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Is Russia just as bad as the Soviet Union?

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How was the Soviet Union shunned by her allies? Just looking for some views on that.

Her allies of the Second World War, being, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, etc... I'm not saying the Soviet Union didn't try for a bit of a powergrab and was a total victim in the creation of the Cold War. But it certainly felt like it had been excluded, left out to dry, by the nations it had given its own people's lives to defend.
 
Jeezy said:
And in regards to something else you posted, just because there was no chattel slavery in USSR, does not mean there was no slave labor: Gulag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Forced labor camps could be considered slave labor, definitely, but it's important to keep in mind that people weren't sent to do forced labor simply because the state required laborers. Further, GULag conditions were actually originally fairly good up until the Frenkel reforms: laborers were given a fair supply of rations, decent housing, a wage and were even able to complain about their conditions up the hierarchy. GULag was finally abolished under Khrushchev in 1960. So the system really only lasted about 1/3 of the life of the USSR, and certainly not in Molotok's time living there. It's pretty crazy to make a sweeping generalization about the entire USSR regarding the GULag system which lasted only about 1/3 of the time of its existence.

That would be like one condemning the US for a policy it held 100 years ago.

Gargantuan said:
How was the Soviet Union shunned by her allies? Just looking for some views on that.

What do you mean? During the Stalin years? Pre-WW2 he proposed an anti-fascist bloc but was turned down by the British and others who decided to take the road of appeasement in the hope that Hitler would simply go East.
 
Her allies of the Second World War, being, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, etc... I'm not saying the Soviet Union didn't try for a bit of a powergrab and was a total victim in the creation of the Cold War. But it certainly felt like it had been excluded, left out to dry, by the nations it had given its own people's lives to defend.

..a "bit" of power grab? You have an interesting definition of "bit."

:roll:
 
..a "bit" of power grab? You have an interesting definition of "bit."

:roll:

Did you miss my last post, before the one you quoted? It was at the bottom of last page. I'd be interested in your response.
 
No, indeed not. The Holodomor was horrible, and Stalin a monster. No one would ever dream to claim he wasn't. But there's this tendency in the States to believe, somehow, incredibly, that Stalin represented the entirety of our nation. He didn't. He died in 1953, after which he was denounced and dethroned, and life got better. Just around the time the middle class in America started appearing, as well.

What does this have to do with the utter ridiculousness of your black man/Ukranian peasant comparison? That after one of the worst genocidal famines in history, things were "about" the same?

But that's the thing. We're comparing the two Cold War nations, are we not? The Cold War only started around that time -- the horrors of the 1930's, while terrible, were not and are not considered part of the Cold War. An arbitrary definition? I don't think so. The Second World War changed the face of the world, but no country was changed more than the Soviet Union, the battered victor over Nazism, who lost tens of millions of citizens defending the world against Hitler, only to be shunned by the rest of her allies afterwards. It's at that point you can start the 'competition', so to speak -- not in the 1920's when revolutionary fire still burnt through the steppes, not in the 1930's when a monster seized power and nearly drove the nation into the ground, and not in the 1940's when the Soviet Union was busy winning the largest war in the history of mankind.

"She" wasn't shunned. "She" ALIENATED her allies.

Now, in a comparison of the American middle class of, say, 1965, and the Soviet 'middle' class of, say, 1965, it's true enough that the Americans will come out with a few more amenities. The Soviets had an apartment, a car, a tv, some food and some vodka, a job and a vacation. The Americans probably had all that plus a refrigerator and a microwave. :p In return, the crime rate in the Soviet Union was less than the crime rate of that in America. In America you got denounced for being a commie, in the Soviet Union you get denounced for being a capitalist spy. In both countries millions suffered, millions prospered, and most people just went on with their average lives.

A "few" more amenities?

Name one time in that year when items disappeared from the shelves because of "shortages" in the United States.

One last point, though -- the other side isn't gone. :p That one always tickles me -- we're right here. Russia's got a different name now, and a different flag, and perhaps a different way of making people beg for oil and gas, true enough, but the Russians never change, and so the heart of the country will never change.

It's very disturbing that you even view it this way.
 
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What does this have to do with the utter ridiculousness of your black man/Ukranian peasant comparison? That after one of the worst genocidal famines in history, things were "about" the same?



"She" wasn't shunned. "She" ALIENATED her allies.



A "few" more amenities?

Name one time in that year when items disappeared from the shelves because of "shortages" in the United States.



It's very disturbing that you even view it this way.

What's ridiculous about the comparison? I see nothing different about that comparison, given the same time frame -- the 1960's, I think we decided? Destitute Ukrainian peasants, KKK mobs lynching blacks across the South. Kazakhstani farmers struggling through economic difficulty, race riots in Detroit.

What does the Holodomor have to do with it? It was a horrible event. So was the Trail of Tears. So was the internment of the Boere across the Transvaal. All great nations have black marks on their histories.


Anyway, I'll play your game. Name one time in the 1960's there was a bread shortage in the Soviet Union. You can't -- why? Because it didn't happen. You hear sensational stories twenty years after the Cold War ended of the 'horrors and trials of life everywhere America can't reach', of starving children and people being carted away in the night for saying "I'm hungry". Doesn't that sound a bit suspect to you? Hell, doesn't it sound downright ridiculous? How could the world's most powerful nation for near on 40 years have operated like that? It's bloody stupid. You might've heard about the 1989 bread shortages in Poland, after Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement started wrecking the infrastructure of the country. Or maybe you heard about the crime rate in Lithuania, which skyrocketed after the Lithuanian SSR declared independence, and the Soviet Union acquiesced and pulled its police etc. out of the country.

But this bull**** of life all across the largest nation on Earth being worse than basic prison life is utter nonsense, and it's rather offensive to hear it from someone who knows nothing of the place but what he's decided from sensational stories.


Finally, a question -- why does that disturb you? You were hoping somehow that we would fall under the American world order, or something? That Russians would give up and say, eh, wow, guess Americans ARE just superior human beings, let's be like them!

Don't be ridiculous.
 
What's ridiculous about the comparison? I see nothing different about that comparison, given the same time frame -- the 1960's, I think we decided? Destitute Ukrainian peasants, KKK mobs lynching blacks across the South. Kazakhstani farmers struggling through economic difficulty, race riots in Detroit.

What does the Holodomor have to do with it? It was a horrible event. So was the Trail of Tears. So was the internment of the Boere across the Transvaal. All great nations have black marks on their histories.

You're talking about the treatment of two minorities -- and yet conveniently limit the time frame to when the Soviet Union was basically at its best and race relations in the US were at their worst. That's why it's ridiculous. Those race rioters were listened to by the government and earned their rights. I wonder what such demonstrations would have earned them in the USSR...

Anyway, I'll play your game. Name one time in the 1960's there was a bread shortage in the Soviet Union. You can't -- why? Because it didn't happen. You hear sensational stories twenty years after the Cold War ended of the 'horrors and trials of life everywhere America can't reach', of starving children and people being carted away in the night for saying "I'm hungry". Doesn't that sound a bit suspect to you? Hell, doesn't it sound downright ridiculous? How could the world's most powerful nation for near on 40 years have operated like that? It's bloody stupid. You might've heard about the 1989 bread shortages in Poland, after Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement started wrecking the infrastructure of the country. Or maybe you heard about the crime rate in Lithuania, which skyrocketed after the Lithuanian SSR declared independence, and the Soviet Union acquiesced and pulled its police etc. out of the country.

Pfft. Don't give me that. I knew you were skeezing when you used the year 1965, conveniently cutting out basically the entire Brezhnev era from your little analysis. What does any of this have to do with the existential reality of food shortages? Or 10-15 year waiting lists for new apartments? Both of which were very real, but still manageable in '65 due to the sheer volume of industry being rebuilt.

But this bull**** of life all across the largest nation on Earth being worse than basic prison life is utter nonsense, and it's rather offensive to hear it from someone who knows nothing of the place but what he's decided from sensational stories.

And I said that, when?

...yeah. Or maybe the fact that I'm Russian, and that the vast majority of people I know there and here corroborate the disparity. But sure. Yeah. Whatever you want, comrade.

Finally, a question -- why does that disturb you? You were hoping somehow that we would fall under the American world order, or something? That Russians would give up and say, eh, wow, guess Americans ARE just superior human beings, let's be like them!

Don't be ridiculous.

Ahh, so that's what this is about....the typical hurt Russian pride that so many suffer from. I thought so.
 
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You're talking about the treatment of two minorities -- and yet conveniently limit the time frame to when the Soviet Union was basically at its best and race relations in the US were at their worst. That's why it's ridiculous. Those race rioters were listened to by the government and earned their rights. I wonder what such demonstrations would have earned them in the USSR...



Pfft. Don't give me that. I knew you were skeezing when you used the year 1965, conveniently cutting out basically the entire Brezhnev era from your little analysis. What does any of this have to do with the existential reality of food shortages? Or 10-15 year waiting lists for new apartments? Both of which were very real, but still manageable due to the sheer volume of industry being rebuilt.



And I said that, when?

...yeah. Or maybe the fact that I'm Russian, and that the vast majority of people I know there and here corroborate the disparity. But sure. Yeah. Whatever you want, comrade.



Ahh, so that's what this is about....the typical hurt Russian pride that so many suffer from. I thought so.

Ну, вот, вы Русский? Я не знал. Вы откуда? Когда вы приехал в США? А сколько вам лет?
 
Ну, вот, вы Русский? Я не знал. Вы откуда? Когда вы приехал в США? А сколько вам лет?

Что, не заметил мой аватар? Высо́цкий...

Мне 21 лет. Я приехал сюда где-то в 1995 но я побывал в Россией с тех пор. в Харькове родился
 
Что, не заметил мой аватар? Высо́цкий...

Мне 21 лет. Я приехал сюда где-то в 1995 но я побывал в Россией с тех пор. в Харькове родился

(We should probably continue in English, as I think it's against the rules to post in other languages, but I wanted to see if you still spoke our language.)

:/ So you didn't live there, the Soviet Union, I mean, not really. But you are Russian, fair enough.

Anyway, you've instantly become much more interesting to me -- often when I meet Russian expats, or the children of Russian expats in the UK or the USA, they've the same nostalgia for Russia as I've described. Can I drain your brain a bit, then, and try to figure out what makes you different?
 
First Russian Spy:
Well, here you Russian? I do not know. Where are you from? When you came to the U.S.? How old are you?

Second Russian Spy:
What, did not notice my avatar? Vysotsky ... I am 21 years old. I came here sometime in 1995 but I have been in Russia since then. Born in Kharkov

Or so says Google?
 
(We should probably continue in English, as I think it's against the rules to post in other languages, but I wanted to see if you still spoke our language.)

:/ So you didn't live there, the Soviet Union, I mean, not really. But you are Russian, fair enough.

Anyway, you've instantly become much more interesting to me -- often when I meet Russian expats, or the children of Russian expats in the UK or the USA, they've the same nostalgia for Russia as I've described. Can I drain your brain a bit, then, and try to figure out what makes you different?

61216445.jpg
 
:roll: I mean, the avatar really should have been a dead giveaway.

You want to drain? Drain away.
 
First Russian Spy:
Well, here you Russian? I do not know. Where are you from? When you came to the U.S.? How old are you?

Second Russian Spy:
What, did not notice my avatar? Vysotsky ... I am 21 years old. I came here sometime in 1995 but I have been in Russia since then. Born in Kharkov

Or so says Google?

That was it, to a tee. Accent and all. Except my younger compatriot (comrade) probably doesn't have any Russian accent at all.
 
It...sorta varies. Depends on how confident I am in what I'm saying.
 
:roll: I mean, the avatar really should have been a dead giveaway.

You want to drain? Drain away.

Well, I bet I understand the leaving in 1995 bit -- it wasn't the nicest place at that point, or so I'm told. Throughout the entirety of the 90's I was in the French Foreign Legion, and afterwards, the Royal Marines, so I didn't make any but a single trip to Russia that decade, which was in 1997.

Anyway, the bits I don't understand -- why Georgia? I have some relatives in Chicago -- I lived there for a little more than half a year, the place is filled with East Europeans -- and there are a lot of Russian Jews in New York, Brighton Beach and all that. But Georgia seems an odd choice, especially for a Soviet immigrant.

Secondly, do you consider yourself Russian, Ukrainian, or American? Or perhaps Russian-American, or Ukrainian-American? Hmm, or perhaps Soviet? Though I don't see that one, you'd barely been born when the Wall came down.

Is your family Jewish, by any chance? If not (or maybe if so), did you already have relatives in the West? White Officers (Белые офицеры), perhaps? Or maybe, are you Cossack? Or did your parents just become antipathies (антипатикий) due to some bad run-in with the Party at some point?

How do you feel about Russia (or Ukraine) now (I think I get how you feel about the CCCP already :p), and how often, if ever, do you go back to Kharkov to visit?




PS Non-Russians can like Vysotsky too.
 
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Let's see...

I go to school in Atlanta, and therefore have lived there most of the past 3 years. Before college, I lived in South Florida with my parents and my sister.

I consider myself an American, of immigrant background, just like most Americans at one point or another. I just happen to be fresher off the boat.

Hit the jackpot on the third one. I'm Jewish. We pretty much have relatives all over. Australia, Germany, Israel, various American states, and some remaining in Russia or the Ukraine. My family wasn't really political enough during the civil war to be white officers. Just shtetl-Jews. There were various "encounters" with authority in terms of jobs and school though...

I already posted how I feel about Russia on the first page of this thread: http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls/102923-russia-just-bad-soviet-union.html#post1059606815

I don't really go back on any basis. There's not much for me to go back to.
 
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Let's see...

I go to school in Atlanta, and therefore have lived there most of the past 3 years. Before college, I lived in South Florida with my parents and my sister.

I consider myself an American, of immigrant background, just like most Americans at one point or another. I just happen to be fresher off the boat.

Hit the jackpot on the third one. I'm Jewish. We pretty much have relatives all over. Australia, Germany, Israel, various American states, and some remaining in Russia or the Ukraine. My family wasn't really political enough during the civil war to be white officers. Just shtetl-Jews. There were various "encounters" with authority in terms of jobs and school though...

I already posted how I feel about Russia on the first page of this thread: http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls/102923-russia-just-bad-soviet-union.html#post1059606815

I don't really go back on any basis. There's not much for me to go back to.

Ah. Well, this explains a lot, and I think I can see where you're coming from here, with that background. Still, I think we'll not be seeing eye to eye on the issue of the Soviet Union, owing I suppose to two entirely different experiences with it. But it was still interesting to meet you.
 
Ah. Well, this explains a lot, and I think I can see where you're coming from here, with that background. Still, I think we'll not be seeing eye to eye on the issue of the Soviet Union, owing I suppose to two entirely different experiences with it. But it was still interesting to meet you.

:sarcasticclap

How did I know you'd say this? I mean, how did I know?
 
Ahh, so that's what this is about....the typical hurt Russian pride that so many suffer from. I thought so.

it really is a contest between them and the French over who has the Smallest Penis Syndrome
 
Present day Russia is not interested in militaristic expansion, nor in any kind of world domination. They're a big improvement over the USSR.
 
"Is Russia just as bad as the Soviet Union?" What?? Who said the Soviet Union was bad at all? :) The major problem with Russian is that they changed their government from Socialism to wild capitalism too quickly, and there are basically only two classes: the extremely rich and the extremely poor. They never had this problem before. Now many people are thrown out on the streets and millions sleep in/near the town's metro stations. People are dieing from hunger. It's worse than the USSR. The only way peole try to stop that is by voting for the Russian Communist Worker's Party. It's the second biggest party in Russia and it's getting more supporters after every election. Hopefully the communist regime gets back to power by time, because the people actually want it get back to power.
 
If Russia is calling on the U.S. to stop executing people, that's a clear sign they have gotten better.
 
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