[FairWitness]

So the Communists were simply misunderstood, and we were delusional?!?!?!?

[Numbers Guy]

Ugh. Perhaps he should read "The Gulag Archipelago".

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Ahh, revisionist history at its finest! What a load of monkey's bathwater...

[Eagle Eye]

The Soviets were never interested in expanding their borders at the expense of thier neighbors, didn't have an aggressive bone in their bodies, and were simply vicitms of Western aggression?

Right.....

[gaspar]

One assumes that Alexander is a sixteen year old, and thus is the petulant juvenile writing his first column. Instead, Alexander is (or at least was) the financial editor of the Daily Mail. Thus, one must assume the man is senile. Either that, or he has sonambulated through his life on earth.

[Cincinatus]

In short, Russian interference in countries essential to its safety was evil. But exclusive US domination of its own sphere of influence was righteous. The Russians must have thought that this was a fine piece of humbug.

I’m sure they did – but that doesn’t change the fact the such a summary essentially described the reality of the world.

The fact that the Cold War continued after Stalin’s death and succession does not, as some would claim, prove the Soviets’ unchanging global ambitions. The invasion of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968 were brutal acts, but were aimed at protecting Moscow’s buffer zone — much as the United States had always protected her interests in Central and South America. The same may be said of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 (as a result of which, with the help of the CIA, the Taleban came into existence). In none of these cases was there a territorial threat to the West.

I guess Cuba and Angola were part of that “buffer zone” too, huh Andrew??

Revisionist views of the Cold War regularly surface in the United States, though the case is sometimes spoiled by the authors’ socialist sympathies (something of which I have never been accused). In Britain, the revisionist view has not had much of a hearing.

No, you’re not a socialist -- you’re just being incredibly silly.

An amazing piece, by an author who should know better. I realize that, like petulant children, occasionally some writers like to turn conventional wisdom on its ear, but this is ridiculous. “Look at me!! Look at me!! Over here!! Aren’t I clever??”

In a word, No.

[JimSEA]

History is what you make it to be. Here we go again. This bears little resemblance to the last 55 years as I have lived them.

Moscow had betrayed the world revolution

If only the revolution had remained pure, we would now be living in a workers paradise. As some other FR poster so aptly put it in another thread, "gag me with a plumber's helper".

[stayout]

Note well that the author never attempts to examine the relative moral worth of the Soviet regime. He treats the Soviets and the Americans equally -- as if there was no difference between them. He only examines whether the Soviets, in hindsight, could "really" have taken over the world given their capabilities as we know them today. He completely ignores the threat they posed at the time.

I'm a proud Republican, but I'm only to happy to give Truman credit for having the common sense to cut through such nonsense.

[boris]

So...where were all those Soviet missiles pointed? Why did they need to build so many? Why did they send their spies to get all the key secrets for building nukes?...

And against whom is their enormous arsenal now directed?

And why did they recently field a new generation of ICBMs?

Why have they never ceased their massive bio- and chemical-weapons program?...

And that huge underground city they are feverishly building under the Urals...what's it for? I thought they were "broke"...

--Boris

[Spell Correctly]

The Left will never forgive RWR for defeating the Soviets. I also remember how they freaked when he called them the "Evil Empire".

[Gumlegs]

Some people prefer living peacefully as slaves to standing up and fighting as free men. Here's another slave wannabe heard from.

[rightwing2]

Good points on Churchillian appeasement of the mass-murderer Stalin in awarding him half of Europe for his collaboration with Hitler in starting World War Two and invading Poland. However, most of this article is anti-anti-Communist revisionist liberal hogwash. This article is mostly about an equivalency theory rewrite of history from the Soviet perspective.

[Mr. Bird]

After reading the headline, I tried to read through this with as open a mind as possible. He leaves so much unexplained, or unmentioned! Impossibly casting aside the reprehensible nature of the Soviet regime is bad enough. But to equate US forays into Central and South America with the Soviet control of Eastern Europe is preposterous. Our meddling was ostensibly to preserve freedom within those countries, not to provide some sort of military buffer. We have 2 oceans that perform that role very well, as he states.

Eliminating Cuba from the story is the most convenient omission. He either willingly or stupidly fails to justify the Soviets desire to have the capability to annihilate Washington on 5 minutes notice.

And the description of the USSR as "war weary" after WWII? No s***, Sherlock. The whole world was "war weary", which is why the Eastern Bloc was handed to the Soviets on a silver platter. They most certainly would have taken it by force (he seems to be admitting that they "needed" this "buffer") anyway. What drivel!

[Semper Paratus]

During the cold war our weakest link was the British old school clique,
the same crew that wanted to do 'kissy face with Hitler in the '30s.
The most damaging espionage came from this group, Burgess, Philby and others.
It galls me that these effete defeatists now get to re-write history.

[lepton]

Ummmm. OOOOkkaaaaaay...

Even within the context of the commentary itself, there's a lot of "and a miracle happens here" in the narrative.

[swarthyguy]

Could it be that the only thing that stopped Stalin's marching on Western Europe, Iran, Turkey, Araby was America's nuclear arsenal? Naaah!

[Spar]

Most of you have attacked this articles left wing slant on history, but the author and the magazine are foundations of the conservative movement.

Actually the first part of the author's thesis is well known by the original conservative movement as the example of President Ike illustrates.

We conservatives must remember that it was the Left wing globalists of the Roosevelt era that created the UN and NATO and invented the lie of the "missile gap" to defeat Nixion in favor of Kennedy.

There is a growing movement of thought amongst conservative right wing thinkers that the early years rule of the post WW2 years by Left Wing globalists of the Roosevelt era that created a self fufilling prophecy of the "Cold War" when it came to USSR and the West. For example, the USSR would never have supported the rival Red Chinese (to the extent of giving them nuclear technology) if the USSR did not feel threatened by the West (which even after WW2 was larger and richer than the USSR. Even if the USSR occupied Eastern Europe, those lands had no factories or populations that would have fought for the USSR in any fashion during the post war period).

Finally the role of John Foster and Allen Dulles and his ilk need to be examined. Both Ike and JFK and Nixon hated these men and the power they built around their CIA. It can be argued that Allen Dulles was more of a threat to America in those early years than the USSR ever was.

In fact the early years of the CIA can be argued as an extension of Nazi campaign against the USSR. The CIA's reliance on the Gehlen Group is just such an example:

Relations between the Gehlen organization and the Army soured, though Helms and other US intelligence officials, such as Allen Dulles, lobbied to keep it alive. By the time the Gehlan group had grown to several thousand people and seemed to be a rat's nest not only of old Nazis, some with bloody pasts, but Communist infiltrators and rank opportunists, it was under control of the newly created CIA.

It was under the reign of these men in the CIA that the the pretext of the Cold War gave us the need of such programs as MK ULTRA and God in heavens knows what.

No flames please. I just presented the argument of why conservatives would now question the concept of a Cold War with the USSR, especially in its early post war years.

I have not myself made up my mind on this, but as I read more about, I as a critical reader of history must start to ponder the matter, especially if the sources are those that I would have respected otherwise (such as the UK's Spectator).

[Whilom]

When Andy isn't busy "proving" there was no holocaust, he's obsessed with "proving" there was no cold war, therefore Reagan couldn't have won it.

[Lazamataz]

Fabricated Historical Revisionism is the worst sin a man can commit.

[ASA Vet]