u/0EMR

Trofimenko, H. (1981). The Third World and the US-Soviet Competition: A Soviet View. Foreign Affairs, 59(5), 1021-1040.

Trofimenko wrote this.

> The first stage of this gigantic worldwide process, which can be described as the most important social and historical event of the latter half of the twentieth century, was the anticolonial revolution which unfolded in the Third World after World War II. The United States, as a nation which had no colonies to speak of, gradually accepted the trend for change: as a rule, it sought to dissociate itself from the old colonial powers and to take up the stand either of a well-wishing observer or one actively sympathizing with the national liberation movements. While taking up this stand the United States was actively capitalizing on its image as a power which had paved the way to liberation from colonialism through revolution.

> While acting with relative caution with regard to the old colonial powers of Western Europe, the United States managed in the end to "intercept revolutions," that is, to fill, by its economic and, partly, military power, the "power vacuum" which, as John Foster Dulles put it, had appeared because of the breakup of colonial empires and the departure of the colonial powers. It was all the easier for the United States to do so because the emerging nations often regarded cementing their links with the United States as a way of casting off the economic fetters imposed by old colonialists, and as a way of obtaining the capital they needed for their development.

> [...]

> One can well presume theoretically that but for the American failure in Vietnam, the process of anti-American revolutions in the zone of developing countries would have been somewhat postponed. As it was, however, it was the United States itself that expedited the breakup of an unofficial American empire. So it has nobody but itself and nothing but its own policy to blame.

According to trofimenko, USA gained an “unofficial empire” by a “power vacuum” created by ww2. (It took over the European colonies.)

Thoughts?

> Võ Nguyên Giáp studied the anti-colonial writings of Ho and French translations of Karl Marx. "I spent my nights reading them, and my eyes opened," he remembered, "Marxism promised revolution, an end to oppression, the happiness of mankind. It echoed the appeals of Ho Chi Minh, who wrote that downtrodden peoples should join the proletariat of all countries to gain their liberation. Nationalism made me a Marxist, as it did so many Vietnamese, especially intellectuals and students. Marxism also seemed to me to coincide with the ideals of our ancient society, when the emperor and his subjects lived in harmony, when everyone worked and prospered together, when the old and children were cared for. It was a utopian dream."

Why the Vietnam War? Nuclear Bombs and Nation Building in Southeast Asia (2021) Michael Swanson

Thoughts? Are marxism and nationalism closely intertwined?

(from quillette.com)

> One of the most influential of these works is The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, written by prominent revisionist historian William Appleman Williams in 1959. In Tragedy, Williams traces the foundations of U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century to Secretary of State John Hay’s “Open Door notes,” formulated in 1899 to promote American access to Chinese markets. According to Williams, the Open Door Policy reflected an almost unanimous belief among leading economic and political leaders at the time that overseas commercial expansion was imperative to stave off economic dislocation and sustain American prosperity and democracy. In order to secure foreign markets for industrial and agricultural surplus production and ensure access to raw materials, U.S. elites embarked “for the next half-century” on a mission to establish an open-door “informal empire” of “free-trade imperialism”—not only in East Asia but throughout the entire world.

Noam has made reference to the works of WA Williams. What does this sub think about this info?

James Dunkerley, Power in the Isthmus (1988).

> “The course of events in El Salvador cannot properly be explained through comparison with Nicaragua since it corresponds above all else to a national history with its own logic and only limited relevance to any successful ‘model’ established by the FSLN. Nonetheless, some of the contrasts between the two countries during this period are instructive if only because they challenge the more base and unthinking formulations of domino theory and its radical equivalent which understand all but the ephemera of politics to flow from conscious, organized agency.”

It says here that revolutionary movements in Nicaragua slightly inspired revolutionary movements in El Salvador.

Did nicaragua export its ideology to anywhere else? Does this prove or disprove the domino-theory? Can anyone provide more context?