Talk politics.

Er.....by the standard of its successors, the USSR was more functional than any of them. Including the Russian Federation and the Baltic states.

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devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com

I have a Bulgarian friend who would not agree with you.

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Except Bulgaria was never part of the USSR or the historical Russian Empires. Bulgaria was also responsible for a bloody ethnic cleansing of Turks, which in any case does not matter because we all know Muslim lives are worth less than Christian ones. /snerkgrowlmutternsnarl.

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devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com

Bulgaria was a puppet state controlled by the Soviet Union. My friend was in the military and took part in Warsaw Pact exercises. He said the Russian troops treated Bulgarians like crap; he and everyone in his unit despised the Russians. His father was murdered for holding moderate nationalist views in the Communist Party.

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Yes, it was a part of the Warsaw Pact. That does not change that my original post was relating to the former USSR and the 15 or so states that replaced it, not the Warsaw Pact states. If I wanted to get into that mess my post would have been TL;DR.

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devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com

Okey dokey.

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As a Bulgarian, my imput might have some value, I suppose.

That said, Bulgaria was widely regarded as the '16th USSR republic' both by Russians and Bulgarians. Todor Jivkov even actually applied for USSR membership, but he was told to fuck off. Our history of servility is very long.

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Bulgaria was also responsible for a bloody ethnic cleansing of Turks

What??? Are you sure? Source please? Are you sure you're not confusing the country here, or just talking out your ass? Do you have any idea of the relations between Christians and Muslims here in Bulgaria?

If you're referring to the pitiful attempt of Todor Jivkov to change the names of the Turks in the mid 80's, that's far from the blood ethnic cleansing which the Ottomans systematically performed on Bulgarians for the duration of well over 500 years. It's a whole miracle that there are still 7 million Bulgarians existing today, and another 7 million abroad. But the even bigger miracle is that, despite all that the Turks have done here, and with the exception of that short 2-year period in the 80's when Jivkov tried to take a small revenge by forcefully assimilating part of them and expelling the other part back into Turkey, the relations between Turks and Bulgarians in Bulgaria have been exemplary. They even have their own ethnic party (ethnic party!) which has participated in governments for the last decade and a half. Go figure.

So next time before you throw allegations, please get your info straight first.

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mahnmut.livejournal.com

I've lost my trust in underlankers' historian credibility a long time ago. Nowadays I realize he's just been playing devil's advocate for the sake of debate. Such an approach is of little value, I admit, but he has had some nuggets of pure LOLZ, I'll give him that.

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I wouldn't be so extreme about it but I guess there are areas where you can really catch him off-guard.

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Well, Bulgaria was once a heavily Muslim area prior to its few elements that wanted a nation-state inventing one and attempting to exterminate all who did not fit. I'm referring to the 19th Century Bulgaria that went from a majority-Muslim society to a majority-Christian society in a way that was far from peaceful.

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The idea of a Bulgarian nation was invented? A majority-Muslim society? Attempting to exterminate?

Really, dude. You lost me. You have no idea what you're talking about. I would've directed you to some sources, but unfortunately (for you), they're in Bulgarian. Keep living in your delusions, and among your books.

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Here, educate yourself.

http://crcs0.tripod.com/lgivl.html

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Uhm. Being MORE functional than a wreck doesn't mean it's functional. When your economy begins to heavily rely on barter, functional isn't the word I'd use.

And that somewhat repressive part? Yeah not so much.

Part of the reason the USSR collapsed was because it was trying to become less repressive and all the problems came tumbling out.

Now out of curiosity, why exactly do you feel like the only options are the repressive multi-ethnic state and the cleansed nation-state? There is room for middle ground. The problem we're running into with that area is that none of the changes are organic.

I have this theory if the tsarist Russia was allowed to slowly evolve, maybe it'd be nowhere near the state of the UK (I'd imagine it's be a constitutional monarchy type) but the structure for people's rights and other values we find important would be much more stable. (Not to mention they would have gotten to skip the joy of Stalin.) Course the communists preferred to make a big crazy fuss and destroy that particular path to freedom and democracy. I'm not sure at this point we can do anything but attempt to keep human rights violations on check, mind Russia's hungry maw and wait patiently for all those countries to find their way.

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Because those are the only two options. The USA and Canada do not usually revert to Soviet-style repression on a wide scale (though blacks were victims of a long sustained outburst of one version of this, and Japanese victims of another), but there is still some small degree of repression there.

And the only pure "nation-states" that exist got that way from ethnic cleansing.

And Tsarist Russia was desperately attempting to halt all social evolution, period. That's a big part of the reason it disintegrated. The Ottomans were somewhat different, but Imperial Russia was the rotten structure, even more so of one than the USSR.

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Well we can't really know what would have happened if the communists hadn't gone psycho so I suppose we'd better stick to the reality we have. (Although I find building AUs kinda interesting.)

I see what you mean now but the USSR is not remotely an example of minor repression. The population movement was HEAVILY restricted. Never mind trying to move to a different place (and by that I mean moving from one city to another inside the USSR), citizens couldn't even leave the country on vacation. Choice of career was also limited, especially if you were Jewish - heavy university quotas. Access to goods and services? Better hope you know someone real important. Free press? Not at all. It was a totalitarian nightmare state. And I say that as someone who actually had a slightly better deal there because my grandparents were somewhat well placed so we had access to cheese, cold cuts and imported clothing.

I wouldn't wish the return of the USSR on anyone. (Especially not Putin but that's cause he'd enjoy it too much.)

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Well.....no, the USSR wasn't minor repression. I would think the statement here: Yet the USSR and its Romanov predecessor were hardly the most benevolent governments that have ever existed would indicate that I was understating it. Maybe I carry off figures of speech less well than I think I do.

The USSR was worse than the Tsars, but even the Tsars were not exactly an example of a truly benevolent state....

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That's probably my fault. I'm a little woozy so my reading comp may be off.

And certainly the Tsars weren't particularly benevolent. Part of the problem was that pretty much all the Romanovs were insane.

In any case, I don't think your question really has an answer. Actually I'm not sure I agree with your formulation. There are nations that are multi-ethnic and democratic, nations that are multi-ethnic and repressive, nations that are single-ethnic and democratic and nations that are single-ethnic and cleanse-obsessed. I don't think it matters whether the nation has multiple ethnicities. It matters how the nation treads the road to democracy - education, social evolution, etc. Some nations have handled it and others went crazy.

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The multiethnic democracies like the USA and Mexico that exist are much more properly considered empires. At least the USA and Mexico at any rate. Look at how many states exist in Europe and then compare that with North America with a large number crammed into a tiny space and three giant states. The USA-Canada-Mexico-Brazil state is nothing but a different kind of empire.

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So are you then differentiating that from some other kind of multi-ethnic state? Cause I'm not sure where you're going here.

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Yes, I'm saying that multi-ethnic empires with a bit more democracy exist, but the big New World states hardly recognize the validity of other ethnicities. There's been a long string of scares about Germans, blacks, Amerindians, Japanese and so on. There's repression in all such states.

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