a reply to:
JoshuaCox
Fair enough. Then let's start with the basics. It wasn't communism vs capitalism. It was the central banker backed colonial empires & former empires
vs communism. Communist groups literally worked to arm and empower the exploited workers and farmers (which are represented by the hammer & sickle)
with the end goal being revolutions against their colonial masters.
It's not a coincidence that the former imperial powers in Europe and the former imperial power Japan were on the "capitalism" side. Once they could no
longer rule the world through empire, they decided to do it through trade & central banking. And, after Bretton Woods during WW2, the US basically
took over the UK's global
banking "policeman" responsibilities.
When the Soviet and Chinese communists refused to accept "Marshall Plan"-styled aid programs in return for allowing the Western central bankers to
control their domestic politics, the "Cold War" began. The Cold War was literally a global series of proxy wars between "1st World" factions (members
and allies of the imperial/"capitalist" powers), "2nd World" factions (members and allies of the communist powers), and "3rd World" factions
(countries, political parties, ethnic groups, and other influential factions that were neutrals).
For context w/examples, China was carved up by Western countries after the 2 Opium Wars in the 1800s (remember, they were still monarchies and/or
imperial powers back then). They forced through something called the "
Unequal Treaties" which
were domestically enforced by their pro-Western govt. The Communists armed & empowered the impoverished Chinese lower class, which fought off and
kicked out the pro-Western puppet leaders, who would then flee to Taiwan. From what I can see, China's ruling party is still pissed about those
treaties.
Almost all of Africa was conquered by those same Western imperial states in the late 1800s during the
"
Scramble for Africa". After WW2, the decolonization efforts forced them out, too.
Communists played a huge role in the decolonization efforts in many of those countries, including in Angola, Ethiopia, and South Africa. In fact, some
of the African nations gained independence and somewhat favorable relations with their former colonial rulers specifically to keep the communists from
gaining influence there.
Imperial Japan, which was backed by Wall Street bankers like Jacob Schiff, had conquered a large portion of Eastern Asia pre-WW2. After losing in WW2,
they retreated from Indochina, which was previously a French colony. The French (who were backed by the US) tried to reclaim Indochina as a colony but
were stalemated by the communist revolutionaries. The US and its allies then jumped in to suppress the communists in what is called both the "2nd
Indochina War" and the "Vietnam War".
The same stuff happened all over Europe, South America, and Asia during the Cold War. That's why "Operation Gladio" and "Operation Condor" are so
important; they were US-led initiatives to suppress the anti-colonial communist movements on their respective continents (I don't know the name of the
Asian version). We also ran "The School of the Americas" which trained right wing death squads, future dictators, and a bunch of other anti-left wing
actors throughout Latin America at this time for the same reason.
Even some American civil rights groups like the original Black Panthers were pro-communism, which is one of the reasons the "Red Scare", FBI, &
COINTELPRO aimed to crush the civil rights movement. And Malcolm X was assassinated after he left the Nation of Islam, traveled throughout Africa, and
met with various decolonization leaders. He'd started organizations to link the African American struggle for equality with the global struggle
against colonialism & colonial powers (remember, this was while the US was still forcefully segregated by race, like Apatheid South Africa).
There are 2 other angles to it, too.
1) The Nazi's biggest enemies were the communists, not the Jewish people in general. Some of their biggest & earliest domestic purges were against
communists, and their entire Eastern war in WW2 was meant to be a war of annihilation against the communist Soviet Union.
2) The Western powers in WW2 were mostly still imperial powers that were against the rise of global communism. They wanted to protect their empires,
which was the opposite of communism's goal. So right as WW2 was ending, they allowed thousands of Nazis to flee to safety, some to the US & others to
various countries in South America (look up "Operation Paperclip" & the "Ratlines" to learn more). Remember, the US acquired a lot of Nazi personnel &
technology after WW2, and the precursor to the CIA and NASA were manned by former Nazis.
This is why the US allied with Japan instead of with China even though the Chinese communists fought against the same imperial Japan that we were
fighting. And this is why we took up the Nazis' anti-communism war of annihilation, even though the communist Soviets were technically our WW2 allies
while the Nazis had killed millions of our Western allies (and tens of thousands of American soldiers).
So no, it's not really "capitalism vs communism". Even many of the countries that fought against the global spread of communism gladly adopted
socialist programs. It's really a war between the former colonial powers and the anti-imperial, pro-worker communists. There's also a racial element
to it, since most of the Western imperial powers were proudly white supremacist during that time period. But we can save that for a future discussion.