4 ms·

'Soviet' is not a name, it is a political term, so I don't see why you cannot apply it to countries with USSR-like regimes, even if they don't carry S in their

'Soviet' is not a name, it is a political term, so I don't see why you cannot apply it to countries with USSR-like regimes, even if they don't carry S in their name. For the curious, it is translated as 'council'.

flohofwoe 3y ago
True, but at least to me "Soviet era" is associated with the Soviet Union. As someone who grew up in Eastern Germany I would actually have expected that it is about a computer produced in the Soviet Union when reading "Soviet-era computer" (despite popular belief, not everything east of the iron curtain was part of the Soviet Union, countries had varying degrees of independence, even though the Soviet influence ran deep and depending on time and place was actually an occupation. Within the group of European socialist countries, Yugoslavia was the most independent from the Soviet Union, and at times even an open opponent.
- acqq 3y ago
  Indeed: https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-truman-requests-aid-to-yugoslavia-nov-14-1951-099817 https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-truman-requests... "The United States then began inching closer to Tito, supporting his regime rhetorically, economically and, finally, militarily, in order to ensure that Yugoslavia would remain out of the Soviet orbit. Throughout the Cold War, American officials saw in Tito a useful example of a communist leader who was not under the Kremlin’s thumb." ... "With congressional assent, the United States and Yugoslavia signed a bilateral military agreement in November 1951 that tacitly incorporated Yugoslavia into NATO’s defensive web."
  - acqq 3y ago
    Cold War Diplomacy - Defense Treaties of the United States https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mutdef.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mutdef.asp (in 1949-1951) - 1949 - NATO Treaty; April 4 - 1951 - Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27 - 1951 - Defense of Iceland: Agreement Between the United States and the Republic of Iceland, May 5 - 1951 - Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines; August 30 - 1951 - Security Treaty Between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand (ANZUS); September 1 - 1951 - Military Facilities in the Azores: Agreement Between Portugal and the United States, September 6 - 1951 - Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan; September 8 - 1951 - Military Assistance Agreement Between the United States and Yugoslavia, November 14
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Soviet > A communist. Yugoslav > An unfaithful communist. These good relations with USA did real good when their country was obliterated to shreds when it was no longer needed. Sigh.
    - acqq 3y ago
      > These good relations with USA did real good when their country was obliterated to shreds when it was no longer needed. The US had these teachers: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00008130 https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/978019... Always new counties which have to experience that.
ivan_gammel 3y ago
Can you please define this political term and explain why it can be used in this context? Application of it to Yugoslavia seems very unusual to me. Its history normally does not include "Soviet Era".
- thriftwy 3y ago
  As I see, it means something akin to "People's Democracy" which is an alternative terms of some other left authoritarian regimes.
  - ivan_gammel 3y ago
    Haven't heard of anything like that. Looks like it is some American pop culture definition that reduces the history of Europe to a few very broadly defined buckets to reduce the intellectual workload. It is often called ignorance. Do you think it makes sense to continue saying it is a valid use?
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      Well, yeah, but it's the same way on the other side of the Curtain: Such as, France had its own nuclear weapons and was in complicated relationship with NATO, but it gets totally conflated into the Western bloc with no reservations. Same with neutral Sweden and even Finland. So I don't see any point to nitpick.
      - ivan_gammel 3y ago
        I don’t know really how things are in the new members of EU, but Russia is indeed a twin of USA in everything, including the ignorance and isolation of political discourse. It doesn’t mean that because Russia has it, it is a good thing.
    - Koshkin 3y ago
      > Haven't heard of anything like that. (Speaking of ignorance.) The parent knows what they're talking about. "The people's democracies" was indeed the term that was customarily used within the Soviet block to include countries that did not belong to said block but otherwise lived under similar regimes.
nsajko 3y ago
It still doesn't apply to Yugoslavia.
- Koshkin 3y ago
  Well, Yugoslavia did cease to exist as soon as the "Soviet era" had ended.
malermeister 3y ago
It's specifically not a USSR-like regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split
- Koshkin 3y ago
  Like. Absolutely. Because communist dictatorship. Like China. With differences (and perhaps more freedom), but still.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    That's a very reductive view. Yugoslavia didn't have a top-down economy the same way soviet countries did, it had a market of worker-run coops (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_self-management) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_self-management). It also wasn't allied with the Soviet Bloc, but a leader of its own block of non-aligned countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement). Yugoslavs also enjoyed much greater Freedoms, at one point having the strongest passport in the world - the only one that allowed for free travel to both the West and the East. Yugoslavia was Soviet during the Cold War the same way Switzerland was Nazi during WW2 - not at all, just neutral.
deleted 3y ago
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herculity275 3y ago
"Soviet", in both English and Russian, very specifically refers to the USSR. I'm not aware of anyone (be it Westerners, Soviets or Yugoslavians themselves) calling Yugoslavia Soviet.

flohofwoe 3y ago

True, but at least to me "Soviet era" is associated with the Soviet Union. As someone who grew up in Eastern Germany I would actually have expected that it is about a computer produced in the Soviet Union when reading "Soviet-era computer" (despite popular belief, not everything east of the iron curtain was part of the Soviet Union, countries had varying degrees of independence, even though the Soviet influence ran deep and depending on time and place was actually an occupation. Within the group of European socialist countries, Yugoslavia was the most independent from the Soviet Union, and at times even an open opponent.

acqq 3y ago
Indeed: https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-truman-requests-aid-to-yugoslavia-nov-14-1951-099817 https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-truman-requests... "The United States then began inching closer to Tito, supporting his regime rhetorically, economically and, finally, militarily, in order to ensure that Yugoslavia would remain out of the Soviet orbit. Throughout the Cold War, American officials saw in Tito a useful example of a communist leader who was not under the Kremlin’s thumb." ... "With congressional assent, the United States and Yugoslavia signed a bilateral military agreement in November 1951 that tacitly incorporated Yugoslavia into NATO’s defensive web."
- acqq 3y ago
  Cold War Diplomacy - Defense Treaties of the United States https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mutdef.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mutdef.asp (in 1949-1951) - 1949 - NATO Treaty; April 4 - 1951 - Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27 - 1951 - Defense of Iceland: Agreement Between the United States and the Republic of Iceland, May 5 - 1951 - Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines; August 30 - 1951 - Security Treaty Between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand (ANZUS); September 1 - 1951 - Military Facilities in the Azores: Agreement Between Portugal and the United States, September 6 - 1951 - Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan; September 8 - 1951 - Military Assistance Agreement Between the United States and Yugoslavia, November 14
- thriftwy 3y ago
  Soviet > A communist. Yugoslav > An unfaithful communist. These good relations with USA did real good when their country was obliterated to shreds when it was no longer needed. Sigh.
  - acqq 3y ago
    > These good relations with USA did real good when their country was obliterated to shreds when it was no longer needed. The US had these teachers: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00008130 https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/978019... Always new counties which have to experience that.

ivan_gammel 3y ago

Can you please define this political term and explain why it can be used in this context? Application of it to Yugoslavia seems very unusual to me. Its history normally does not include "Soviet Era".

thriftwy 3y ago
As I see, it means something akin to "People's Democracy" which is an alternative terms of some other left authoritarian regimes.
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  Haven't heard of anything like that. Looks like it is some American pop culture definition that reduces the history of Europe to a few very broadly defined buckets to reduce the intellectual workload. It is often called ignorance. Do you think it makes sense to continue saying it is a valid use?
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Well, yeah, but it's the same way on the other side of the Curtain: Such as, France had its own nuclear weapons and was in complicated relationship with NATO, but it gets totally conflated into the Western bloc with no reservations. Same with neutral Sweden and even Finland. So I don't see any point to nitpick.
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
      I don’t know really how things are in the new members of EU, but Russia is indeed a twin of USA in everything, including the ignorance and isolation of political discourse. It doesn’t mean that because Russia has it, it is a good thing.
  - Koshkin 3y ago
    > Haven't heard of anything like that. (Speaking of ignorance.) The parent knows what they're talking about. "The people's democracies" was indeed the term that was customarily used within the Soviet block to include countries that did not belong to said block but otherwise lived under similar regimes.

nsajko 3y ago

It still doesn't apply to Yugoslavia.

Koshkin 3y ago
Well, Yugoslavia did cease to exist as soon as the "Soviet era" had ended.

malermeister 3y ago

It's specifically not a USSR-like regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split

Koshkin 3y ago
Like. Absolutely. Because communist dictatorship. Like China. With differences (and perhaps more freedom), but still.
- malermeister 3y ago
  That's a very reductive view. Yugoslavia didn't have a top-down economy the same way soviet countries did, it had a market of worker-run coops (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_self-management) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_self-management). It also wasn't allied with the Soviet Bloc, but a leader of its own block of non-aligned countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement). Yugoslavs also enjoyed much greater Freedoms, at one point having the strongest passport in the world - the only one that allowed for free travel to both the West and the East. Yugoslavia was Soviet during the Cold War the same way Switzerland was Nazi during WW2 - not at all, just neutral.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

herculity275 3y ago

"Soviet", in both English and Russian, very specifically refers to the USSR. I'm not aware of anyone (be it Westerners, Soviets or Yugoslavians themselves) calling Yugoslavia Soviet.