Unless the goal of the Cold War was simply to dismantle the Soviet Union and its closest allies, I don’t think that it’s perfectly accurate to say that it ended (in either the 1990s or elsewhen).
The anticommunists continued to struggle against popular communist parties in the Russian Federation and elsewhere, they are trying and failing to dismantle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Cuba, the liberal reforms in the People’s Rep. of China and the Socialist Rep. of Vietnam were poor substitutes for overthrowal, and so far the anticommunists haven’t balkanized the Russian Federation.
If we view the Cold War as essentially a complex class war (which would be quite reasonable), then it certainly never ended, or even been on pause.
No, because in a nutshell it was not war against USSR, it was a war for US global hegemony.
In this sense, it didn’t start in 1945 either, but at least half a century prior
I agree more with you tha @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml here.
The cold war began in 1848 if you ask me and the US is just the most recent “main bad guy” where before it was the British. That was when proletarian revolution/movement began imo. And at least in part the inter-imperial conflicts were fueled by the access to domestic industry fueled by imperialism but were also aimed at killing off the domestic populations and keeping them distracted. The staggering death tolls of WWI were extremely convenient for the aristocracy. “the lost generation” were full of relatively well educated, fighting age proletarian men many of whom had class consciousness…
WW2 was the ultimate anti-communist kinetic war and actually imo the nazi party was a successful heist of 10s of billions in Jewish property by a criminal political party which was redistributed to the nobility and corporations. Then after 1945, the war became economic and ideological and continues today. the 1992-2008 period is not a lull in the war but rather a period where the West seized control of the Russian state and now it no longer has that control.
But we must take Marx seriously when he says that all conflict is class conflict. The 1992-2008 period was not peaceful for the people of Russia, just like there has never been peace for the black American population.
Sanctions are the inter-state manifestation of the war which has been waged against the working class for millenia. National borders, “start-stop” dates of wars, legal vs illegal policies which cause suffering, etc. These should all be understood as the bourgeoisie rationalizing it’s very deliberate class warfare.
Edit: there are a lot of ways to characterize this stuff. e.g. funny tweet I just came across
Ah i see that you are looking at cold war as phase of the class war. That is certainly relevant view too.
I think I tagged you because I was half asleep when I wrote that. But looking now I’m glad I did, because I think it makes sense to subdivide the 19-21st centuries into domestic class war on one hand and inter-imperial conflict on the other. And you are correct, the post ww2 is definitely the era for US global hegemony
It was not very consistent, rather normal single bouts of opportunistic conquests and local domination in Americas. WW2 changed much, it was second round of how Lenin described WW1 - shifting and consolidation of global imperialism. Since then US purposefully pursues world hegemony.
It started 1792 when that monstrosity was born. Thanks Fr*nce.
I like to think about it as though it slowed to a near stop for a few years from 1992 to around 2008, and has only in the last few years ramped back up to the intensity it had when it was new.
For the most part, the cold war was a NATO war against the Soviets. Without the Soviets, the war lost its purpose but never really ended. And now that Russia has regained its strength and China is a real contender against American hegemony, the cold war’s regained a purpose.
So IMO it’s only a “second” cold war in the same sense that WWII was a “second” world war. Yes the main purpose of the aggression ended, but what picked up a few decades later in the case of WWII was the result of the same conflict.
The current cold war might technically be a new one, but only because the previous one was stagnant for long enough that people have lost the thread of it.
Agree with both you and anbol. Even the popular interpretation of the cold war as being a war between two economic systems: capitalist and communist, can’t be said to be “over” until every communist country is overthrown.
Most of their color revolutions succeeded, but they failed in Cuba, China, and the DPRK.
And of course even that interpretation isn’t fully correct, because they also overthrow any country that doesn’t bend the knee to the US, libya being the most recent.
Recently I’ve been asking myself if the Cold War ever started or existed. Did the USSR even refer to it (by this name or any other)?
It’s the war against communism. The USSR had been attacked ever since Lenin, and China was attacked ever since Mao. WW2 just put things on hold because there was a bigger primary contradiction.
In a way it never ended I guess. I have thought about that.
But to me, this is Cold War II, and the starting point to me is after Pelosi visited Taiwan. Though other starting points could be NATO overthrow of Libya, 2014 Ukraine coup, or the beginning of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.
It’s important to keep in mind that Putin until around 2004 (Ukraine orange revolution being the trigger) was very much willing to work with the west and wanted Russia to be a part of Europe. It was even still a member of G8 until 2014.
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