On Oct 16, 2011, at 8:34 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> If memory serves somebody (Woj? Shane?) wrote in sometime ago to
> argue against the idea of a Soviet empire, basically saying that the
> USSR did not rip off its client states, did not exact tribute,...but
> helped by minimizing corruption, educating its cadre, subsidizing
> their needs for natural resources, etc.
I certainly never wrote any nonsense like that, not to mention that I would never call the Russian empire a "Soviet" empire. The exploitation was rank--Tito exposed it already in 1948. COMECON, with its one-way (satellite to Russian but not satellite to satellite) "convertible" rubles was a systematic ripoff engine dictating terms of trade from the Kremlin, and Czechoslovakia was ravaged like the Navajo nation to extract the uranium for atomic weapons and Chernobyl.
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos