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rufus magister's avatar

Most of the population is "too ignorant about the history" of most anything. Especially the former Warsaw Pact. Policy-makers count on that fact.

I'm an ABD in Soviet History, so it's my own pet peeve.

In that capacity, and as a Fourth Internationalist, I'm used to hearing a lot of loose talk about Soviet "imperialism."

Do you know where Moscow elites would go to find good consumer goods? To the outposts of their horribly exploited "empire," where for a number of reasons the standards of living were higher than in the Soviet Union.

Soviet "imperialism" aided the Third World to end colonialism, provided critical political pressure on the Free World that ended Jim Crow here (having Selma while complaining about the "Iron Curtain" was unseemly), and provided an alternative model of economic growth.

I'm no fan of the current Grand Duke of Muscovy. But since we spent the bulk of the post-Cold War years violating the assurances we gave to end it, he and his boyars definitely have a legit beef.

Maidan was a Color Revolution too far. The log that broke the bear's back, finally.

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Forky the Bun-Bun's avatar

I didn't say anything about Soviet imperialism, but ok.

Fuck Putin and whatever beefs he thinks has with a world that stands in his way of maximizing the revenues he can get from the Russian fossil fuel industry he stole before the world goes green.

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