WAS THE COLD WAR WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS, OR MORE OF WHAT WE’VE SEEN SINCE?

Just think about it for a while. I would ask only that you give it some insightful consideration.

Havn’t we heard the same kind of justifications for interference amounting to regime change recently as was heard then?

What was heard then was couched in terms of concern for human rights, freedom and democracy. I am of the conviction that all such justifications for interference by the West were a pretense and the actual motivation was the same as now, to take control, to win markets and destroy competition.

Which was the evil party in all this? Nations with an ethos of peace, sharing all resources equitably among all citizens or an aggressively acquisitive grouping where individualism and elitism was the abiding ethos?

In that time there were so-called liberal heroes that the West pointed to as exemplars of a freedom of thought to come just as they talk of Alexei Navalny now. In that time there was Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov. They were leveraged to the hilt along with every discontented, selfishly ambitious, artistically inhibited or criminal individuals who saw bringing down the system as their most positive task in life.

Every moment of every day for year after year the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations were subjected to attacks of every possible kind on a spectrum of issue where it was thought fissures could be created or scarce finances could be expended uselessly.

Compare the factors above to how western elites approach the undermining of regime change targets now.

There are many further comparisons that could be made but think about how those charged with safeguarding their nation and protecting the idealistic purpose behind their systems which were so relentlessly attacked. Attacked constantly not only from outside their borders but within. Think about your state of mind as such an official. What to do about those assisting outside forces to bring down the entire structure of your state.

Billions were spent uselessly on weaponry and armies due to knowing pressure from the West, money that could have been spent adding to the many facilities such as decent housing, schools, hospitals and much else that would enhance life for citizens in the greatest experiment to give everyone a decent life ever attempted.

Those working for western elites knew very well what they were doing in this regard just as they knew across every other destabilizing operation they were running. Just as the Russian Federation is attacked from myriad directions across a spectrum of areas so the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations were also.

As I alluded to earlier the goals were numerous across a great many targets. Tens of thousands of operatives across the western world and its allies worked night and day to increase chaos and dissatisfaction in target nations, to sow confusion and fear, to limit the resources spent on increasing quality of life and spreading a completely one sided-picture of how life was within those target nations.

As we have seen in recent times, no media time or column inches were given to telling the story of those in target nations, not those in eastern Ukraine, not those trying to hang on in secular Syria against the West’s proxy forces, not a word about Putin that isn’t an accusation and so on. As Margaret Thatcher gagged the representatives of Sinn Féin in the Eighties so a blanket media gag has been placed upon all leaders and groups within nations targeted by the West for regime change.

There was plenty that was very positive within the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations but during the Cold War and still right up to the present day it is frowned upon to mention them.

Even now after you have seen clearly what the West has been capable of in recent years you may doubt the veracity of my words. The conditioning has been all-pervasive with almost no counter narratives available for public view to provide more nuanced insight. The demons must be made demonic indeed. Socialism must be called communism and communism must be made as scary and loathsome as possible.

Socialism, providing for everyone not just the few was the ideal being sought in the Soviet Union and across the Warsaw Pact. Communism was to come later. As seen from a western perspective this was anathema of course. Individualism and the right of the individual to exploit others was and is a sacrosanct principle. Though flawed from the effect of numerous factors, not least the actions of the western elites to create discord and useless expenditure this remained the idealistic goal underpinning the entire project.

Anyone doubting the motivation of the socialist authorities in these countries ought to visit a few of them and witness the schools, hospitals, homes, cultural houses, polyclinics, recreational facilities and parkland they created for their people. Yes, life was more spartan there than in the West and yes, there was restriction on travel and speech but ask yourself... what would you not do to protect your nation from internal and external threats when you were building a new world?

These were not societies predicated upon selfish greed and individualism, though of course they had those who excelled more than others and were, despite the myths, rewarded proportionately. The goal was that they would match and even exceed the West in time while keeping their own national customs and culture and taking everyone with them to that world. The abiding motif was the dove of peace as so many had suffered and died through war in recent times. The goal was to all move forward as one.

Those who attempted this noble enterprise, one that will likely never be seen again, could not simply sit on their hands and allow these corrosive acts of those who felt entitled to have more for themselves at the expense of the many. This was simply not an option. And this brought abuses for no society is free of sociopaths and those who carry their duties to far or who forget the core principles involved in creating a truly just society.

But each and every example of such over-reaction and overbearing response was seized upon and exploited to the full by those whose job is the manufacture of opinion then just as they do now, a mainstream media fully onboard with the demonization project insisted upon by western elites.

Just as we see the demonization of all who doubt the narratives of western states now so it was then. Those who saw the benefits of the socialist project were vilified and risked jailing. An entire red scare was manufactured in the USA with Joe McCarthy at its head in this effort. Just as those who speak in nuanced ways now concerning the regime change campaigns of the West are attacked as ‘Russian Agents’, ‘Assad Apologists’, or ‘Putin’s Puppets’, even academic scholars such as Stephen F. Cohen or politicians such as Tulsi Gabbard whose credentials are impeccable.

The true evil in this world does not come from those the West attacks but the West itself. Through constant interference amounting to continual acts of war against other nations the elites of the West demonstrate nothing approaching idealism as they claim is their abiding influence. They are driven purely by acquisitive ambition and the urge to dominate all those who do not obey their command.

So it was during the Cold War and so it is now.