You really think we had the power, not to mention the inclination, to hand over Greece and Italy to the Soviets? You might recall that in Greece there was a rather nasty civil war following WWII between the Communist and non-Communist remnants of the partisans from the war. It seems doubtful that such an action would have been politically acceptable to our population.

The good guys won, but let me try to make this easier for you to be impartial about the means involved with a hypothetical.

Lets say that somehow the revolutions of 1848 succeeded but that Slavery lived on as a policy globally.

Now lets say in addition to the British having burned the capital in 1812, a coalition of Britain(+Canada) France, and Spain had intervened in our ongoing dispute with Mexico in the 1850s so instead of the civil war we lost half as many men in the great Texas war.

As there was no civil war the US never changes its slavery policy, meanwhile Canada and Mexico become huge powerhouses. We get into a war against Canada and Mexico with Britain and France for Allies. The war is long and costly and we pull out when an antislavery Monarchy overthrows the government. Immediately our former allies and 15 other other countries send troops to stamp out this horrible Monarchism. Through luck ingenuity and good old American try we manage to fight them off. Now this new Monarchy becomes traumatized, it rapidly attempts to industrialize and rearm for its security at a huge cost to the American people. There are sympathetic movements of antislavery Monarchists all over the world despite our poor performance as the anti-slavery message is very popular among some groups, particularly slaves. These are Monarchists brutally repressed and squashed.

Now Canada and Mexico rise again for another great war and we once again fight on the side of Britain and France, all the while them declaring that they would really rather be fighting us. After the war where we took 90% of the casualties and almost all of the fighting is on our soil we manged to take over parts of Mexico and Canada. Britain and France took over other parts. Following the second great war, just as we brutally suppress our enemies in our territories, they suppress their in ours, meanwhile they free their slaves, and our power and influence wanes slowly.

I realize that was a bit silly and highly artificial, but I just get the impression when talking about the USSR so few Americans have the slightest idea what the struggle looks like from the outside. They are so blinded by the tribalism/patriotism/nationali­sm all they can see is good and evil. Particularly because the US was on the better side and the USSR the worse. That doesn't mean everything the USSR did was an abomination, and everything the US did was laudable. In the struggle that was the cold war their external policies were quite similar.

I think the US population would have done whatever the government said honestly. The anti-red hysteria was not what it would be even 5 years later (among the general population, in certain circles it was of course gigantic). And US vs USSR support was the deciding factor in Italy and Greece. We were simply more effective.

I remember seeing a t-shirt around Berkeley that fall, with a mock front page of the SF Chronicle....

Screaming 72-point type headline: CAL WINS FIVE IN A ROW!

Tiny headline on small article just above the fold: Berlin Wall Comes Down

Well, there are a lot of Italian-Americans and fewer, but still a substantial number of, Greek-Americans whose objections would have to have been overcome. There is a reason that the Japanese were interned during the war but the Germans and Italians were not: political power.

It's Friday nite and I've had too much wine at this point, but I am going to go back over this tomorrow. It's only since I've moved to Panama that I have had any perspective on US history from outside. but North Americans are a minority among the expat community here, and the geopolitical discussions are different than I ever experienced at home. It's all grist for the mill.

A think a fair number of those immigrant Greeks and Italians has leftist leanings, Sacco and Vanzetti etc. (yes I realize they were "anarchists")?

Becaphalus has said pretty much all I wanted to post about the paranoia, and crimes, of the USSR, and the behaviour of the USA that went along with it during the Cold War. But I'd just like to add the detail that the Rus didn't push for the Elbe; Eisenhower halted there (and stopped the British from advancing) because he, and Roosevelt, thought they could handle Stalin.

Whoops.

Although I anticipated you might feel this way, I'm still surprised that you said it. We work out of different playbooks, you and I.

I think you're suffering from selective memory. Or, more telling, you're projecting the current state of affairs backward on 1989. I remember wall-to-wall coverage (pun intended) of the events in Berlin; for days, it dominated TV, NPR, newspapers. We couldn't talk about anything else. I was in college, and we all just skipped classes to watch the images. The idea that Americans somehow weren't affected by it... bizarre.

(Heck, for a number of years in the early 90s, there was a brisk trade in little chunks of the wall. The most valuable pieces had identifiable grafitti on them, and sold for a hundred bucks or more.)

passively watching television and celebrating as a community. Isolated college life does not matter because it does not accurately reflect the cares and concerns actions and activities of society. It's a hot house flower sort of environment. I was talking about the response of greater society in general and SPECIFICALLY of seasoned adults.

and yet there was nothing aside from a few disinterested news blurbs.

Well, not quite. There was actually a concerted effort by the Republicans to give Ronald Reagan credit for ending the cold war. They wanted us to forget that it was 50 years of consistent policy toward the USSR, tens of thousands of American deaths and casualties and the unsustainable delusions of the Soviet system that actually brought them down.

As a veteran, I was shocked and sickened when Reagan took advantage of the final moment with his "tear down that wall" speech. He sullied everyone who had sacrificed all they had to get us to that point. His party has continued to insult veterans every time they try to say he ended the cold war with that 100% cynical and self-serving posturing.

What Reagan actually contributed to the USA was endless acrimony between citizens and the out of control national debt that continues to threaten our survival as a solvent nation. His "trickle down" speech explains his contempt for working people and his deference to the wealthy. He fucked up and told the truth one time during his tragically destructive presidency.

You have your history almost 100% wrong.

"The one which was invaded by its powerful neighbors throughout the 19th century, then in 1914, then again by its former "allies" after 1918. Then again in 1941. It created a deep set paranoia. If we had stopped with all the communism must be expunged from the earth talk, offered up Italy and Greece as a sop, and promised ongoing trade and mutual non-aggression things would have been fine."

1. The invasions of the 19th century were of Russia, not the Soviet Union. And nobody who knows anything about the ideology of the founders of the Soviet Union knows that they viewed any attack of the Czars from such as Napoleon's France as progress.

2. Germany did not invade Russia in 1914 -- Russia invaded Germany as part of a secret deal negotiated with the French (which, of course, the Germans knew all about anyhow). Germany's only interest vis-a-vis Russia in 1914 was to neutralize it so as to focus on its invasion of France, which it regarded as many, many times more important. In fact, if the Czar had simply done nothing in 1914, the Germans would have been delighted and would not have invaded at all. Germany did, in fact, help to ignite the revolution in Russia by transporting Lenin from Switzerland to Russia -- if they had not done this, it is less likely almost to the point of impossible that the November Revolution would have taken place. Germany did invade the Soviet Union in 1918, but only in order to force the Bolsheviks into suing for peace, which they did.

3. The invasions in 1918 and 1919 were not by the former "allies" of the Soviet Union but by the former allies of the Czar, who sought to reinstate him.

4. "Then again in 1941" means what? Hitler was indeed an ally of the Soviet Union at that time but nobody, least of all Stalin, expected that to last very long. Stalin assumed that war between Germany and the Soviet Union would break out in 1942. He was off by a full year, but to state that he or any other Soviet official of consequence viewed Hitler's Germany as an "ally" is ridiculous.

5. While I cannot speak to FDR's intentions as WWII wound down, it is a matter of undisputed record that Churchill and Stalin did write up a chit for Eastern and Central Europe which listed the relative degree of influence each would have in each country. Stalin indicated, with a checkmark, his agreement with Churchill's proposal, which included 90% influence in Greece for Britain and didn't even mention Italy. So if the Soviets required a "sop," it was beyond what they had already agreed to beforehand.

6. By the way, don't you think the Greeks and Italians might have wanted a say in which country was giong to rule them? Do you REALLY think Britain and/or the US exerted the kind of influence in either country that the Soviets exerted in Poland or Hungary, to name just two countries? That both Britain and the US secretly meddled in Italian and Greek politics is a matter of record, but they never sent tanks rolling in, and the Soviets did.

I say all of the above in full recognition of the fact that the United States has acted to violate the self-determination of nations all over the globe on many occasions. That is inexcuseable. But it doesn't excuse the fact that the Soviets did it, too, which is what you seem to be doing here.

2. Germany did not invade Russia in 1914 -- Russia invaded Germany as part of a secret deal negotiated with the French (which, of course, the Germans knew all about anyhow). Germany's only interest vis-a-vis Russia in 1914 was to neutralize it so as to focus on its invasion of France, which it regarded as many, many times more important. In fact, if the Czar had simply done nothing in 1914, the Germans would have been delighted and would not have invaded at all. Germany did, in fact, help to ignite the revolution in Russia by transporting Lenin from Switzerland to Russia -- if they had not done this, it is less likely almost to the point of impossible that the November Revolution would have taken place. Germany did invade the Soviet Union in 1918, but only in order to force the Bolsheviks into suing for peace, which they did.

The thrust of it's correct but it's not quite true; Germany persuaded its ally Austria to press home their attack on Serbia following the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand, knowing that this would force Russia to mobilize against Austria, enabling Germany to declare war on Russia under their treaty with Austria, which would force France to declare war on Germany under their alliance with Russia. Simply declaring war against France was not an option as it would have certainly caused both Britain and Russia to declare war on Germany under the 'Triple Alliance' defensive treaty. Instead, Germany gambled (wrongly) that Britain would not be drawn in so long as Germany appeared to be merely honouring its defensive treaties rather than being the aggressor; the Triple Alliance was a matter of great debate in Britain which had traditionally declined to ally with any powers under the 'splendid isolation' philosophy. A pretext was needed and so provoking war against Russia was necessary for a war against France.

The Prussian generals planned for a quick victory against France as had happened 30 years previously and a few territorial gains against Russia before Russia sued for peace. Germany always regarded Russia as the real threat though and the military's war plans had long been centred around an invasion of France through the Low Countries to 'clear the rear' and allow concentration on the eastern front. This thinking was still in evidence 25 years later...

At no point was I excusing what they Soviets did. I was highlighting the similarities in ours foreign policies. As for your fine points on the historical record. I agree completely with the substance of most of the, I simply didn't want to have an 8 page post which would be required to make all the context clear to people.

you also seem to assume an ideological purity among Soviet leaders that was not there. I doubt many of them thought of the Napoleanic or Crimean wars are "progress". Anyway in the end you more or less agree with my analysis, so I guess we can agree to disagree about me trying to not recite the entire history fo the world in a forum post.