4 ms·

I lived under this regime and i absolutely remember it as evil. Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form.

sofixa 5y ago
> Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form. Russia form? Russia already existed, as the Russian socialist federal republic, a part of the Soviet Union. What would have been the alternative to letting Russia inherit the Soviet Union by being the last one remaining?
- anovikov 5y ago
  - sofixa 5y ago
    Distribution of people, industry, resources, agriculture is very uneven in Russia, so i don't see many potential subdivisions working well. Furthermore: * self-determination of the people - i didn't hear any part of Russia wanted to be separate * Russians in other countries (there since before the fall of the Soviet Union) are often destabilising and problematic - see Transnistria and Ukraine for good examples * as we've seen, new Russia doesn't mind getting dirty to claim back land. A ballkanised Russia would be even worse, with frequent wars between the different entities.
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      > A ballkanised Russia Means the total loss of Russian Army, in the most literal sense. In 1990s there were anecdotes how you could buy a tank from a corrupted Russian Army personnel. With balkanised Russia that would be a hard reality.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        > Means the total loss of Russian Army, in the most literal sense Not really, every part would retain the troops and armaments located there, like how Ukraine inherited all long range strategic missile bombers ( Tu-160) of the Soviet Union, and how Transnistria inherited an army which was one of the main factors of them claiming independence and thus blocking Moldova's potential future as a part of Romania
        justsomehnguy 5y ago
        > like how Ukraine inherited all long range strategic missile bombers Along with hundreds of T-60/72 and all the infantry and vehicle munitions. But you can't bring Tu-160 to a local mafia dispute. You can bring a tank there if it's only a couple of hundred dollars and nobody /can/ stop you. > how Transnistria inherited an army Now imagine various small unaffiliated armies all the way to Ural.
        sofixa 5y ago
        > Now imagine various small unaffiliated armies all the way to Ural. So a bloodbath? Like the breakup of Yugoslavia, just with almost no ethnical divisions, with nukes and much bigger scale?
        justsomehnguy 5y ago
        > almost no ethnical divisions Give a man a neighbour and he would find a reason to hate him. [0] > Like the breakup of Yugoslavia Except even more fighting for the resources and for sure it would spill out to the neighbouring countries too. Though it would be a nice thought exercise to determine if Kaliningrad would become Königsberg. [0] The genie offers a wish but says that whatever the peasant gets his neighbor will get doubled. The peasant thinks for a bit and then says “Make me blind in one eye”. AFAIK there is a variant of that joke in many cultures.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    Who are "they"? Russia existed. It had nukes. Nobody were in a position to tell Russia it wasn't allowed to exist, and attempting to force it to split would have been a gross violation of international law.
    - PixyMisa 5y ago
      Nobody cares much about international law, but it was in no-ones interest to have a dozen smaller, likely unstable, post-Russian states all armed with nuclear missiles.
      - vidarh 5y ago
        Nobody might care, but nody also had any way of imposing a breakup.
        anovikov 5y ago
        Easily. Just to say: split up, or you will not get food. They had weeks of food left in storage and many regions already starved. Plus, everyone in Russia already expected breakup as inevitable. At that point, rejection of everything related to the country - being Soviet Union or Russia - reached the apogee and a well-propagandised, well-funded drive to just restart history from scratch - every switching away from Cyrillic and renouncing Communism and the Orthodox church - could work. Other post-Soviet countries shrugged off previous Soviet history easily and never looked back. In 1991, Russia was no different and saw previous regime as sort of occupation by "them" (communists), not "us" making some mistakes in governing.
        vidarh 5y ago
        Who do you imagine would say this in your scenario? Most countries had no incentive to see Russia split and risk destabilizing the entire region and have no functioning government in control of the nukes. The split of the Soviet Union was already high risk.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    >"and thus make free world safer from Russians." Do the world a favor please.
justsomehnguy 5y ago

> Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form. Russia form? Russia already existed, as the Russian socialist federal republic, a part of the Soviet Union. What would have been the alternative to letting Russia inherit the Soviet Union by being the last one remaining?

anovikov 5y ago
- sofixa 5y ago
  Distribution of people, industry, resources, agriculture is very uneven in Russia, so i don't see many potential subdivisions working well. Furthermore: * self-determination of the people - i didn't hear any part of Russia wanted to be separate * Russians in other countries (there since before the fall of the Soviet Union) are often destabilising and problematic - see Transnistria and Ukraine for good examples * as we've seen, new Russia doesn't mind getting dirty to claim back land. A ballkanised Russia would be even worse, with frequent wars between the different entities.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    > A ballkanised Russia Means the total loss of Russian Army, in the most literal sense. In 1990s there were anecdotes how you could buy a tank from a corrupted Russian Army personnel. With balkanised Russia that would be a hard reality.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > Means the total loss of Russian Army, in the most literal sense Not really, every part would retain the troops and armaments located there, like how Ukraine inherited all long range strategic missile bombers ( Tu-160) of the Soviet Union, and how Transnistria inherited an army which was one of the main factors of them claiming independence and thus blocking Moldova's potential future as a part of Romania
      - justsomehnguy 5y ago
        > like how Ukraine inherited all long range strategic missile bombers Along with hundreds of T-60/72 and all the infantry and vehicle munitions. But you can't bring Tu-160 to a local mafia dispute. You can bring a tank there if it's only a couple of hundred dollars and nobody /can/ stop you. > how Transnistria inherited an army Now imagine various small unaffiliated armies all the way to Ural.
        sofixa 5y ago
        > Now imagine various small unaffiliated armies all the way to Ural. So a bloodbath? Like the breakup of Yugoslavia, just with almost no ethnical divisions, with nukes and much bigger scale?
        justsomehnguy 5y ago
        > almost no ethnical divisions Give a man a neighbour and he would find a reason to hate him. [0] > Like the breakup of Yugoslavia Except even more fighting for the resources and for sure it would spill out to the neighbouring countries too. Though it would be a nice thought exercise to determine if Kaliningrad would become Königsberg. [0] The genie offers a wish but says that whatever the peasant gets his neighbor will get doubled. The peasant thinks for a bit and then says “Make me blind in one eye”. AFAIK there is a variant of that joke in many cultures.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Who are "they"? Russia existed. It had nukes. Nobody were in a position to tell Russia it wasn't allowed to exist, and attempting to force it to split would have been a gross violation of international law.
  - PixyMisa 5y ago
    Nobody cares much about international law, but it was in no-ones interest to have a dozen smaller, likely unstable, post-Russian states all armed with nuclear missiles.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      Nobody might care, but nody also had any way of imposing a breakup.
      - anovikov 5y ago
        Easily. Just to say: split up, or you will not get food. They had weeks of food left in storage and many regions already starved. Plus, everyone in Russia already expected breakup as inevitable. At that point, rejection of everything related to the country - being Soviet Union or Russia - reached the apogee and a well-propagandised, well-funded drive to just restart history from scratch - every switching away from Cyrillic and renouncing Communism and the Orthodox church - could work. Other post-Soviet countries shrugged off previous Soviet history easily and never looked back. In 1991, Russia was no different and saw previous regime as sort of occupation by "them" (communists), not "us" making some mistakes in governing.
        vidarh 5y ago
        Who do you imagine would say this in your scenario? Most countries had no incentive to see Russia split and risk destabilizing the entire region and have no functioning government in control of the nukes. The split of the Soviet Union was already high risk.
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"and thus make free world safer from Russians." Do the world a favor please.

justsomehnguy 5y ago