taking similar measures to clamp down on potential dissent in Russian-occupied Eastern Europe. The Russian army had ensured the police and secret police were in the hands of its appointees. Now a series of moves were used to destroy resistance to Russian dictates. First, non-Communist ministers were forced out of office; the social democratic parties were forced to merge with Communist parties regardless of the feelings of their members; then Communist Party leaders who might show any degree of independence from Stalin (including virtually anyone who had fought in Spain) were put on trial, imprisoned and often executed. Kostov in Bulgaria, Rajk in Hungary, and Slansky in Czechoslovakia were all executed. Gomulka in Poland and Kadar in Hungary were merely thrown into prison. Stalin was not only keen to remove pro-Western supporters of market capitalism. He was terrified of independent Communist-led regimes emerging—especially after the break with Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1948. A wave of show trials of Eastern European Communist leaders followed, accused, like Tito, of being ‘imperialist agents’ and ‘fascists’.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 544-545

[late]

No-argument on the Stalinist 'Iron Curtain'.

But this *was* the Cold War, meaning respective superpowers' spheres-of-influence worldwide, and that dynamic includes the U.S. / NATO, which 'colonized' Europe into the Cold War:

1948 was one year. You see, in the end they got autonomy and a thriving economy. The countries suffering under the Russian boot got Russian tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pa ... hoslovakia

But I am enjoying the backpeddle, don't bother asking, you know.

[Rugoz]

But this *was* the Cold War, meaning respective superpowers' spheres-of-influence worldwide, and that dynamic includes the U.S. / NATO, which 'colonized' Europe into the Cold War

Bullshit. You have no idea was colonization means.

East Germany literally shot people for trying to escape the "communist paradise". Ordinary people.

Everybody who defends such a regime is a fucking asshole. End of debate.

[ckaihatsu]

1948 was one year. You see, in the end they got autonomy and a thriving economy. The countries suffering under the Russian boot got Russian tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pa ... hoslovakia

But I am enjoying the backpeddle, don't bother asking, you know.

Enjoy your self-circumscribed fantasies, late -- you're making me out to sound like some kind of Stalinist cheerleader, and I'm *not*. No USSR flag-waving here, if you'll notice.

[wat0n]

Bullshit. You have no idea was colonization means.

East Germany literally shot people for trying to escape the "communist paradise". Ordinary people.

Everybody who defends such a regime is a fucking asshole. End of debate.

And if that's colonization, how would one call what happened in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968?

It's interesting how we're seeing attempts to change the definition of words such as "aggression" and "colonization". I wonder which one's next.

[B0ycey]

@ckaihatsu

Just curious, but when two Socialist nations reach conflict, where do your loyalty lie?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict

Was this defensive?

[ckaihatsu]

Bullshit. You have no idea was colonization means.

East Germany literally shot people for trying to escape the "communist paradise". Ordinary people.

Everybody who defends such a regime is a fucking asshole. End of debate.

* Whew *

Just barely scraped by, there. I can *feel* the boundary of heat from your flaming, viscerally.

I do *not* defend such a Stalinist regime, though. End of debate.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu

Just curious, but when two Socialist nations reach conflict, where do your loyalty lie?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict

Was this defensive?

"Socialist" countries -- ?

Please recall that socialism is *supposed* to mean workers-control-of-the-means-of-mass-industrial-production.

Workers power, internationally, does *not* require the political entity of the bourgeois nation-state since what *workers* do is circumscribed by *industry* (at most / worst), and not by *nation*.

Now, *Stalinist*-type countries like the USSR and Mao's China, may be defined as the supremacy of a nationalist *bureaucracy* over a nationalist *bourgeoisie* (merchants). Have at it.