|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Chris Doss
||
|| Just a small comment on this bit by Hakki:
||
|| Any non-Russian citizen of former Comecon countries or former Soviet
|| republics will agree that the USSR was imperialist, and will
|| probably spit
|| or swear when doing so :)
||
|| This is true as far as the Baltics go, but a lot of people in the
Just the Baltics? How about Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, ex-Yugo, ex-Czech, etc. How about the Kazakhs who still can't stop growing two heads from the radiation at Semipalatinsk, or the Uzbeks who've had their Aral sea destroyed and get their electricity cut off by Putin who wants their oil? The Ukranians may be so desperate now that they caved but they have an ancestral hatred of the Russian occupier who outlawed their language. Of course, it's natural people miss the old days seeing the shit they're in now but it's not because they're crazy about the Russians.
|| non-Russian CIS rue the day the USSR fell. Armenia, Uzbekistan,
|| Georgia all
|| had their economies ripped to shreds when the coordinated
|| production system
|| of the USSR was shattered. Belarus is actually attempting to unite with
|| Russia, while Ukraine has observer status in the Russia-Belarusian Union
|| process and Moldova under the new Communist government wants unification
|| (which is impossible because it's separated by the Trans-Dniestr). The
|| governments of Uzbekistan, Georgia under Bloody Eduard
|| Shevardnadze, etc.
|| are anti-Russian, but a lot of the population outside of
|| ultra-nationalists
|| thinks being close to Russia is absolutely necessary. This is just
|| anecdotal, but it is very rare that I meet an Armenian or Caucasian who
|| doesn't mourn the demise of the Soviet Union. And I live in
|| Moscow, where
|| living standards are about 10 times as high as in Armenia.
||
|| BTW, one reason that Russia is being so accommodating seems to
|| be that the
|| Kremlin thinks that, as the one ally the US absolutely needs in
|| its attacks
|| on Afghanistan, it will be able to reestablish its influence
|| over the other
|| FSU republics. Shevardnadze, who is in a serious political crisis at the
|| moment, is used to getting American backing. Which seems to
|| have dried up
|| for some reason...
Yeah it looks like the US is going to give Russia a cut of the proceeds whichever way the pipelines go. That's what Condy meant when she said the US was not aiming to exclude Russia from the oil business. That also means no more US-Saudi support for the Chechens.
||
|| Chris Doss
|| The Russia Journal