JoeySteel [comrade/them]

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: September 2nd, 2020

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  • This article is so bad I almost threw up, thanks a lot op

    None of this is news

    Maos turn to Nixon and the subsequent shitty foreign policy of China until 1979 (China hasn’t been to war since 1979) can basically be described as funding and arming whoever was anti-soviet

    There’s a reason Maoist groups were heavily infiltrated and funded by the CIA throughout the 70s and 80s (due to their Anti Soviet stance)

    Chinas foreign policy since Maos turn to Nixon is essentially “we’ll wait, but we must avoid war at all costs”.

    So Chinas foreign policy has been one of not putting their head above the parapet.

    When US imperialists wanted to destroy Yugoslavia China was helping the Yugoslavs and got their embassy bombed for that privilege. They then meekly nodded to everything US imperialism wanted even abstaining as the imperialist bastards destroyed Libya in 2011

    None of this is news. Mao (erroneously in my opinion) came to the conclusion they would have to hug tightly to the USA until they had far surpassed the USA and do it in such a way that the imperialists could not invade China like they wanted to in 1950 in the Korean war (the plan then was to strike up through Korea, into China then onto Soviet Union but they got bogged down in Korea).

    The Chinese have then stepped back into essentially full capitalist relations to avoid war with USA and they have only avoided war with USA because of proletarian heros like Gordon Chang running a psyop on USA by telling them China will collapse every year since 1999 (and the US press believing it). They’ve done this strategically and pragmatically to bind the world economy to China, to avoid a capitalist coalition against it whilst also obtaining as much technology as possible to overtake them. Regardless of their previous awful foreign policy we are where we are and China is moving rapidly into US imperialisms cross hairs. They are becoming Anti-Imperialist by A) force of necessity now US has cross hairs on them and B) by undercutting Western imperialism with the Belt and Road initiative and loads to 3rd world at much better rates than IMF or World Bank as well as their debt forgiveness.

    There is something so rat like when opportunists and distorters of Marxism (and the analysis on Imperialism) try to wrap their words in Marxist language due to the theoretical victory of Marxism

    China’s complicity in these horrors teaches us that anti-capitalism is a class war, not a war between states, and that any attempt to confront imperialism—the great spawn of capitalism—by those same means is doomed to fail.

    In the era of Class Society humans organise into States and class war inevitably becomes a war between States. Does this writer think some Venezuelan can survive and live without being murdered by (US funded) far right militia squads without the utilisation of the State to protect them? Does the writer think the Koreans in DPRK can disband their state and “focus on class war” to “confront imperialism” without organising themselves into a highly organised and disciplined State? When USA practices invading DPRK every year?

    Any form of anti-imperialist politics that focuses on nations invariably arrives at pitting one of the faces of capitalism against another, which can only ever reproduce the very system it claims to fight. Only through a confrontation with the entire capitalist world system, no matter the color of its flag, can the nightmare of empire end.

    Absolute trash and how does one fight the “entire capitalist system” without first settling accounts with your local bourgeoisie ie. your State

    The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. (Marx, Communist Manifesto)

    If humans outside the imperial core wish to survive and not have their populations turned over into a nightmare like The Congo or any number of African States that are completely subservient to international capital and thus have to have their children mining coltan under the threat of child soldiers they must organise into States and States therefore become the principle battleground of imperialism.

    If someone here hadn’t already pointed out that Lausan came out the fascist/far right Hong Kong protests I would’ve told you Lausan is CIA (which they are)

    From Lausan.hk About Page

    傘 (“san”) is the character for umbrella, referencing our ongoing critical engagement with Hong Kong’s social movements. 流傘 is also a homophone of 流散 (decentralized/diaspora), referencing our dispersal across the world. Lausan is a collective of writers, translators, artists, and organizers. We have no founders, only members. We are 100% independent and volunteer-run.

    Tip for anyone here: any slipper revolution , any velvet revolution, orange revolution , sunflower revolution and indeed any umbrella revolution is not a revolution. It’s the CIA

    Anytime some “pro democracy” group tries to popularise an inanimate object as a symbol of ‘revolution’.

    It’s CIA.

    Lausan is CIA

    https://amp.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3091438/us-has-been-exposed-funding-last-years-hong-kong-protests


  • Taiwan is not a country

    Its not what they’ve historically called themselves and it’s not what is on their passports. What is on their passport is the “Republic of China” and the ROC claims the entire mainland (the PRC) and parts of Mongolia/india/japan and Myanmar as their territory.

    ROC is a illegitimate state that no one except a handful of pacific Islands recognise and were it not for the White supremacist USA existing the PRC would’ve rolled over ROC 7 decades ago and the civil war would’ve ended there

    There is currently a hangmans noose around PRC and ROC has been at the forefront of this war against China. Acting in the interests of the international bourgeoisie and principally the USA by being an unsinkable aircraft carrier off the coast of China.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vAfeYMONj9E

    The KMT fled to Taiwan massacred the natives (the people who did deserve the right of self determination) then used Taiwan as a base for sabotage, assassination and attempted reinvasion of China all helped by USA. Chiang Kai Shek was gearing up for an invasion as late as the 60s during Chinas famine

    As this lib explains (from a lib “taiwan is a free country perspective”) that once Taiwan falls it opens up the ocean for the Chinese navy and the ability for US to protect Japan/Korea comes into question and the US alliances will likely fall apart

    But there’s more to this than nationalism and identity. Taiwan’s position in the so-called “first island chain” skirting China’s southeast makes it HIGHLY important from a strategic point of view. Controlling it could fatally undermine America’s current power in the region. “If Taiwan falls. If Taiwan were to be occupied by the Chinese military… Analyst Ian Easton wrote a book “The Chinese Invasion Threat” working through these strategic questions. “Then it becomes almost impossible to defend our entire network of treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific. How do we defend Japan from a blockade at that point, or how do we defend South Korea? How do we defend the Philippines? Because at any time they could be invaded from Taiwan if China is there.”

    https://youtu.be/VkuNWDG3yNM?t=1107

    ROC does not deserve the right of self determination and PRC must take back their territory from the descendants of fascists who then aligned against the majority of Chinese people for 7 decades with the USA. It’s just icing on the cake that it destroys USAs entire network of treaty allies in the Asia-pacific :chefs-kiss:

    Some accounts need to be settled and the National People’s Congress was completely correct to vote 2896 to zero on the " Republic of China" issue

    The idea of self determination for Taiwan is as ridiculous as suggesting the British in Northern Ireland should have the right of self determination.









  • Rojava literally occupied Syrian wheat fields with the US to starve Syrian cities

    The Kurds and their US ally hold the wheat as a trump card in ongoing negotiations.

    “Assad needs access to cereal crops in northeast Syria to prevent a bread crisis in the areas of western Syria that he controls,” Syria analyst Nicholas Heras said. “Wheat is a weapon of great power in this next phase of the Syrian conflict,” said Heras, and he added that the Kurds and their US ally “have a significant stockpile of this wheat weapon. It can be used to apply pressure on the (Syrian government), and on Russia, to force concessions in the UN-led diplomatic process.”

    https://theduran.com/the-us-is-using-wheat-as-a-weapon-of-war-in-syria/

    Whilst also ethnic cleansing non Kurds

    The non-Kurdish population is a mix of Syrian Arabs, Syrian Christians, Syrian Armenians and many of them have suffered under the Kurdish administration, which saw non-Kurds being ethnically cleansed, as they lost homes, shops, and farms at the hands of the SDF.(ibid)

    They then got ditched by the US immediately and fed into Turkeys meat grinder. As if no one has ever read even a tiny bit of history of what US does to its “allies” when it is balkanising and using divide and rule tactics to destroy countries it has geopolitical strategic interest in. So not only was allying with the Great Satan a fucking terrible idea it was counter-productive for them

    Unsurprisingly I’m not a fan. I remember talking to David Graeber about this on twitter and it was the most pathetic display of mental gymnastics I’ve ever seen. Like if you believe the Kurds had to ally with the Great Satan to create their Kurdish state that’s good and cool. But its then a bit rich if you shit on Actually Existing Socialist countries who had to build their nations under the conditions of opposition to US imperialism rather than as an ally to it.









  • Dogshit article. If this person considers themselves a Communist they’re a shit one.

    often proclaiming imperialism to be the primary contradiction that must be confronted,

    WEE-WAW-WEE-WAW-WEE-WAW

    Imperialism is the primary contradiction. Immperialism has turned the 1st world into a kind of Elysium and the rest of the world into a child slave labour work camp who’s only chance at a decent life is to abandon everything and get into the “safe zone”.

    In the 20th Century the primary contradiction was between Capitalism and Socialism. With the fall of the USSR the primary contradiction is between the Right Of Nations To Self Determination (even under a bourgeois context as Lenin described) and the “Washington Consensus” ie. Imperialism.

    Why a member of a Marxist-Leninist party would choose to work with a man who spent part of his professional career targeting communists for persecution is baffling.

    Because who gives a shit. Brian Becker is a communist organiser so he’s already on every list imaginable. There seems to be a trend of Communists obsessed with Opsec (looking at Bayarea 415).

    That only works if you’re considering Maoist guerilla tactics or something. If you’re an organiser the cops and spooks already know who you are and are tapping you’re phone/net connection etc. And if you’re a public facing communist in any capacity you’ve already made the decision that if you’re effective in any way you’ll likely see the inside of a prison

    Lionel is an anti-vaxxer, 9/11-truther, virulent transphobe and quite open anti-communist and Trump fan. He is probably the last person in the world anyone on the left should want to have discussing Trump endorsing anti-Muslim propaganda, yet he was Loud & Clear’s choice.

    Literally who gives a shit. Right wing conspiracy theories arise out of a non-class conscious proletariat. If you put class politics in front of most conspiracy types they’ll connect the dots. That it is a global cabal of capitalists that run and control everything (not jews). That nations will act in a profit driven interest against the will of the people. etc. etc.

    There is a recurring theme here other than Loud & Clear’s guests being either LaRouchite entryists or outright belonging to the far right, and that theme is opposition to the ridiculous Russiagate theory. But opposing such nonsense absolutely does not require platforming crypto-fash, anti-semites and various other far-right bigots.

    No platforming is hot garbage. The only people who ever get properly no platformed are Communists and there was a current of Communists warning against demanding stuff like Infowars be banned and ever since the State has used this to alter the algorithym for left wing newspapers and completely shut out anti-imperialist and communist voices.

    And once again platforming right wingers and putting class politics in front of them is a good thing - because you’ll likekly hook a few of their listeners from a reactionary pipeline

    Syria as directed by Israel. In fact he says “the only way you can explain what the US has been doing in Syria” is advancing Israeli interests. Not only is this idea that Israel directs US policy rooted in anti-semitism, it also requires ignoring the rather straight-forward fact that the State of Israel is a US client state and serves to advance US interests in the region.

    So Israel didn’t occupy the Golan Heights? Israel serves US interest but it also on many occasions has been the tail wagging the dog



  • What’s problematic about Assad?

    Tell me without regurgitating CIA talking points

    In 2012 a majority of Syrians supported Assad (55%) yet from reading most Western media you’d think this was something like 12 percent. That was the height of the opposition movement. Within a year (2013) most of the opposition went back to the government after seeing what the West was doing in supplying weapons to any jihadist head chopper that would kill Assad.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

    Trump won the election in 2016 with only 46.1%

    2012 - Obama won with 51%

    2008 Obama won with 52%

    So who is more legitimate?

    If you retreat from a leader that has stood firm in the face in the most disgusting onslaught the West has launched against another sovereign nation since Iraq then you will end up retreating to someone like Corbyn - who will be smeared as a Maoist/Communist/Czech spy/antisemite anyway

    May as well have some principles and stand like a rock instead of like a weathervane by trying to appease liberals


  • Funny how the things you describe is how China decided to operate. Quite hilarious seeing Stalinists in other posts doing the mental contortions trying to reconcile their adherence to a strictly planned economy with their adulation for Dengist China. At least previous Stalinists were internally consistent and pivoted to Hoxhaism.

    I largely describe myself as a Hoxhaist however any Socialist today that isn’t rallying behind China and CPC isn’t a socialist worth organising with given the state of class forces, the psyhopathic global hegemon and the absolute cult of the individual. I’m not sure if other shitlibs here realise but we are on the eve of Ww3 and China and Russia will be the targets.

    Hm… I wonder who came before Khrushev who let them become nascent. His name escapes me, maybe you can help?

    Absolutely. Stalin was too soft hearted in letting a previous Trotskyite come to power and handwaving his Trotskyism as something Kruschev had just flirted with in his youth. If Stalin hadn’t been a shitlib maybe we would still have a Workers State

    A later Soviet investigative commission found

    Sent in by the Kruschevites and later those under Gorbachev lol.

    Those 2 kept the Tukhachevsky transcripts confidential until 2000 when Colonel Alksnis was allowed to read them because he asked the Secret services and he was a Colonel in the Russian army (the transcript was released in full in 2018). Colonel Alksnis was a committed anti-Stalinist. HIs grandfather had been executed alongside Tukhachevsky for the same conspiracy. So why wouldn’t he be an anti-Stalinist, his grandfather had been shot and his grandma spent 13 years in a gulag and exile? After reading the transcripts he came away convinced they were guilty.

    Colonel Alksnis also points out the archives have been “cleaned” under each successive Leader.

    For me, I.V. Stalin and his time is a very sore and relevant issue until now.

    My grandfather – the commander of the second rank, deputy commissar of defense of the USSR for aviation Yakov Ivanovich (Jekabs Janovich) Alksnis, was shot in July 1938. His wife (my grandmother), Kristina Karlovna Mednis-Alksnis, as a member of the family of the traitor to the Motherland (CSIR), spent 13 years in camps and exiles. My father, Imant Yakovlevich, at the age of 10 was left without parents and until the age of 30 wore the stigma “son of an enemy of the people.” He found his mother only in 1957.

    Judging by the materials of the case, the first interrogation took place only in January 1938. At the same time, judging by the 1956 rehabilitation materials filed in the same case, my grandfather was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and “beat out” evidence from him. But where are these protocols with “knocked out” testimonies, why were they not in the file?

    After reviewing the transcript of the Tukhachevsky process, I realized that this process is also not so simple. My conviction that Tukhachevsky and his colleagues were simply forced to incriminate themselves under torture was seriously shaken, because judging by the transcript, they gave their testimonies quite sincerely. After reviewing the transcript of the process, I came to the conclusion that there was still a “military conspiracy”, or something like that, in the Red Army.

    In 2000, I was elected a deputy of the State Duma, and I turned to the Director of the FSB, N. Patrushev, with a request to allow me to again familiarize myself with my grandfather’s criminal case. I was again invited to the Lubyanka, or rather, to the Kuznetsk bridge in the reading room of the FSB, and I was given a familiar criminal case.

    I began to leaf through it, checking the records of 1990, and suddenly, to my amazement, I discovered that it lacked some important documents. For example, the NKVD intelligence report dated 1932 disappeared that the Latvian military attache stated in a private conversation with our agent that the Latvian General Staff has its own people among the military leaders of the Red Army. Among other surnames, the name of my grandfather was also mentioned there.

    In 1990, I was very doubtful of this report, since it was unlikely that my grandfather could be an agent of the Latvian General Staff; according to the recollections of my grandmother, he was a stony-stone Bolshevik. But the very fact of the disappearance of this and some other documents allows me to conclude that the “cleaning” of archives continues to this day. The question arises: why?

    So, in the archives there are documents that are not satisfied with the current government. The archives were “cleaned” under Stalin, under Khrushchev, under Gorbachev. “Cleaned” under Yeltsin.

    Further the son of the traitor understood what had happened in Soviet society when the Soviet Union collapsed

    My father was very upset by the collapse of the country. This is surprising, but in spite of the fact that as a result of the tragic events of the 30s his whole life was broken, I did not have to meet a greater patriot of our country. His country died, and six months later, on July 17, 1992, at the age of 65, he also died as a result of a heart attack.

    A month before, he and I, at the dacha, at evening tea, once had a frank conversation about what was happening, and suddenly my father said: “If Stalin was alive, he would not have allowed this mess.”

    I was shocked! My father, an ardent anti-Stalinist who hated Stalin with all the fibers of his soul, suddenly understood and forgave him …

    https://diplomaticpost.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/15/the-moscow-trials-colonel-viktor-alksnis-read-the-tukhachevsky-transcript-and-came-away-convinced-he-was-guilty/

    Stalin wrecked the military, stripped the party of it’s most dedicated members (

    Stalin cleaned out the fifth column in the military who people like Tukhachevsky Trots told us for years were “dedicated leaders” instead of the fifth column traitors that they were. All over Europe countries fell at the slightest touch of the Nazi Army due to fifth column collaboration but in the Soviet Union we’re expected to believe a lot of these generals and military leaders - only 20 years ago were probably White Guardists and monarchists fighting against the Bolsheviks alongside Germany and the other 13 capitalist nations - couldn’t possibly have collaborated.

    As to the “wrecking the army” comment- feel free to listen to Anti-Communist Stephen Kotkin say that historians have largely got the beginning of WW2 wrong on Stalin

    (Paraphrasing) Our current understanding of ww2 history is wrong. What we currently think is the Soviets were a disaster at the beginning and the Soviets learned how to become good commanders. What we instead see now is that these tremendous losses at the beginning were precisely necessary as they blunted the German army and killed it’s momentum. So what we currently believe is that Stalin was responsible for disasters at the beginning but what we now believe were necessary to kill the Germans momentum and grind them into a war of attrition

    Stephen Kotkin - Stalin At War - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NV-hq2akCQ

    We’re not gonna hear about Stalins supposed failure on the eve of the war to move troops up to the front in order to be ready. He was urged to do so by his two top commanders - Zhukov and Timoshenko. That’s because they were idiots. They didn’t understand blitzkreig. Blitzkreig was not about capturing territory. It was about destroying the fighting capacity of your enemy. The more troops you move to the frontier the more troops will be destroyed and the less fighting capacity you have and the more likelihood you’ll be defeated. So Stalins refusal to move more troops to the frontier zone was absolutely correct.

    (Ibid)

    You’re not going to hear about Stalins “supposed failure” to prepare for the War. Nevermind the Soviet Union was armed to the teeth. Yes it had the worlds largest army. Yes it had the most aircraft and tanks. Essentially it had too much stuff because it had been building for war for a decade.

    (Ibid)


  • 5 sentences…Cant do that as you’re asking a lot but I’ll be as brief as poss

    Kruschev came to power in a military coup and repressed (either removed or killed) the loyal Marxist-Leninists after Stalin tried to implement a bill that would democratise Soviet society . In his last year in power he wrote Economic problems of the USSR attacking the revisionists

    Enver Hoxha (leader of Communist Albania) said that that one of the Kruschevites told him they had Stalin killed (1)

    Kruschev represented the nascent bourgeois but with Stalins popularity in the Ussr he could not implement his reforms. He does a secret speech that immediately gets leaked to the West (funny that) heaping all the problems in Soviet society on Stalin which was entirely falsified. The Secret speech itself was leaked in such a way to pour poison through the Communist party - it was disseminated to the top leaders and cadres of the millions of Communist Party members (something like 0.9% of the Party). Meaning it was not out in the open that could be honestly fought and corrected. If that speech had been public the revisionists would’ve swung from lampposts

    He let out numerous counter revolutionaries from prisons and “rehabilitated” those shot during the Moscow trials like Tukhachevsky who we know now were guilty beyond doubt.

    With Stalin denigrated he was free to implement the reforms (post Stalin Soviet textbooks would legit have stuff like "profit is needed and the central planning system is a Stalinist hold over. Kruschev even declared the primacy of profit in industry in1961) starting with the privatisation of the tractor stations where the farmers basically collectively owned their means of production and by 1965 the Kosygin reforms were implemented which

    • reinstated the profit motive and the market

    • attacked the central planning system and directive system

    • allowed for the firing and hiring of people

    • gave more power to the managerial class (who previously could basically be fired by the workers and the manager couldnt fire them)

    It is this restoration of capital forces in Soviet society that led to a hypernormalisation within Soviet society (ie. They’re told “we’re building socialism” as socialism is being destroyed) until eventually they reached a point where they just pulled down the red flag, sold state industries to pennies to the nascent oligarchs and mafia in waiting and gave up the entire thing altogether

    Despite this many people fought to keep Soviet socialism alive and Yeltsin could only come to power by shelling the parliament with tanks, supported by the West and massacring 3000 Communists in the streets. To this the Western press praised Yeltsin who is now uni formally described as the worst Russian ruler in history in Russia.

    Yeltsin never would’ve won an election were it not for the West who proudly boasted about it

    For the other non-shitlib on this site that is capable of reading more than 5 sentences I would recommend reading

    The Complete Collapse Of Revisionism by Harpal Brar

    RESTORATION of CAPITALISM in the USSR by Martin Nicholaus

    THE RESTORATION OF CAPITALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION. by Bill Bland

    References

    (1) “All this villainy emerged soon after the death, or to be more precise after the murder, of Stalin. I say after the murder of Stalin, because Mikoyan himself told me . . . that they, together with Khrushchev and their associates, had decided . . . to make an attempt on Stalin’s life”. (E. Hoxha, With Stalin: Memoirs, p. 31).


  • JoeySteel [comrade/them]@hexbear.nettomain@hexbear.net😭
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    4 years ago
    It might be attributed, for example, to the fear that a revolution might break out if the non-aggressive states were to go to war and the war were to assume world – wide proportions. The bourgeois politicians know, of course, that the first imperialist world war led to the victory of the revolution in one of the largest countries. They are afraid that the second imperialist world war may also lead to the victory of the revolution in one or several countries.
    
    But at present this is not the sole or even the chief reason. The chief reason is that the majority of the non-aggressive countries, particularly England and France, have rejected the policy of collective security, the policy of collective resistance to the aggressors, and have taken up a position of nonintervention, a position of “neutrality.”
    
    Formally speaking, the policy of non-intervention might be defined as follows: “Let each country defend itself from the aggressors as it likes and as best it can. That is not our affair. We shall trade both with the aggressors and with their victims.” But actually speaking, the policy of non-intervention means conniving at aggression, giving free rein to war, and, consequently, transforming the war into a world war. The policy of non-intervention reveals an eagerness, a desire, not to hinder the aggressors in their nefarious work: not to hinder Japan, say, from embroiling herself in a war with China, or, better still, with the Soviet Union: to allow all the belligerents to sink deeply into the mire of war, to encourage them surreptitiously in this, to allow them to weaken and exhaust one another; and then, when they have become weak enough, to appear on the scene with fresh strength, to appear, of course, “in the interests of peace,” and to dictate conditions to the enfeebled belligerents.
    
    Cheap and easy!"
    
    -Comrade Stalin, Report on the Work Of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the CPSUB, March 1939
    

    So you can see Stalin (and the Soviets) didn’t trust the fascists or the capitalists one whit. Also read the entire report as it gives a much fuller picture and as you can see I’ve already separated this into 3 different posts due to character limit

    Further:

    "The foreign policy of the Soviet Union is clear and explicit.
    
    We stand for peace and the strengthening of business relations with all countries. That is our position; and we shall adhere to this position as long as these countries maintain like relations with the Soviet Union, and as long as they make no attempt to trespass on the interests of our country.
    
    We stand for peaceful, close and friendly relations with all the neighbouring countries which have common frontiers with the U.S.S.R. That is our position; and we shall adhere to this position as long as these countries maintain like relations with the Soviet Union, and as long as they make no attempt to trespass, directly or indirectly, on the integrity and inviolability of the frontiers of the Soviet state.
    
    We stand for the support of nations which are the victims of aggression and are fighting for the independence of their country.
    
    We are not afraid of the threats of aggressors, and are ready to deal two blows for every blow delivered by instigators of war who attempt to violate the Soviet borders. (Ibid)"
    
    Further:
    
    "The tasks of the Party in the sphere of foreign policy are:
    
    To continue the policy of peace and of strengthening business relations with all countries;
    
    To be cautious and not allow our country to be drawn into conflicts by warmongers who are accustomed to have others pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them;
    
    To strengthen the might of our Red Army and Red Navy to the utmost;
    
    To strengthen the international bonds of friendship with the working people of all countries, who are interested in peace and friendship among nations. (ibid)"
    

    But this was in March 1939 and the Molotov Pact was signed in August

    So what then, did Molotov say in August 31, 1939:

    "What have the negotiations with Great Britain and France shown?
    
    The Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations have shown that the position of Great Britain and France is marked by glaring contradictions throughout.
    
    Judge for yourselves.
    
    On the one hand, Great Britain and France demanded that the U.S.S.R. should give military assistance to Poland in case of aggression. The U.S.S.R., as you know, was willing to meet this demand provided she herself received like assistance from Great Britain and France. On the other hand, Great Britain and France brought Poland on to the scene, who resolutely declined military assistance on the part of the U.S.S.R. Just try to reach an agreement regarding mutual assistance under such circumstances, when assistance on the part of the U.S.S.R. is declared beforehand to be superfluous and obtrusive.
    
    Further: on the one hand, Great Britain and France offered to guarantee the Soviet Union military assistance against aggression in return for like assistance on the part of the U.S.S.R. On the other hand, they hedged round their assistance with such provisos regarding indirect aggression as were calculated to convert this assistance into a fiction and to provide them with a formal legal excuse for evading the rendering of assistance and for leaving the U.S.S.R. isolated in face of an aggressor. Just try to distinguish between such a “pact of mutual assistance” and a pact of more or less camouflaged chicanery. (Amusement.)
    
    Further: on the one hand, Great Britain and France stressed the importance and gravity of the negotiations for a pact of mutual assistance and demanded that the U.S.S.R. should treat the matter seriously and settle all questions relating to the pact without delay. On the other hand, they themselves displayed extreme dilatoriness and treated the negotiations very lightly, entrusting them to minor individuals who were not invested with adequate powers. It is enough to mention that the British and French military missions came to Moscow without any definite powers and without the right to conclude any kind of military convention. (Animation.)More, the British military mission arrived in Moscow without any mandate at all (loud laughter), and it was only on the demand of our military mission that, on the very eve of the breakdown of the negotiations, they presented written credentials. But even these credentials were of the vaguest kind, that is, credentials that were not up to par. Just try to distinguish between this light-minded attitude towards the negotiations on the part of Great Britain and France and a frivolous make-believe at negotiations designed to discredit the whole business.
    
    Such were the intrinsic contradictions in the attitude of Great Britain and France towards the negotiations with the U.S.S.R. which led to their breakdown.
    
    What is the root of these contradictions in the position of Great Britain and France?
    
    In a few words, it can be put as follows. On the one hand, the British and French governments fear aggression, and for that reason would like to have a pact of mutual assistance with the Soviet Union, inasmuch as it would strengthen them, Great Britain and France. But, on the other hand, the British and French governments are afraid that the conclusion of a real pact of mutual assistance with the U.S.S.R. may strengthen our country, the Soviet Union, which, it appears, does not answer their purpose. It must be admitted that these fears of theirs outweighed other considerations. It is only in this light that we can understand the position of Poland, who is acting on the instructions of Great Britain and France.
    
    I shall now pass to the Soviet-German pact of non- aggression.
    
    The decision to conclude a pact of non-aggression between the U.S.S.R. and Germany was adopted after the military negotiations with France and Great Britain had reached an impasse owing to the insurmountable differences I have mentioned. As the negotiations had shown that the conclusion of a pact of mutual assistance was not to be expected, we could not but explore other possibilities of ensuring peace and averting the danger of a war between Germany and the U.S.S.R. If the British and French governments refused to reckon with this, that is their lookout. It is our duty to think of the interests of the Soviet people, the interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (Prolonged applause.) All the more since we are firmly convinced that the interests of the U.S.S.R. coincide with the fundamental interests of the peoples of other countries. (Applause.)
    
    But that is only one side of the matter.
    
    Something else had to happen besides this before a Soviet- German pact of non-aggression could come into existence. It was necessary that the foreign policy of Germany should take a turn towards friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Only when this second condition was fulfilled, only when it became clear that the German government desired to change its foreign policy and secure an improvement of relations with the U.S.S.R., was the basis found for the conclusion of a Soviet- German pact of non-aggression."
    
    Molotov’s Statement in the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. on the Ratification of the Soviet-German Pact of Non-Aggression
    

    And further: