Wonderful article, I have a bit to contribute: "The words "Soviet" and "union" are worth a moment's reflection. They were extremely meaningful, and they were o

Wonderful article, I have a bit to contribute: "The words "Soviet" and "union" are worth a moment's reflection. They were extremely meaningful, and they were originally devised to replace two other words: "Russian" and "empire." If the republics were no longer bound together by their supposed Marxist-Leninist ideological fraternity, what would happen to a "Soviet Union"?" This is not clear to non-slavic speakers, but Soviet is the anglicized form of "suvetski", from the base "Suvet" meaning "committee". These Suveti/committees were the secret gatherings of communists/bolsheviks dating back to the late 1800s/early 1900s.