4 ms·

I will happily point out that pride in the former empire is exactly what's driving Russian aggression in the Ukraine at this moment.

by vkou 4y ago

fromseashore 4y ago
[flagged]
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  It’s not “first and foremost”: you literally have nothing else to add to the discussion, besides spitting out russian propaganda.
  - fromseashore 4y ago
    [flagged]
drekipus 4y ago
Was the USSR an "empire" in the imperial sense (genuine question) ? I had thought the revolution was to destroy all that, remove the czar, bring in autocratic states, etc. I feel like there is a distinction here but I can't easily point to it. But they were very anti-empire afaik
- brazzy 4y ago
  An empire is not defined by its internal form of government, but by having a poweful core state that keeps other territories (provinces, colonies, client states) in permanent subservience.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    Surely not, an empire has an emperor/empress (an Imperator of some sort).
    - brazzy 4y ago
      No, that is not the definition used by historians and political scholars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire#Definition Because what some ruler calls him- or herself isn't really a useful category.
- qsort 4y ago
  The usual definition of an empire is a state where a dominant group uses an imperial elite to extract resources from peripheral groups. If you accept this definition, the USSR was an empire in the exact same sense the Romans or the British were, they just instantiated the template a little differently.
- roundandround 4y ago
  I think the USSR was a colonialist empire in the post Napolean Republican sense. The ideals of the exceptional Republic make it the perfect overseer of the implementation of its system upon inferior nations that lack the vision or commitment to find and implement the perfect ideals. My impression from how it is coverred in the US is that the UK's early colonialism was simple feudal empire (the Queen is pleased with your venture) and late colonialism was of the Republican empire sort (they need our assigned administration to at least become a poor model of us).
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    Who were the colonisers?
    - roundandround 4y ago
      Private people who follow (or are relatives of) the military and other state personnel of a coloniser are generally the colonists and might be the only colonists unless a state starts forcibly exporting people like the UK and USSR did. (If you mean Napoleon, he was of course defeated and Austria setup a plan to contain France's ambitions, but his colonial aims could already be seen in his short lived satellite government in Switzerland.)
- pjc50 4y ago
  It wasn't colonialist, in that the USSR did not expand into overseas areas of nonwhite people, because by that time there weren't any left uncolonized, but it had all the other attributes of a Russian empire over the satellite republics. The liberatory aspects of it collapsed very early on in infighting. Then there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Uni...
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    > It wasn't colonialist, in that the USSR did not expand into overseas areas of nonwhite people That is a peculiar definition of "colonialist". For instance, the ancient Romans colonized Great Britain, despite the fact that the Romans and the Britons were both "white". The Arabs colonized Spain, despite the fact that the Arabs were "non-white" (by some definitions) and the Spaniards were "white". The Mongols colonized a whole bunch of areas, of pretty much every ethnicity that exists in Eastern Europe and a large swath of Asia. And so on.
exizt88 4y ago
There was a much more pragmatic fundamental reason for the regime to start the war: siloviki don’t tolerate democratic governments on their borders, as they might inspire the repressed population to demand the same democracy. Pride in the empire is an ideological crutch to explain the war rather than a reason for it. Also it’s just “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  >Also it’s just “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. // In en-gb "the Ukraine" is the established form; without "the" it sounds strange. There's no academy that dictates acceptable form for English language. Do you think it's unclear? Is there a good reason to be a language fascist on this point?
  - exizt88 4y ago
    Financial Times, The Times and the BBC all omit the “the”. So I’d say that this is the established form. The “the Ukraine” form was used to refer to Ukrainian territory being part of the USSR or the Russian empire in the past. But the language seems to have evolved now to omit the article. Also I don’t think I’m being a fascist about it at all.
jack_riminton 4y ago
Does everything have to be so black and white? The article clearly states "pride, as well as shame" Everything to do with colonialism = bad is such a boneheaded simplification, thank god there are academics brave enough to look at it from a non-hysterical perspective Also pride leading to invasion is a non sequitur, Germans can be proud of Autobahns without wanting to invade Poland again
- nhchris 4y ago
  > Everything to do with colonialism = bad European colonialism. Take a look at Wikipedia's article on Muslim-colonized Spain, and it's almost nothing but praise. The entire opening section doesn't even mention the slavery of non-Muslims that was practiced. Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, al-Andalus was a center of learning, and the city of Córdoba, the second largest in Europe, became one of the leading cultural and economic centers throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus
justinclift 4y ago
Isn't it more one specific person's ego, wanting to leave their mark in history before they shuffle off?
- vkou 4y ago
  Only if you ignore the spectacular resurgence of nationalism, revanchism, and 'make Russia great again' rhetoric that has completely embedded itself in the culture in the past twenty years. Of course it was driven top-down, but I don't see how that has any bearing on anything. The US didn't invade Iraq because there was some kind of grassroots fear of it in particular, and the English didn't get an empire spanning half the world because some blokes down at the local thought it was a swell idea.

I will happily point out that pride in the former empire is exactly what's driving Russian aggression in the Ukraine at this moment.

by vkou 4y ago

I will happily point out that pride in the former empire is exactly what's driving Russian aggression in the Ukraine at this moment.

fromseashore 4y ago

[flagged]

gattilorenz 4y ago
It’s not “first and foremost”: you literally have nothing else to add to the discussion, besides spitting out russian propaganda.
- fromseashore 4y ago
  [flagged]

drekipus 4y ago

Was the USSR an "empire" in the imperial sense (genuine question) ? I had thought the revolution was to destroy all that, remove the czar, bring in autocratic states, etc. I feel like there is a distinction here but I can't easily point to it. But they were very anti-empire afaik

brazzy 4y ago
An empire is not defined by its internal form of government, but by having a poweful core state that keeps other territories (provinces, colonies, client states) in permanent subservience.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Surely not, an empire has an emperor/empress (an Imperator of some sort).
  - brazzy 4y ago
    No, that is not the definition used by historians and political scholars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire#Definition Because what some ruler calls him- or herself isn't really a useful category.
qsort 4y ago
The usual definition of an empire is a state where a dominant group uses an imperial elite to extract resources from peripheral groups. If you accept this definition, the USSR was an empire in the exact same sense the Romans or the British were, they just instantiated the template a little differently.
roundandround 4y ago
I think the USSR was a colonialist empire in the post Napolean Republican sense. The ideals of the exceptional Republic make it the perfect overseer of the implementation of its system upon inferior nations that lack the vision or commitment to find and implement the perfect ideals. My impression from how it is coverred in the US is that the UK's early colonialism was simple feudal empire (the Queen is pleased with your venture) and late colonialism was of the Republican empire sort (they need our assigned administration to at least become a poor model of us).
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Who were the colonisers?
  - roundandround 4y ago
    Private people who follow (or are relatives of) the military and other state personnel of a coloniser are generally the colonists and might be the only colonists unless a state starts forcibly exporting people like the UK and USSR did. (If you mean Napoleon, he was of course defeated and Austria setup a plan to contain France's ambitions, but his colonial aims could already be seen in his short lived satellite government in Switzerland.)
pjc50 4y ago
It wasn't colonialist, in that the USSR did not expand into overseas areas of nonwhite people, because by that time there weren't any left uncolonized, but it had all the other attributes of a Russian empire over the satellite republics. The liberatory aspects of it collapsed very early on in infighting. Then there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Uni...
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > It wasn't colonialist, in that the USSR did not expand into overseas areas of nonwhite people That is a peculiar definition of "colonialist". For instance, the ancient Romans colonized Great Britain, despite the fact that the Romans and the Britons were both "white". The Arabs colonized Spain, despite the fact that the Arabs were "non-white" (by some definitions) and the Spaniards were "white". The Mongols colonized a whole bunch of areas, of pretty much every ethnicity that exists in Eastern Europe and a large swath of Asia. And so on.

exizt88 4y ago

There was a much more pragmatic fundamental reason for the regime to start the war: siloviki don’t tolerate democratic governments on their borders, as they might inspire the repressed population to demand the same democracy. Pride in the empire is an ideological crutch to explain the war rather than a reason for it. Also it’s just “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
>Also it’s just “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. // In en-gb "the Ukraine" is the established form; without "the" it sounds strange. There's no academy that dictates acceptable form for English language. Do you think it's unclear? Is there a good reason to be a language fascist on this point?
- exizt88 4y ago
  Financial Times, The Times and the BBC all omit the “the”. So I’d say that this is the established form. The “the Ukraine” form was used to refer to Ukrainian territory being part of the USSR or the Russian empire in the past. But the language seems to have evolved now to omit the article. Also I don’t think I’m being a fascist about it at all.

jack_riminton 4y ago

Does everything have to be so black and white? The article clearly states "pride, as well as shame" Everything to do with colonialism = bad is such a boneheaded simplification, thank god there are academics brave enough to look at it from a non-hysterical perspective Also pride leading to invasion is a non sequitur, Germans can be proud of Autobahns without wanting to invade Poland again

nhchris 4y ago
> Everything to do with colonialism = bad European colonialism. Take a look at Wikipedia's article on Muslim-colonized Spain, and it's almost nothing but praise. The entire opening section doesn't even mention the slavery of non-Muslims that was practiced. Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, al-Andalus was a center of learning, and the city of Córdoba, the second largest in Europe, became one of the leading cultural and economic centers throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus

justinclift 4y ago

Isn't it more one specific person's ego, wanting to leave their mark in history before they shuffle off?

vkou 4y ago
Only if you ignore the spectacular resurgence of nationalism, revanchism, and 'make Russia great again' rhetoric that has completely embedded itself in the culture in the past twenty years. Of course it was driven top-down, but I don't see how that has any bearing on anything. The US didn't invade Iraq because there was some kind of grassroots fear of it in particular, and the English didn't get an empire spanning half the world because some blokes down at the local thought it was a swell idea.