A question.....

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Is it always a good thing for a hegemonic power to break down? When the USSR broke up a lot of people were expecting good things to come from it. Instead Russia's more or less returned to dictatorship, most of the smaller former SSRs are dictatorships and/or mired in ethnic conflict, and there's the issue of what happens with the Russians the Soviet government had the desire to colonize non-Russian lands with it. Yet the USSR and its Romanov predecessor were hardly the most benevolent governments that have ever existed. Then there's Habsburg Austria and Austria-Hungary, which did a damn sight better ruling even the Austrians than its successor states have done. There's also the Ottoman Empire, which provided about 6 centuries of peace in the Middle East prior to its dismemberment. The USA, Canada, and Mexico establishing three imperial states has pretty much stifled feuding here on the Continent.

Yet what I don't understand is that some people at least appear to be enthusiastic about national self-determination, which is the root of the ills of places like Yugoslavia and the root of things like the Azeri Genocide and the Rwandan Genocide. So....which is better? A functional but somewhat-repressive multiethnic state or a nation-state democracy that gets that way after it ruthlessly exterminates all minorities it can and expels the ones it can't?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

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.

[evildamsel.livejournal.com]

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.)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

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....

[evildamsel.livejournal.com]

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.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

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.

[evildamsel.livejournal.com]

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

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

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.

[evildamsel.livejournal.com]

I really don't think that's valid - yes there have been serious issues with other ethnicities becoming recognized as equal in the United States and there are still problems with racism (more and less depending on particular location) but to say that the New World states don't recognize the validity of other ethnicities is hyperbole of a great magnitude.