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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: the Monolithic Communist Conspir
Message-ID: <7800773@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 19:09:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800773
Posted: Wed Nov 27 19:09:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 21:00:08 EST
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 27 19:09:00 1985


[-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)]
/* Written  3:06 pm  Nov 26, 1985 by jim@ISM780B in inmet:net.politics */
>[ tim sevener whuxn!orb]
>>> > If the Soviet Union is so set upon "world conquest" why is it that
>>> > they haven't invaded the small Communist countries of
>>> > Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Albania for the past 40 years?
>
>>> We will note that Tim omitted Hungary from his list.  [Tom Hill]
>
>As well as Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan.
 
>Ok, Jan, I've changed my mind, you *are* stupid.  Obviously Tim didn't
>include them because they *have* been invaded.  If he had included them
>in the list, then his statement would have simply been factually false.

He was quite correct in omitting the invaded countries  from  the
uninvaded  list.   Neither  Tom Hill (as I read his remark) nor I
said it was a factual error.

In summer '39 the statement: "Hitler has not invaded weak neighbor-
ing  countries of Poland, Belgium and Denmark"  would have been 
factually true.

Austria and Czechoslovakia would be conspicuously absent from the list.

It would be quite appropriate to point out that absence.

The omitted countries do affect the issue (whether  the  USSR  is
after world conquest). It is one thing not to invade countries of
a certain kind; it is another thing to invade them in  a  certain
order.

Some people (not just Tim) have tried to draw a boundary  between
Soviet  conquests  of WWII and their alleged lack of expansionism
before or after. It was, according to these optimists, a one-time
thing.  The  Poles  may  keep suffering but at least we are safe.
History does not bear them out. Several countries were invaded
by the Soviet Union *before* WWII , and several *after*.

A part of Tim's argument remains valid: they didn't invade some
countries when they could. The conclusion I drew in my
response was that they are cautiously, not madly, expansionist:
they calculate costs and benefits. Still, conquest of an extra
country is, for them, always a benefit.

		Jan Wasilewsky