Today #Russia and #China play best friends forever and #USSR had been traditionally placed in the same “communist” basked as China. Some fun facts that especially tankies are getting completely wrong today.^1
Since 1950’s China and USSR were actually conflicted over each other’s interpretations of #Marxism and in 1960’s the conflict nearly escalated into a full-scale nuclear war between the two countries.
China criticised CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) over Soviet invasion of #Czechoslovakia (1968)^2 and “Brezhnev Doctrine” which denounced any Marxism version outside of the Soviet one as “reactionary” (Marxist newspeak for “heresy”). This included both Czechoslovak reforms and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in equal manner. At that time China actually developed complex relations with Eastern Bloc countries such as Romania and Czechoslovakia behind Kremlin’s back.
Essentially, everyone called each other “reactionary” and claimed their Marxism is the correct one. Any resemblance to past religious wars is entirely incidental. 😉 In 1968 Chinese diplomat Zhou Enlai speaking in Romanian embassy in Beijing called Soviets for “fascist politics, great power chauvinism, national egoism and social imperialism”.^3
Does that ring any bells? 😉
Soviets and China had a number of unresolved border issues in Manchuria. In 1968 China started escalating these, actually killing Soviet border guards. Moscow, knowing of China’s nuclear weapons and Mao’s confrontative attitude preferred to deescalate… which only encouraged Chinese.
Does that remind anything from contemporary history? 😉
At the peak of the conflict in 1969 USSR found itself in the position of a country with high-tech army challenged by a low-tech army which relied on millions of conscripts and human wave tactics.
Does this ring any bells? 😉
In 1969 Soviet army managed to push back overwhelming several Chinese offensives near the island of Zhenbao in spite of their overwhelming numbers with ratios up to 1:10 Soviet to Chinese. That was possible primarily due to the technical advantage, such as then-advanced T-62 tanks.
A ceasefire was signed in 1969 - on Chinese side by the very same Zhou Enlai who called Soviets “fascists” only a year before, but the actual peace agreement was only signed in 1991. The conflict was only completely resolved in 2008 (!) when Russia ceded 340 km² of the disputed lands to China.
As you can see, contrary to the mythology carefully constructed by modern “geopolitical realists”, there’s nothing constant in Russian or Soviet policies. Russia can not always win armed conflicts, it can cede territories and in general conflicts can be won in spite of imbalance of power. Oh, and calling others “fascists” was used by everyone and Russia was both an user and a recipient of this nomination.
Mark Francois talks about Neville Chamberlain "denuding the British forces of funding until it was too late."
This is wrong. Even while Chamberlain was signing the Munich Agreement in 1938, he was agreeing to a huge increase in spending to increase Britain’s armament in preparation for war.
...living in part of #Czechoslovakia called the #Sudetenland. #Sudeten#Germans began protests and provoked violence from the #Czech police.
👉#Hitler claimed that 300 Sudeten Germans had been killed. This was not actually the case, but Hitler used it as an excuse to place German troops along the Czech border."👈
Welcome to #Putler's repetitive playbook!--Always the same old, same old for decades.
...with the #Poles to defend them if [#Nazi] #Germany invaded [them]. 👉#Hitler did not think #Britain would go to war over Poland, having failed to do so over #Czechoslovakia.👈 He sent his soldiers into Poland in September 1939. Two days later, Britain declared war on Germany."
And there is a sixth lesson to be learned: an unjust peace, even if only viewed by a large majority of one of the former combatants, will not...
In a Czech fairy tale, a childless couple adopts a log and names it "Otesánek." When the log comes alive, the couple is unable to keep their new son fed. Eventually the growing Otesánek starts to eat humans. Czech director Jan Švankmajer adapted the fairy tale into a movie. #LegendaryWednesday
Milan Kundera, whose dissident writings in communist Czechoslovakia transformed him into an exiled satirist of totalitarianism, has died in Paris at the age of 94.
Kundera’s renowned novel, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’’ opens wrenchingly with Soviet tanks rolling through Prague, the Czech capital that was the author’s home until he moved to France in 1975.