Marxist regimes made war on each other in conventional interstate terms

Evidence

If the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia in December 1978 and January 1979 represented the first large-scale conventional war waged by one revolutionary Marxist regime against another, China’s assault on Vietnam in February rapidly confirmed the precedent. Only the most trusting would dare wager that in the declining years of this century any significant outbreak of interstate hostilities will necessarily find the USSR and the PRC – let alone the smaller socialist states – supporting, or fighting on, the same side. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 30

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence that even internationalist ideologies capitulate to nation-state logics — the mechanism by which national frames override transnational solidarity. — connects to: Nationalism defeated the Second International yet undergirded the Third International’s Marxism; Leninists subordinated national borders to supernational revolutionary strategy; Competing state-capitalist blocs destabilized the global economy and caused World War II. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 521

Broader Connections

• Nationalism defeated the Second International yet undergirded the Third International’s Marxism #qualifies (0.75)
• Leninists subordinated national borders to supernational revolutionary strategy #corroborates (0.72)