Looking at the conflict between the NATO and Russia around Ukraine, people in the West started to raise the question, if we are moving towards a new cold war II. A German journalist re-published an interview with Mr. Gorbatschow and asked him what he thinks about this. His answers are very telling about the end of the cold war, about the end of the Soviet Union, about the time between the end of the cold war and today and about the question, if we are facing a new cold war.
LINK to the interview with Gorbatschow: https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/michail-gorbatschow/are-we-facing-a-new-cold-war-51296040.bild.html
1.How a war is made a sudden astonishing event
Before discussing this interview, raising today the question about a new cold war raises another question: is it may be the case that it is this very discussion of this question, the concern, if we are moving towards a new cold war , that is raising this question and raising this today in the light what happens around the Ukraine today, that this is the very way the cold war warriors from the ideological department in the West are performing their ideological war against Russia? And that they do this, contributing to the war propaganda against Russia with the support of the last president of the Soviet Union by discussing with him this question?
To start with a first question: Does this journalist representing all those people discussing this question, raising this question, does he really not know anything about what the West via their NATO, the military organization of the West, which – by the way – carried and carries out hot wars all over the world after the end of the Cold War until today (just to remind all those concerned people: did they already forget all the wars in Afghanistan, Iran, Mali, Syria, Jemen, Vietnam, etc etc ?), did they not notice that this military organization of the West, extended the members of the NATO towards Russia, established new military bases in these new NATIO countries and also all over East Europe, on the Balkan, in the Cacasus region, basically all around Russia, that this military organization moved their military forces via all these countries around Russia step by step closer to the Russian boarders and established in all these regions around Russia all sorts of new types of weapons, aiming at disarming the Russian military power? Does this journalist not know this at all? Does he not know that this is not such a different military strategy different from the military strategy which was called “cold war”, forcing an enemy with the sheer encirclement of growing massive military forces to surrender? Does he not know that this is what the West did in that Cold War and then again over the last 30 years since the end of the Soviet Union?
The answer on these questions is this: He knows of course about this, but since he shares the NATO propaganda stories, that all these military activities against Russia are only aiming at avoiding any military actions, avoiding a war, he, as all those people, who also saw no reason to be worried about this while all this happened in the last 30 years or so, they all wanted and want to believe that all these military activities were never made to prepare a war.
Then, for what? For avoiding the war by forcing the enemy to surrender facing the military forces encircling the enemy closer and closer and this is why this, all these NATO activities have nothing to do with the preparation of a war? The least, one could say, a strategy which plays with a quite high risk of a hot war, no? But this, their 30 years lasting entire determined blindness about the 30 years lasting preparation of a war by the West and their NATO forces for a war with Russia, made these people never wonder, if this was and is not the 30 years lasting cold war, a cold war II started with the end of the Soviet Union, that is with the victory in cold war I. And why this determined blindness against what the NATO is doing since three decades never considering this as performing a cold war, why then are they suddenly concerned about a new cold war only today: Because they are firstly deeply convinced, that their nation states and their military forces would never ever be interested in wars, despite of this encirclement of Russia and that it is secondly only the enemy of the NATO who wants war. Nothing is clearer to this determined blindness that is absolutely obvious for everybody who opens his eyes clearly, clear to this journalist, raising this question: it is that nation state, which the NATO treats as its enemy – it is Russia. The NATO knows an enemy? Did they not tell us, that the 30 years NATO encirclement of Russia was not targeted against anybody? And how do such determined blind journalist know, that this nation state, Russia, is the enemy and is, unlike the NATO, preparing for a war? The answer is simple: Russia did quite the same as the West. Russia, just as the NATO did, Russia has moved, though unlike the NATO only more recently, Russia has moved its military forces towards the West, developed new types of weapons etc etc, in short, did more or less the same as the West/NATO, though it did this on the Russian territories, while the NATO extended their territorial military activities towards Russia and with the Ukraine neighboring Russia as their latest step. So, while this, the Russian activities, can be clearly seen as activities of somebody aggressively preparing for a war, who is, by doing this the enemy, whereas – in this logic – the NATO and all their preparations for war, all are made only for avoiding war. They now are there where they are, eyes in eyes with the Russian military forces, the aggressive enemy and only because of this, the Russian military forces now just at the other side of the boarders where now the NATO military forces are, only this raises the question, if we are facing a new cold war, due to this aggressive enemy at the other side of the boarder, the Russian military forces standing inside their national boarders facing the military forces of the NATO which have reached with their move towards the East in the last 30 years this Russian boarders.
So, deleting all the 30 years military activities of the NATO moving towards the Russian boarder and reading only into the same activities of the military forces on the other side of the boarder the danger of a new cold war, not only reads into the same military activities who in all this is the aggressive state, that is who is the enemy. Now, after it has been clarified who is the enemy and who is responsible for this situation facing the possibility of a new cold war, it is indeed this very way of reading the recent 30 years history in Europe, reading the history of the relations between the West, their NATO and Russia that arrives at the astonishment of a suddenly looming new cold war. And why not a war? It is indeed this verry narrative, this 30 years lasting narrative which is preparing people in the West for the next war with Russia: the NATO moves East and modernizes its weapons, presented as a mission serving the values of humanity, no sign of war what so ever, the Russian, doing the same, though only on their territory, they are the preparatory activities of a war of the aggressive enemy. It is this very pretentious naivety and the way of finding the enemy providing the propaganda story of the West in last 30 years preparing people in West for the next war. If cold war or war, this is now something all those observing people, who did not want to notice anything, will now further on do – observe.
That much about the ideological achievements of raising the question, if we are facing a new cold war.
2. What the last political leader of the Soviet Union tells us about a new cold war
Now: What does Mr. Gobatschow say, asked if he shares the concern of a looming new cold war? Does he, who must know about what the NATO did over 30 years in terms of encircling Russia, does he say anything about this question of a journalist articulating his sudden concern about a looming war as if nothing had happened in the last 30 years? Does he ask the journalist where he lived in the last 30 years and if he had not noticed the 30 years move of the NATO towards where they are today?
This Mr. Gorbatschow, reading his responses to this question, the first thing one must say is, because it might not become clear from what he says, this Mr. Gorbatschow was the last president of the Soviet Union, that is of a group of countries, covering around a quarter of the earth, of the world empire of communism, of anti-capitalism. The first striking observation reading this interview is indeed this: This political top leader of the Soviet Union was the leader of a world power that was founded as an opposing society model, socialism opposing capitalism, opposing the society system of the West. Remarkably indeed, in his interview there is not a single word, in which one could find even any reminder of this anti- capitalistic, socialistic empire, called Union of Soviets; a world power with an anti-capitalistic society system, not only ruling people’s live for 70 years in a major part of the whole world, where this anti-capitalistic political project was in power, but also with a major impact on the world as a whole beyond this socialist empire of the Soviet Union: especially in the whole part of the world, in which all sorts of political movements where fighting against being ruled and exploited by the West and their capitalism, that is nothing less but in the whole Africa, in the Arab world, in the whole Latin America, in South East Asia, in India and last but not least in China, everywhere anti-capitalists, may they be in power as in China or trying to get rid of being ruled by Western Capitalism like all those countries in the colonized part of the world, many of which for fighting against the colonialization and, since the colonizers were capitalist countries from Europe, they were all fighting against capitalism. All in all a major part of the world for 70 years was under the massive influence of this ant-capitalistic, socialist world power.
And Gorbatschow, the leader of this anti-capitalist world power? Not a single word about this, not a single word about capitalism or anticapitalism, nor about socialism or communism can be found in this interview dealing with the world today, simply not a single word. Instead, the last leader of the worldwide anti-capitalist global empire is talking a lot about nations, his wish of their peaceful coexistence, here in his interview with a German newspaper in particular the Russian nation, the German nation, about the Russian nation, the similarities of the Russians and Germans, how Russians admire Germans, and so on and on. As a sample for his nationalist world view:
„Stalin once said: Hitlers come and go, but the German nation, the German people, remains. All Russians share this view. Together, we Russians and Germans possess a unique combination of qualities and skills. We Russians lack much of what characterizes the Germans, and the Germans probably lack something that we Russians have. We complement each other in an astonishing, unique way. We must not allow for the destruction of what our two nations have created together.”
With this idea Gorbatschow shares with Stalin, defining the nationality as the nature of its citizens, with this arch-racism Hitler could certainly also agree with, it is no surprise that the leader of the German race, the German Bundeskanzler, became a good friend of him so that he donated the socialist part of Germany to the leader of the German race. For this man the world consists of nations, of people whose life consists of nothing else but of practicing this political racism, their patriotism. His concern in his political vision has nothing in mind with any opposition against capitalism, any alternative society system; how and towards which aims people in all these nation states across the world carry out their lives, how they manage their lives, how they work and live, what they get for working, the economy, their political system, the world wide poverty, the world full of wars, all this is so irrelevant for this last leader of the anti-capitalist empire, that he does not mention a word about this, neither about capitalism nor about communism, but what he talks about is the living together of nations, in his view existing to serve the main desire of the world’s people, their desire for the patriotism of human kind.
When he then talks about the threat of a new cold war today, his comment is that he indeed does critique the West. For what? It is this West after this anti-capitalist empire of the Soviet Union was dissolved, dissolved after thanks to him resigning as the president of this Soviet-Union, after this world-power was abolished and this, terminating the anti-capitalist world power, terminating this as his big historical political project, he critiques the West, that the West, the capitalist world considered all this, not only the disappearance of the socialist empire as a competing world power, limiting until then the world power of the West across the whole world, in other words making thanks to this end of a competing socialist world power the capitalist West the only world power, Gorbatschow, the gravedigger of the Soviet Union, so far questioning the world power of the West, he complains that the West being now thanks to his policies the only world power, that could from then on rule the world without any relativations by any other world power, by the Soviet Union, he critiques that the West considers this, this victory of the West in the cold war – as a victory in this cold war.
“I would put it like this: the West – and primarily the US – have moved away from central joint agreements. Please remember, in the second half of the 1980s, the USSR and the US took unprecedented steps together! They began reducing their nuclear arsenals. Just think of it: 80 percent of the nuclear potential that had been built up during the Cold War years was destroyed back then. Moreover, both sides conceded that nobody’s security was compromised by this process.However, the West then used Russia’s weakness after the dissolution of the Soviet Union to declare itself the “winner” of the Cold War. The principle of equality in international relations was forgotten, and thus we all ended up where we are today.”
Sorry? Is he mentally okay? The winner should not have declared itself as the winner? The “principle of equality in international relations”? Did he forget that what he ended was a (cold) war?
Obviously, taking this man no longer serious and raising the question, if this last leader of the socialist world power, might be mentally a bit sick, is very attempting, considering what his historical achievement is, doing nothing less but throwing over board an opposing world power limiting the global power of the capitalistic imperialism – no matter if one agrees with what this opposing world power did and how it interpreted its ant-capitalist project – the dissolution of this only existing alternative power did limit the global reign of capitalism. And what this end of an alternative anti-capitalist society project – again, not matter if one has another view about what anti-capitalism is – what this end of an world power opposing the West meant for the world can be seen in the wars carried out across the world after the end of the Soviet Union by the capitalist West as in the growing global poverty, and last but not least also in the disappearance (with the single exception of Cuba) of all the anti-capitalist political movements all over the world. The disappearance of all the critics of capitalism within a few years, just as if capitalism itself and not an anti-capitalist state has disappeared, this is another story. It is therefore attempting to comment this true idiotism accusing the winner of the cold war for seeing him as the winner of this war and through all sorts of insults on this man, considering what he indeed did to the world. However, one should resist doing this, because this Mr. Gorbatschow and his passion for patriotism and his idea of the coexistence of nations states all enjoying their nationalisms, these ideas were not the ideas of an insane individual, but this man was nobody less but the representative of the Soviet-Union political elite.
And this is telling firstly about policy rationale of the Soviet Union, secondly why the Soviet Union ended its anti-capitalist project and thirdly what this meant for the winners of the cold war, the alliance of the West, the leading capitalist countries under the reign of the US – and finally also what this end meant for the time between the end of the cold war and today.
3. Some hints on the policy rationale of the Soviet Union and why this anti-capitalist project has been ended
Trying to understand what he is saying about the old cold war, its end and about the question of an upcoming new cold war today, if one notices that, as much as one might rightly shake one’s head being more than irritated about what Gorbatschows views on all this are, what this man is saying is indeed not that far away from what the Soviet-Union presented as what anti-capitalism meant for the Soviet Union, at least since the beginning of the war of the Germans against the Soviet Union in World War II. Without going here deeper into the history of this anti-capitalist project of the Soviets, since this war of the Germans fascists against the Soviet Union the Soviet Union’s state rationale was not presented as a project of anti-capitalism aiming at better living conditions for the Russian people; notably, already this war itself has never been interpreted by the Soviet-Union policies as defending socialism against an anti-communist attack of a capitalist country, though the Germans presented their war against the Soviet Union as rescuing the world from the devil of communism; this war just as later the cold war of the West and their NATO under the leadership of US, for the political leaders of the Soviet Union both the war against Germany and later more and more also the cold war of the capitalist empire against the Soviet Union, was labeled by the Soviet Union and in the very same way later by Russia as the “Welikaja Otetschestwennaja woina”, “The Great Patriotic War”. Again, World War II already for the Soviet Union since Stalin, then also during the cold war as then for Russia after the end of the Cold War was not the war of the leading countries of the capitalist part of the world against their anti-capitalist society project. This view of the Soviet Union, defending their country against the war of the capitalist West, interpreted as defending their nation, and by doing this re-activating the phrase of the Great Patriotic War, which was originally created by feudal Russian political leaders in the feudal war against Napoleon and applying this nationalistic view to the war of the capitalist world against the anti-capitalist project of the Soviet-Union, this is very telling, even more if one considers that it is this military patriotism, that was during the reign of the Soviet-Union until today the state doctrine also of Russian policies, the state doctrine both for the Russian people inside Russia as for defining the position of the Soviet Union and of Russia in their international relations, in particular their relations to the hostile capitalist countries. Within this view on the war and the cold war as a project of patriotism defending the Russian home country, one should not overlook, what this is telling about this alternative society project, that is annually celebrating the victory in the war of Germany against the Soviet Union as the victory – equally of the Soviet–Union as of Russia – as the victory of the Russian Nation. After all, the heroization of this victory in this war, is a heroization of a war, the way of carrying out conflicts between nation states, and this implies also the heroization of the victims of the war, that is this heroization is making from the people dying in this war national heroes and again, if heroes at all, no heroes defending the alternative society project but defending their nation.
Celebrating this patriotism and conceptualizing with this celebration of nationalism the Soviet Union policy rationale as above all serving national patriotism, it is precisely this view on what the Soviet Union was and what Russia is, which is obviously guiding also Gorbatschows world view, when he talks about a new cold war – and as mad as his complain about the winner of a war seeing him as a winner is, this view is, obviously, not the view of an insane man, but represents the continuity of the state rationale already of the Soviet Union under Stalin and then of Russia.
And it is this state rationale of a patriotism overruling any question about different society systems, any opposition between capitalism versus socialism, it is this deeply moral idea to practice this patriotism as the deeper mission of any nation state, whatever their society system might be, which made the Soviet communists, once confronted with the war since they started their anti-capitalist project in that October revolution, to more and more consider their alternative society project in the light of never ending wars towards an optional way of practicing nationalism, one could also give up for other ways practicing nationalism if it allows achieving the vision of the coexistence of nation states all enjoying their patriotism. They really do not know or – may be – forgot that nationalism is the way nation states, the political bodies of capitalism, unify their competing citizens to which they impose capitalistic living conditions as the exclusive way to perform their live agendas and make them entirely dependent on these living conditions, that this celebration of their nation state is substantially the glorification of this dependency of the citizens on their political power.
As a consequence of this patriotism as their overarching deeper state rationale of any nation state they thought abolishing their anti-capitalist society model would make the capitalist West terminate their aggressions against the Soviet Union and transformed the Soviet Union into Russia and so all the other nation states which were once part of the socialist Union of soviets.
A truly fatal idea to get rid of the hostility of capitalism. Wasn’t one of the main reasons for opposing capitalism that it subordinates the whole world for making the whole world a service for ever growing profiteering? And then, of all things, the abandonment of the opposition to capitalism is supposed to lead to the ending of what it is rightly accused of being its imperialist nature?
With this fatal consideration, they have not only ended Cold War I, with this they invited the West to Cold War II, now against the no longer anti-capitalist Russia, but still limiting the world power, the imperialism of the leading capitalist countries of the West under the reign of the US. With this idea, we give the enemy what he wants in order to make him stop obstructing our own national goals, these anti-capitalists of the gone Soviet Union only document that they have not the faintest idea of what capitalism is all about and that their project of anti-capitalism consists of nothing but all sorts of political moralisms. Thanks to their fatal logic of these nationalist anti-capitalists of the Soviet -Union already during the Cold War they here and there handed over anti-capitalist movements in the “Third World” in their battles against colonialism, which the SU had supported, a support which these political movements were existentially dependent on, because their opponents were supported by the USA, they handed these political movements here and there to the enemy, if they expected advantages for the Soviet Union nation state from this in their relations to the US.
Let’s offer the capitalist West that we will give up our opposition against capitalism, then capitalism will give up ruling the world. With these stupidities the socialist fatherland lovers have decisively managed to play a major role in the recent course of the world, not only in Europe but in the whole world. A real master piece of irony, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the first society project altering from capitalism, decided by the political leaders of this society project with this fatal calculation, especially if one remembers that the Historical Materialism, the scientific body of this workers and peasant’s state ruling their people in order to serve them, a collection of insights presenting this society project as a mission in the name of Humanism, that this Historical Materialism taught the world that the course of history would make capitalism disappear sooner or later automatically. What disappeared was their socialism, because they terminated it. Mankind is paying the bill for all these moralisms, with war and hunger worldwide – and, last but not least, with a sound discreditation of any anticapitalism today.
4. Why the end of the anti-capitalist project of the Soviet Union was an invitation for the West for Cold War II
Offering capitalism to give up its opposition to it, in the expectation that it will then end its hostilities, at least towards the no longer anti-capitalists, is of course making the latter, the capitalist countries, even more demanding in their claims to rule the world for their capitalist state rationale. Throwing over board anti-capitalism, as the Soviet Union did finally since Stalin, encourages the capitalist countries to carry out their rivalries, in particular with other successful capitalist countries about who succeeds to make the world’ s businesses making this business in their national currencies with which they finance their national political power. No sooner had the Cold War ended, or rather ended in the way it did, then Cold War 2 began, the encirclement of the now capitalist Russia and the positioning of new weapons systems with the aim of neutralizing Russia’s weapons in order to force Russia to surrender.
Well, as it looks like these days around the Ukraine, the Russians are no longer accepting any further marching forward of the West towards Russia, so that we are now no longer at the beginning of Cold War 2, as our journalist sees it by forgetting the 30 lasting cold war after the end of the Soviet Union in the 90th, but rather facing World War lll. Unless prioritizing the West’s enmity with China lets it temporarily freeze enmity with Russia for a while until the China case is resolved…..then world war lll is more likely to start in Asia. Either way, the Western community of human values offers the world a beautiful outlook.
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