[evgen]

It was no more the business of the US to contain the USSR in Western Europe than it was the business of the USSR to violently repress any possibility of democracy in Eastern Europe and install puppet governments in same. Realpolitik is a bitch, but better to understand the real world than pretend that some fantasy of how things "should" work is a useful guide.

[pm90]

Very well put. I would say that containment went too far (even Keenan thought so later in life) but violent class struggle and Communist takeover was exactly what was being pursued by the Soviet Union. Although initially the hope seems to be an international coalition of workers under Communism (i.e. there would be no need for an invasion, workers from all nations would unite under its banner) the Bolsheviks quickly crushed that idea by turning the first truly communist state into a virtual dictatorship, and crushing any opposition using violence.

[coldtea]

>Realpolitik is a bitch, but better to understand the real world than pretend that some fantasy of how things "should" work is a useful guide.

Well, the worst hypocrites when it comes to forgetting that "realpolitik" being a bitch are the US though.