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The Russian government doesn't defend Communism and the USSR in any shape or form. Well, it's not like anyone's trying to get the USSR officially reconstituted
by kafkaesq 10y ago
The Russian government doesn't defend Communism and the USSR in any shape or form.
Well, it's not like anyone's trying to get the USSR officially reconstituted. But there does seem to be a very deep undercurrent of respect about what the USSR stood for (as a form a "Greater Russia", in effect), independent of the CPSU's hegemony over it.
As exemplified by, for example, Putin's famous statement about its collapse being "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". And the widespread contempt for Gorbachev for having presided over it (or at least for having caved into under far too generous terms for Russia's geopolitical adversaries).
- DominikR 10y agoI agree, I understand his statement mostly as rejecting the way how the transition was made and for the chaos that ensued after the collapse. (which was truly horrific even without the wars)
- kafkaesq 10y agoBut also in that Russia lost its historic Great Empire position (in particular, with respect to the Baltics and Ukraine), along with a good chunk of its superpower status in the world, generally. Which he didn't have to mention directly, but that's the "chord" that quote seems to strike, in a broader context.