Science, Science and Marxism

[Chris Doss]

Charles said: My brother also said, after a trip to Yugoslavia, that as a
consumer
society, they were fairly well developed (we recently discussed on list
about the nostalgia for the Soviet Union; the ex-Yugoslavs must be even more
devastated by memory).

-------------

Also anecdotally: In the year and a half I have spent in Russia, I have met
one, count 'em, ONE person who thinks the collapse of the USSR was a good
thing. And the people I hang out with are "middle-class" Muscovites, with
university educations and jobs that give them living standards at or near
the level of most middle-class Westerners. (It's hard to explain what
"Muscovite" signifies in Russia. Moscow is like Paris plopped into the
middle of Rumania. It's a completely different country from the rest of
Russia. Moscow plus Moscow Oblast get something like half of the investment
in the economy.)

Most people will tell you that reform of the country was necessary, sure,
but that the collapse of the USSR was an utter catastrophe, and definitely a
crime.

Chris Doss
The Russia Journal