In previous articles I mentioned how the Russo-Ukrainian war has only further corroborated Mongolians’ dislike for change. In the eyes of some people, this is a battle to the death between socialism and capitalism. They say some dedicated their last breath to socialism, praying for Putin and Russia while cursing Ukraine, the US, the West, and NATO. In their longwinded curses they specify the worst aspects of the US and West, while praising the USSR and Russia as the “Big Brother ” that brought salvation to mankind. Then you have trolls’ copy-pasting such words, spreading it far and wide.
The differences between the two great powers and societies are like night and day. One conducts itself in the manner of an authoritarian empire, and the other’s power lies in its democratic free market system. They are as different as black and white, night and day. What are these huge differences? Let me explain it simply.
Let’s look back at the 20th century for some examples. Russia experienced revolutions in 1905 and 1917. They had a civil war, in which millions of Russians killed one another. The US did not. Whereas the American Civil War in the mid-19th century in a general sense brought forth progress, the Russian Civil War brought about only death, destruction, bloodshed, and tears. As a direct result, the Soviet Union that ruled through force for 70 years dissolved itself in 1991.
Millions were oppressed during forced industrialization and collectivization in the USSR. Millions were allowed to die as a result of famine. The inhumane treatment is unfathomable. Then you have the notorious political repression. Many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, were repressed or killed based on false charges. Gulags served as concentration camps to set an example and send a message. Sadistic and inhumane acts took place there. No such things happened in the US. No gulags, no concentration camps, and no systematic repression through false charges.
In the USSR and Russia, all work was done through force, yet in the US, not a single societal problem or endeavor was resolved by the use of force.
In the history of Russia and the USSR, the supreme political authority was set up in a way to counter democracy: a cult of personality, repression of the masses, no limits or oversight on government power. The authority of the government was always decided through coups and conspiracies. However, in the US, not a single president tried to create a cult of personality based on himself, and this is true even to this day. There has not been a single case of a political group staging a coup to force someone out of power or force themselves into power. Transfer of power, at all levels, was done through free and fair elections.
When we talk about people such as Lenin, Stalin, Yezhov, Beria, Khrushchev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev, they will be judged harshly as their names echo through history. There is not a single American president or vice president about whom you could say the same.
The USSR was dominated by bureaucracy and a single party, with millions and millions of people working as cogs in the vast machinery of the bureaucratic apparatus, draining most of the state budget. It is quite the opposite in the US. There was no one-party rule or the bureaucracy of such a thing; no massive party apparatus; and no political youth organizations guided by the party, to this very day.
Let’s compare some facts about the foreign policies of the USSR and US and Russia and the US.
Starting from the October Revolution, there was no going back as the Soviet foreign policy for 70 years was to implement the dream of a worldwide communist revolution. In its attempts to create a “Fifth International” across the world, the Soviets established or financed communist parties in every capitalist nation. For all its hard work, socialism-communism was not instituted in a single one of those capitalist countries. Until its collapse in 1991, Soviet foreign policy meant bullying as a great power and spreading communism.
Today the US continues to pursue a foreign policy of protecting democracy and the free market, rather than spreading capitalism and imperialism through force. It has done so without ever facing defeat. America’s involvement in the Korean and Vietnam Wars was waged at the request of the capitalist southern regions of those countries.
Contrarily, Soviet interventions in East in Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979 were all actions to suppress the will of the people. They started a war with Finland in 1939-1940; forcefully annexed the three Baltic nations into the USSR in 1940; and backed a communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948. It would be a long story to write about the Red Army and NKVD’s involvement in Mongolia’s Great Repression starting in 1937.
Every time the USSR established a communist regime in Eastern Europe after WWII, they followed the bitter example of the USSR: repression of the masses, one-party dictatorships, forced collectivization, stamping out human rights, and oppression of religion. The Soviets were directly involved in countries’ domestic affairs. Retaliation against those who opposed this meant being taken away to Moscow to stand trial, being poisoned, and even executed.
In Western Europe, on the other hand, as nations re-instituted their capitalist path to development, there was not a single case of the US forcing a nation, sending in troops, or oppressing the citizenry. There are no such stories of the US forcing a change in government or bringing leaders to Washington to stand trial.
When NATO and the European Union were formed, not a single member country was forced or coerced into joining against the will of the people. This is true to this day. Much to Russia’s chagrin, Sweden, Finland, as well as Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova wanting to join NATO or the EU is not because of US coercion or Western intimidation, but rather because it is the aspiration of the majority of its people.
Just two years after the establishment of the Warsaw Pact, Hungary announced that it was pulling out of the pact and remaining neutral, a move which ushered in a devastating Soviet intervention. Twelve years later, Warsaw Pact forces led by the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the 1968 Prague Spring. In 1981 they threatened to invade Poland amidst a domestic crisis.
In the history of NATO, its joint military forces have never staged an intervention or threatened to do so in a member nation. Thanks to NATO, small countries such as Iceland and Luxembourg are living well with only a few hundred active military personnel.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the successor to the Warsaw Pact, came about through a rather confusing process, with its members leaving or threatening to leave on more than one occasion. Aside from a joint operation in January 2022 in Kazakhstan, it boasts no other significant or productive operations. Never mind sending joint forces into Ukraine in support of Russia; none of its members aside from Belarus even support Russia. Though they may pay lip service as allies at the Kremlin, they seem more like vassal states as opposed to actual allies. That is why there is unofficial talk in Kazakhstan about leaving the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union.
On the other hand, NATO is as united as five fingers making a solid fist. There has not been a single instance of NATO expelling a member, a member leaving, or one threatening to leave. The fact is that the NATO of today is incomparable with the CSTO or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
I’m speaking of just the post-Cold War historical differences. There are many who hold the criticism that the actions of the US and NATO in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere were much worse than what Russia is doing in Ukraine today, and that the West has not been punished for it in any way. This is Russian propaganda. In those four countries, dictatorial regimes fell, and the four countries themselves have not sued the US or NATO in international courts, or filed complaints. They are even grateful in some ways. Iraq was grateful to see an end to the civil-religious conflicts. Afghanistan was not a defeat for the US – the US grew tired of the fundamental Islam in the country and left of its own accord. The Soviets also left a decade-long war in vain.
Not long after the establishment of the Russian Federation, a domestic conflict broke out. In the fall of 1993, they sent troops into Moscow and drove out the communist legislature. Starting from 1994, two wars were waged in Chechnya. The Russian army fighting against Russian citizens only brought down its national reputation. Like playing cards in Russia’s geopolitical deck of cards, several breakaway “people’s republics” have been established: in Donetsk, Luhansk, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Artsakh, etc. Ukraine might be the one to burst this geographically protruding bubble.
Since 1865,
there has not been any attempt to secede from the United States. The US and other Western nations have never deployed troops in their capital or in a state or province to engage in combat or crush an uprising. Any state or province wanting to secede has never resulted in a civil war, and it is hard to imagine that such a thing could happen.
At the end of the day, we can see from the battles in Ukraine the lengths Russia will go to in order to rebuild the “Russian world.” Is this their last resort chosen in desperation? Did the US go to war to build the English-speaking Western world?
Nothing in the military history of Russia, Soviet Russia, the USSR, or the Russian Federation has ever been as pointless as the Russo-Ukrainian War, especially given the unfathomable amount of destruction and devastation in Ukraine today. The most important thing is that this war has destroyed Russia’s reputation and does not fare well for Russia’s strategic stability. Let’s hope such a conflict does not happen again.
Let me mention just one more thing. Though I am writing for a Mongolian audience, the bigger picture is that the world is not ready for a Russian loss. Because they started a war a lack of morale, what follows now is crisis in morale.
(To be continued.)