Re: [Marxism] If Marxism is a Science then its Predictions ShouldMatter...

[Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>]

Paddy Apling wrote:

> At 16:39 01/12/2005, Einde Callaghan wrote:
>
> > Paddy Apling wrote:
<snip>
> If you reckon the USSR was capitalist I wonder why all the "other"
> capitalist countries of the world hated and feared it so much..
Bewcause all capitalist countries are all fraternal enemies. For
previous generations the conflict was primarily between Britain and
Germany and/or between France and Germany. Between the world wars there
were several times when it appeared that the the main conflict would be
between Britain and the USA or Europe and the USA.

The actual direct confrontation between the Soviet Bloc and the West was
really only between the the end of World War II and the end of the 1980s
- two superpowers competing for influence and resources just as previous
great powers have been competing since the advent of commercial
capitalism at the end of the Middle Ages - England and Spain, England
and France, Britain and Germany/France and Germany, etc.

All of us somehow feel that the "systemic" confrontation of the Cold War
was in some way different because it was the dominant political fact for
most of our adult lives, but the more I think about the more I doubt
that this really was the case. The only special thing about it is that
it dominated OUR lives and was masked as an ideological conflict (more
or less by accident of the ideological "justification" of one of the
powers involved) between alternative visions of society (both severely
distorted) - although the conflict between Britain and France in the
Napoleonic period was also masked as an ideological confrontation.
Future generations will see it as just another example of Great Power
rivalry.

Einde O'Callaghan

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