Was the Soviet Union an Empire?

[Lone Wolf]

Nevertheless, if you're honestly arguing that being segregated in the the 20th century U.S. was at all comparable to the conditions in Soviet gulags and other forced labor camps, your credibility speaks for itself.

Who was saying that?

There were many good things about the SU that are hard to dismiss - there's a reason why life expectancy in Kazakhstan is larger then in today's India, why life expectancy in general was rather high by the end of Soviet rule (The low life expectancies in Third World countries suggest that it's by no means a natural process).

Even the old Russian Empire was a mix of colonial and "traditional" imperial characteristics. The traditional ones led to greater benevolence on Moscow's part - since everything is Russian Empire, united and indivisible, the division between exploitative metropoly and subjugated colonies wasn't as pronounced as in the West (fun fact: at least pre-1861 - and possibly more - the majority of Tatar population had it better then the majority of Russian one).

Having said that, describing the relationship of SU and its dependencies as that "of older and younger brothers, the older, more capable and wiser, helping the younger to his feet", is rather naive.

I don't really have a problem with calling SU an empire. Many of its defenders here in Russia call it that way, who am I to argue with them?

 

[warpus]

The soviet union was a continuation of the Russian Empire, and thus an empire in itself.

If you're not gonna call the soviet union an empire, then you might as well not call the mongol empire one, or the roman one, or the German one, etc. It doesn't matter if the artists in the soviet union got 7 weeks vacation time, that doesn't change anything.

 

[Karalysia]

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrr

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Advice to you, Karalysia, and my good friend red elk. It is really not worth the time you waste arguing with the Pappenheimers in this thread. Nothing productive will come of it, it is like wrestling with a pig in the mud.

 

[warpus]

As Cheezy said, the Soviet Union did not have exploitation in the same way that those empires did.

But there was indeed exploitation. Natural resources from Poland were shipped east-wards, after ww2. I don't know for sure about other countries, other posters can fill us in on that, but I'm sure it's the same story there too...

 

[Karalysia]

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrr

 

[North King]

Most definitely it was an empire, as is the United States today. The suggestion that the USSR meant well is utterly irrelevant, because nothing says that empires have to be evil; the suggestion that they didn't exploit their conquered neighbors is utterly naive.

 

[warpus]

We should judge an entire countries existence by post-World War II looting?

... that's what an empire does. We're not judging, we're trying to determine if the soviet union was an empire.

And tell me, who rebuilt Poland? Who built Poland's heavy industries, who rebuilt its cities, its railroads,housing, infrastructure? It was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union gave far more to the members of the Warsaw Pact than it got from them.

That doesn't really matter. The Roman empire rebuilt newly conquered territories too. After they conquered Gaul, for instance, they built towns, aqueducts, and so on. This has NOTHING TO DO with the question of empire.

 

[Yeekim]

In the Soviet Union, the highest paid people were artists, writers, professors, administrators, and scientists who earned between 1200-1500 rouubles a month. Government officals earned 600 roubles a month. Enterprise directors earned 190-400 roubles a month and workers 150 roubles a month.

And yes, the salary of Soviet professor was comparable to miner's salary.

At least you know what you are talking about, here. Although you could rather say that a lucky professor could earn as much as a miner.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

you know, it's getting very tiring to read posts from various idiots who praise communism... If you think it was so fun, how do you explain that everyone from this fairy tale lands wanted to run from it and almost 0 persons wanted the other way around? If almost everyone in the Warsaw pact hates URSS, then probably it ain't all of them fools, but it's you who's the fool...

it was an empire allright and an uncivilized one for the matter... much like it's predecessor.

P.S.

In the Soviet Union, the highest paid people were artists, writers, professors, administrators, and scientists who earned between 1200-1500 rouubles a month. Government officals earned 600 roubles a month. Enterprise directors earned 190-400 roubles a month and workers 150 roubles a month.

that shows that you know exactly nothing. We all had money, you moron!

The issue was we had nothing to spend them on; we had no goods that we could purchase. It was a barter economy; if you were a director, you were stealing from your factory and exchange what you got for food or whatever else you needed and overall you were way better no matter what wage you had...

Money? At least in Romania, at the end of communism probably everyone had at least 30-50 wages in savings; most even more. I'm talking about ppl. in the 40s' or so, who worked less then 20 years. Do you think everyone was careful and saved for old age? No... you just didn't have products to buy.

You are all posting statistics imagining it's like in your nice little country(which you hate, but none run to live in a Warsaw pact country); no, here, on paper, the economy was booming. Pity none saw this in reality but the paper it was printed upon... There's only one use for those papers with statistics and that involves a toilet.

 

[Dragonlord]

Well Wikipedia says an empire is

Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples (ethnic groups) united and ruled either by a monarch (emperor, empress) or an oligarchy.

By that definition, I'd say they were. They did rule over an extensive amount of states (i.e. Central Asia, Baltic states) that were of different ethnic groups.

I agree - accepting that definition, the SU was certainly an empire - if you accept the nomenclatura of the Party as the equivalent of an oligarchy, which I do

That definition is missing an important part: exploitation. Empires conquer other areas for their resources and subjugate their peoples, exploiting them in order to increase their own wealth. This was not the case with the Soviet Union, so though it may have ruled over a great variety of peoples and places, it did not behave imperially, so it was not an Empire. The attitude of the USSR towards both its republics and the Warsaw Pact was not one of father and son, or slave master and servant, or even one of client and benefactor; it was of older and younger brothers, the older, more capable and wiser, helping the younger to his feet.

And now you may cue the Eastern European naysayers, who will most assuredly whine about supposed one-sided trade agreements, East German factories, and Uzbek cotton. Maybe even a comparison to British India will arise. You never know what to expect from this place.

No Eastern Europeans needed - I lol'd . Are you really serious?

Just why do you think the people of all the Warsaw Pact countries rebelled, one after the other, in 1989 and after? Including the former Soviet Republics and even the people of Russia itself? Because of the great equality they enjoyed? Because they were all ingrates who bit the hand that had so liberally fed them?

Oh my aching ribs!

It's true that a professor and a miner were roughly equal - equal in being allowed to wait in long lines before almost-empty stores and wait 10 years to buy a car - if you can could call the antiquated rattletraps they eventually got cars.

Of course, just as in Animal Farm, some were more equal than others: the Party nomenclatura had their dachas and bought in special stores where only foreign exchange was accepted.

And before you say: "Western propaganda" - I have any number of friends and acquaintances from the former East Germany who actually lived in that system .... it's all true.

Edit: x-post with Snowlywhite - he said it better than I did! I fully agree

 

[SnowlyWhite]

yeah, and btw - you could be a university professor if you had solid connections in the party and you were crap professionally; but sure as hell you couldn't be an university professor if you were not in the party.

 

[Dragonlord]

yeah, and btw - you could be a university professor if you had solid connections in the party and you were crap professionally; but sure as hell you couldn't be an university professor if you were not in the party.

And another BTW - it was relatively easy to go to university if you were, say, the son of a coal miner - but woe betide the son of a 'bourgeois' who wasn't a Party member. No university place for such an 'enemy of the people'.

Not equality, no - reverse elitism. Or rather, a new elite, based on 'political reliability.

 

[LightSpectra]

In another example, USSR appeared to have relatively high income inequality: by some estimates, in the late 70's, Gini coefficient of its urban population was as high as 0.38[14], which is higher than many Western countries today. This apparent inequality ignored the fact that many benefits received by Soviet citizens were nonmonetary and were afforded regardless of income: these benefits included, among others, free child care for children as young as 2 months, free elementary, secondary and higher education, free cradle-to-grave medical care, free or heavily subsidized housing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#General_problems_of_measurement

On-paper benefits such as "cradle-to-grave medical care" don't mean much when the standard of medical care is grossly lower than in Western liberal democracies, even for those without insurance, yeah?

We should judge an entire countries existence by post-World War II looting?

And tell me, who rebuilt Poland? Who built Poland's heavy industries, who rebuilt its cities, its railroads,housing, infrastructure? It was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union gave far more to the members of the Warsaw Pact than it got from them.

I just figured out why there's such an enormous disconnect here: you view human beings as commodities. You're not bothered that Stalin murdered so many people, because it was in the name of the proletariat. Your abstract vision of human equality is far more important than actual humans; hence why you think the Soviet Union was a force for good when they rebuilt industry in the Iron Curtain, despite the fact that political and human rights were viciously curbed and opting out of the system resulted in death. All of those things are secondary to the fact that those mean old CEOs won't get paid too much.

 

[Yeekim]

No Eastern Europeans needed - I lol'd . Are you really serious?

Well, I have to admit that Cheezy is actually pretty correct in saying that economical exploitation of its "client states" and "borderlands" was not part of Soviet economic policy - at least not decisively so.
I won't even pretend I could try and calculate the trade balance between various Soviet republics, or between USSR and Warsaw pact (even if I knew the exact real values of investments made vs resources and goods extracted - are hundreds of thousands of Russian colonists net asset or net liability? Are submarine bases and missile silos left behind net asset or net liability? What about factories to produce heavy machinery - about as necessary to ore-less Estonia as bicycle to a fish? What about damage to environment caused by terribly wasteful and irresponsible management? What about resources spent to keep up a vast and equally wasteful military juggernaut? etc etc ).
Yet to be honest, it must be said, that borderlands were often treated better than heartlands in order to keep them more loyal. Novocherkassk hunger riots took place in Russia proper, while life Caucasian republics and Baltics (or in East Germany) was relatively good.
On the other hand, USSR simply didn't need its European conquests to provide national resources, as it retained what was de facto a vast and resource-rich colonial empire of Romanovs - Siberia.

As final judgement, I'd say Traitorfish before was spot on in saying that in the end, this is not all that counts. People didn't get fed up with Soviet rule because they were ruthlessly exploited in economic sense of the word - they rebelled because they lacked basic democratic freedoms - and because even without exploitation, life still objectively sucked.

Opportunity cost of this great and failed economic experiment is the problem here. As I've said on this forums before, in 1939, living standards in Estonia and Finland were roughly equal, probably with slight lead for Estonia. In 1991, there was a vast gap.

 

[Dragonlord]

@Yeekim:

I don't disagree - my was more about this part:

The attitude of the USSR towards both its republics and the Warsaw Pact was not one of father and son, or slave master and servant, or even one of client and benefactor; it was of older and younger brothers, the older, more capable and wiser, helping the younger to his feet.

That is so incredibly apologistic and naive..

Though, from a few threads I viewed today, I finally understand where Cheezy is coming from: he's a 22 yr-old working as a cook in a restaurant, with no paid vacation and doubtless ill-paid as well. Experiencing the worst of US capitalism, the Soviet system must look pretty good, when all you know of it is from books, of which he seems to have read quite a few. I actually sympathize.

The Soviet Union certainly wasn't Reagan's 'Empire of evil', but it wasn't any 'worker's paradise' either, Cheezy.
You'd do far better in Europe than you ever would have in the Soviet Union, trust me on that.

 

[Yeekim]

That is so incredibly apologistic and naive..

Yeah, that originally cracked me up as well. But in afterthought I realized I wasn't doing him complete justice.

Though, from a few threads I viewed today, I finally understand where Cheezy is coming from: he's a 22 yr-old working as a cook in a restaurant, with no paid vacation and doubtless ill-paid as well. Experiencing the worst of US capitalism, the Soviet system must look pretty good, when all you know of it is from books, of which he seems to have read quite a few. I actually sympathize.

I concur.

 

[red_elk]

On-paper benefits such as "cradle-to-grave medical care" don't mean much when the standard of medical care is grossly lower than in Western liberal democracies, even for those without insurance, yeah?

Hmm.. on-paper benefits?
First 15 years of my life I lived in nice 2-bedroom apartment which my parents - simple workers, not members of party or nomenclature, got for free. I personally got all the other mentioned benefits - free child and medical care, free elementary, secondary and good high education. At least my Canadian employers don't consider it bad.

Standard of medical care in USSR was higher than in some liberal democracies, such as Brazil or India, and comparable to those in Western liberal democracies.

 

[Squonk]

That definition is missing an important part: exploitation. Empires conquer other areas for their resources and subjugate their peoples, exploiting them in order to increase their own wealth. This was not the case with the Soviet Union, so though it may have ruled over a great variety of peoples and places, it did not behave imperially, so it was not an Empire. The attitude of the USSR towards both its republics and the Warsaw Pact was not one of father and son, or slave master and servant, or even one of client and benefactor; it was of older and younger brothers, the older, more capable and wiser, helping the younger to his feet.

And now you may cue the Eastern European naysayers, who will most assuredly whine about supposed one-sided trade agreements, East German factories, and Uzbek cotton. Maybe even a comparison to British India will arise. You never know what to expect from this place.

This is a laughable statement. Soviet Union robbed all industrial machines and artwork it could right after the war, forced us to sign "trade agreements" in which we were giving them coal etc on pre-war prices, and, when it comes to uranium, they were just exploiting it for themselves.
Moreover, thousands of miners from my region were abducted by SU and forced to labour in inner Soviet Union.

It doesn't mean that it was always so. I'm pretty certain that deals between Egypt and USSR were good for Egypt, because SU wanted to gain it politically by offering it good conditions. In the case of Poland and the rest, it had no need to be so kind.

Also, the exploitation was an undeniable fact in the 40s, 50s, but I'm not sure if it was so in the 80s still.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

Standard of medical care in USSR was higher than in some liberal democracies, such as Brazil or India, and comparable to those in Western liberal democracies.

The medical system wasn't too bad. That being said, nowdays, when doctors can travel freely, they emigrate in droves from all the ex communist countries.... wonder why. And you're posting from Canada...