Russian anti-Semitism

[ChrisD(RJ)]

James Heartfield wrote:
I'm sure others know better than I, but my recollection is that the late 
Soviet nationalities policy actively promoted parochial allegiances - 
perhaps part of the reason that Chechen separatism became uncontainable.
------------------
The Chechnya situation is compounded by the fact that Stalin deported the
population en masse because a large percentage had collaborated with the
Nazis. I don't know when they were repatriated.

The tribalism that helped tear apart the USSR was just lunatic. Everybody
wanted their own little ethnically based statelet -- regardless of what the
prospects for that statelet would be. It should have been obvious to
everyone that an independent Georgia and Moldova are totally unviable.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the dissolution of the USSR
by its member republics has got to be just about the dumbest geopolitical
move I can think of in living memory (that is, if what you care about is
conditions in the FSU, and not becoming tsar of your little piece of the
FSU, which was what the elites in Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, etc., were
after). Gorby (and Bush I, by the way) were both 100% correct in predicting
it would be a disaster.

Chris Doss
The Russia Journal