Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "Why didn't Romania join the invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1968?" video.

@Rezistenza1998 Stalin was occupying these nations and were already puppeted. You don't need a Soviet invasion against a revolt to prove that. Only demented Stalinists can deny that. Every iteration of the USSR was imperialist, conquering foreign nations for their own agenda; whether it be geopolitical or ideological reasons.
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@Rezistenza1998 I literally just said that you don't need to invade someone to be imperialist. The fact the USSR effectively controlled these countries at all itself is imperialism. The fact Stalin promised free elections and then stationed Soviet troops all across the "Eastern Bloc" while trying to force Turkey to give up control of the Bosphorus itself is imperialism. The fact that Stalin worked with the Nazi's via the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to split Eastern Europe between them in literal invasions itself is imperialism. Inb4 the "Stalin tried to work with the West but couldn't so decided to help his country by invading other countries" theory of Marxist apologism.
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@Rezistenza1998 "you could choose which Communist party member" Key word there. Only Communist. And they must be a party member, thus accepted by the Politburo. That's not free. That's tyrannical. That kills the entire purpose of an election. The only ACTUAL election that occurred in the USSR was the one that the prior democrats were putting up before Lenin got into power. The Communists lost that election. Lenin proceeded to ignore the results by calling it "counter-revolutionary". Communists don't give a rat's rear end about democratic practices. They hide behind the term is all. That's what totalitarians do. You realize the West has non-capitalist parties, right? That does parties have a right to run, but don't have a right to throw away constitutional liberties? What an insane comparison. There is no overarching politburo within Western governments that forces specific standards for who could be a part of the SINGLE PARTY GOVERNMENT. The USSR was as democratic as Nazi Germany.
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@Rezistenza1998 Jesus Christ, you twisted everything somehow into a capitalist plot, haven't you? Gorbachev, who extolled Communism, was somehow Pro-Western and Pro-capitalist for the sin of NOT killing peasant protestors with tanks. LOL. "You can obtain a visa, so the Berlin Wall wasn't a big deal! Ignore the fact that only diplomats and dignitaries could ever get a visa and anyone else were threatened with death, making it a giant concentration camp! Especially with the Stasi making people disappear at night! No issue here, everyone's free!" Ah yes. Stalinist Honecker, who advocated for crushing the East Berlin protests to allow free access to West Berlin was TOTALLY just a revisionist. Ditto with Romania's President which I can't recall, who highly respected North Korea's Supreme Leader and tried to emulate his Communist government. Definitely privatization going on there too! Yeah, we're done here.
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@Rezistenza1998 Anyone can join the Party, but they needed to follow the Party Line; and there was no allowance for opposition groups. Dude, why are you still arguing with me? If Lenin, the big daddy himself can take a fucking election and throw it in the trash while ignoring the people's will after kicking out the social democrats; then that's pretty much how all "opposition" parties go. The first time non-Communist parties were allowed to run in Eastern Europe -they tended to win MASSIVELY. Idk how much more I can dumb this down.
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@Rezistenza1998 Nagy and Gorbachev DID follow the Party line. They were still fucking Communists. The only difference being that they happened to be a fraction more liberal to not send tanks to kill protestors. Oh yes, because there weren't massive MASSIVE ills in the Eastern Bloc for decades prior to that, right? Because there weren't massive issues with people fleeing to the West prior to that, right? Like Eastern Germany totally didn't have to build a WALL to stop people from escaping, right? It's totally the privatization that caused the issue, not the massive laundry list of ills. Besides, you're disengenious, the "privatizations" only occurred in the USSR itself, not in its puppet states. They were following the same doctrines they have been following for the past few decades.
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@Rezistenza1998 USSR is not the Easter Bloc, genius. Romania, Poland, East Germany were not employing "capitalist" policies. And I like how you're acting like the Communists going "pro-capitalist" was what made the issues when voters literally chose the literal captialists to vote into power in the first place the second they had the chance. Just stop. Everyone you don't like is revisionist, huh? And everoyne good was Stalinist? Only "party officials" in good standing ever got a visa. Not ordinary members of society. That's why people tried to escape the second they had the chance, or are you denying that Eastern Germans rushed the Berlin Wall the second they were able to and weren't threatened with death?
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I don't think Czech leadership had the illusion that the Eastern Bloc was in anyway shape or form an actual alliance.
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@lelsewherelelsewhere9435 No one had to take IMF loans in the first place, and IMF loans are emergency loans that are limited. Austerity measures are there so that the IMF gets their money back and countries can't become dependent on the IMF. No one forced these countries to be soo poorly run as to get an IMF loan.
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@AlexMappingHD Bold of you to assume that the Soviet leadership cared about finances. Authoritarian countries can get away with not investing in their people a lot more than democratic ones.
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