@Romiro :
- Poland has history since the 10°s... which make it one of the oldest country in the world.
- Countries were deserting USSR, since G. make it possible to them by modifiing constitution. Maybe he should have summon red army to keep them in... We clearly not have the same value on this point as you mentionned. But please explain me what he should have done.
- I'm not sure economic statistic have to be believed. Maybe you can provide me some good statistic which are reliable. I'm impatient to read it.
- USSR showed that one block with socialistic economy can successfully compete with whole world and provide better quality of live. West blocks have high level of life only with third worlds resources, so we include them too. Hum, weren't there third world countries trading with you? ... I agree that wealth is based on exploiting ressources, and that western countries have been taking advantage on the other countries... But please, just be a little more partial. If people were so happy of their quality of lives, why are they be so many people fleing USSR, or in Goulag.

@ Ikalukin : Yes, uncompetitive industries have been lost, and the centralization/massification system when USRR splitted let some country poorer than others... But the USRR never took in time the idea of cunsumption goods, and heavy industries was already condemned before the explosion.
Elstine for me was not a great leader, he just took advantage of the situation.
G. has try to implement change for the best of. He did it without using force. Maybe for you he seems weak as he has put an end to years of world domination of Russia, not for me. Only great man are able to abandon power when they have power to keep it. USSR was already in bad shape before him, he just avoid a great part of the bloodshade when it came to an end.

On the bloodshed topics : maybe you can compare the number of people who have been killed per year in goulag, between 1920 & 1990, and compare it with the same stat due to nationalism issue between the 1990 & nowadays, and tell me if it was better before.

I think he's watching FOX news... he must have a gun and think it is normal situation to be able to protect himself against foe...

How death penalty in the USSR correlated with the ethnic purges in the republics?
1930-1956 799 455 sentenced to capital punishment
1960-1989 24 422 sentenced to capital punishment
In Chechnya, for example, in 90th more than 160 000 people was killed and 46 000 was enslaved.
For 20 years 830 000 suicides. Only in Russia, I haven't data for republics.
In general people losses from 90th estimated about 30 millions. Premature death and fertility decline. Economic losses subject for a separate thread.

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Hitler's reaction on Ultimate patch

Unlike Stalin (who wasnt a nice guy either) there was no positive outcome of 90s and the fall of the USSR. There was no more freedom, not better level of life in post soviet space (until the 2000s for Russia which is the reason why so many love Putin)
Sure you want to go into democracy and market economy, but destroying existing institutions and hoping that new ones will pop up is retarded and counter productive.

Dissolution of the USSR was forced, and many states have suffered hardships as they were heavily subsidized by the soviet heartland.
More so complex industries (the like of Airbus in EU) do require the multistate cooperation, which was killed overnight. Also due to rapid change majority of managers found themselves incompetent, due to forced market conditions (unregulated market was forced, which is a bad thing especially in post communism state)

And a lot of other things, showing how incompetent those decisions were and how dearly we have payed for them.

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We need more missilez code for the missilez god.
Praslovan:
"Tactical Ikalugin inbound on this position in 10... 9..."

Poland (Second Polish Republic) was created in 1918, after WWI. In 1939 it was defeated by Germany and Soviet Union, but polish government didn't surrender to neither Germans nor Russians.
Poland was never part of Soviet Union. Poland was only dependent from Soviet Union and it was archived by force. Polish troops (AK - polish underground army) fought with Soviet Union long after WWII ended. Last Cursed Solider, as they were called, was caught in 1963.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursed_soldiers


Better quality of life? WTF are you talking about, countries dependent from Soviet Union were robbed by it. Dollar to ruble were exchanged one to one. In polish shops shelves in shops where empty, there was ration stamps on food and other goods. For car you had to wait several years. Only some groups of people like law militia, military, miners had better live, they had separate shops only for those groups.

Maybe I made a little mistake with word "join" but in general I right.

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Hitler's reaction on Ultimate patch

Best thread on Offtopic right here

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I will probably hated after this comment, but that's what I believe in the deeps of my heart.

How can you judge that nations have real national history? On what criterias do you do it? This is so subjective. Only the nations themselves are able to judge themselves and decide if they want to exist in the world as a nation. I hate when people are condescending toward other nations. That's the same garbage that ultranationalistic Canadians say when they try to deny that the Quebecers are a nation. By exemple, Georgians lived in nothern Anatolia and southern Caucasus until they slowly settled the Georgia of today. The ancient Greeks knew them and they founded kingdoms at the same time. At times, they were independant and created small empires, at other times they were annexed by stronger imperialists. This long history didn't stop them to have a civil war at the time of independance because they returned at their imperialistic ambition and tried to subdue the Abkhaz and the Ossetians who were part of their empire in the Middle Age. And since there was almost no democratic tradition (only a few years during the Russian Civil War), they used force to keep these two nations in their state instead of making a free and fair referendum on the question. That's for the same reason that they foolishly attacked South Ossetia in 2008 and were humiliated by a bigger imperialist nation. I will always be for the right self-determination and will always fight imperialism.



Americans actually love saber-rattling themselves and are full of Cold War reflexes. Of course, there will not be any foreign intervention against Russia. But why Americans are trying to expend NATO in Eastern Europe while the Cold War is finished and that Bush father said to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand to the east of Germany? Why do they go foward with their antimissile shield so near of Russia, while the Russians said many times that it's a provocation? Why don't they say to Israel that don't support anymore their shameful colonial policy in Palestine and that they should start negociating with the Palestinians at once to create an Arab State with rightful frontiers (those before the 6 Days War) so that both Israelians and Palestinians could have peace and perhaps, one day, live side by side as brothers? I'm not a fan of the imperialist policy of Russia, but Americans need to do a little more self-criticism, lower their pride a bit and reassess their foreign policy.

For Putin, I eared an analyst on Radio-Canada saying that the elections were certainly rigged, but that he would have won anyway based on the poles, but probably in a second round. He's actually popular in Russia because the economy is growing, the Russian army is reconstructing herself, he has brutally crushed Chechnya, reannexed the small nation and restored the lost national pride of his country. It seems that Russians accepted to sacrifice democracy for these achievements. But the electoral score of Putin diminishes elections after elections and the Russian people start to wondering if they could have the same results with less corruption, less repression and more democracy. The manifestations are a sign I think.

Interresting comment for sure.
With this kind of argument, we always go to simplification. What I wanted to say is that Polish & Tcheck have a highter consiousness of their nationality and its place in the world, than the other small nation at this time. But moreover, they were already more developped economically and so more autonomous from Russia. So that's why it was easier for them to split.
The main issue with Georgia, is will abkhase & Ossete would like to be independant, without subsidies of Russia? For me it is not as clear as you said, because before the war, i think the border between abkasian & georgian was not so clear and these people were living together since a long while... I don't know the situation very well, and maybe you can enlighted me.

My exemple of Georgia was to illustrate that national the oldness of a nation as nothing to do with national maturity. Georgia has a long history, but they have fallen in civil war because of a lack of democratic tradition. About the Ossetians and Abkhazians, they are far from being economically independent, but I hope that will use well their assets to build up a viable economy. It's crystal clear that Russia didn't help them by pure altruism, to the contrary they expected to weaken Georgia because it was associating with USA. The two small republic are unfortunate to be between the two sides of a power struggle, but if they do play their cards well (by throwing Russia against Georgia and then using Russian subsidies to build up a viable economy by exemple), I think they can become something viable (if Andora and San-Marino are viable economically, every country can) I'm not a specialist of Caucasus however, I study the diplomatic history of France during the Vichy regime (at the master level).

You touch another point, the boundaries. Personnally, I think that boundaries are an arbitrary lign on a map. Or they do fit or they don't. What is important for me, is that when there is a national majority somewhere, they are in right state. If they are not, we should ask them what they think about it. It's always better to let the democracy speak even on a purely material level. When you are forcing a people to live in a country they don't love, you are risking a civil war. And it tends to degenerate in ethnic cleansing. In the civil war of 1991-1993, the two sides were guilty of many ethnic cleansing. But, if they chose democracy, they must play it to the end.

For those who don't want to read everything : my nation, Quebec, tried three times to gain independance. First by a revolt against the British Empire and the last two times by referendum which resulted in no and there was no civil war. Others can read the whole story. Read the P.S. at the very end even if you don't read everything.

I will give you a long exemple of that and I will explain it in details because you are perhaps not familliar with the history of my nation. I'm Quebecer (we live in Quebec, a canadian province with 80% francophones, something like 9% anglophones and the rest don't speak neither french or english as mother tongue) and I'm proud to say so. We tried three time to become independent from the British Empire and then Canada in our history. The first time, the Lower-Canada was british colony and the elected parliament had only consultative power. The real power was in the ends of the military governor. He selected the members of the legislative council and executive council which that the real power of making laws and apply them. In 1834, we sent a letter to the Privy Council in London asking democratic reforms : they said no after 3 years. And then we rebelled and were crushed.

The next time was 1980 and we voted in referendum for independance. The federal government (Canada is a centralised federation. The regional government are called provincial governments) promised decentralising reforms if the people said no. 60% said no, 40 yes. Those that were for independance accepted the results peacefully (we were and are democratic society since around 1850). But the promises were not kept and the federal government of Trudeau centralised even more the powers around the federal government by taking the canadian constitution that was stored in London and taking to the capital, but by adding in it a charter of rights giving the power of the supreme court of overriding any provincial decisions if they don't fit in their ideology (since the supreme court of Canada replaced the privy council of London in the fifties, the supreme court has systematically accepted federal encroachment on the powers of the provinces, violating the constitution. The privy council was more pro-provinces historically).

The next try was in 1995. It was after a big constitionnal crisis. The federal government of the time wanted to make the Quebec enter the constitution since we didn't sign it in 1982 when the canadian constitution was rapatriated. They proposed to fulfil our historical demands which were : beeing recognised as a nation and not merely as a generic province, be given the rights of self-determination officialy, give us a veto power against any constitutionnal changes that touch directly the interest of Quebec and other smaller powers (for more informations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meech_Lake_Accord ). At the end, the other provinces didn't accept and a new wave of nationalism appeared and in a 1995, the pro independence party, the Parti québécois, was elected and launched another referendum on the question of independance. The no won with 50,6%, but there were many dirty tricks done covertly or not so covertly by the federal government and it was an higly contested vote. But the independentists, like me, accepted the vote peacefully, but emotionnally.

My exemple was long and as you can see is very emotional, but it shows that democracy is not always immediatly rewarding, but at least people didn't kill each other along silly ethnic lines even they lived together during centuries. The economy wasn't destoyed and we are an healthy society. The peaceful split of Czech Republic and Slovakia is an excellent exemple of that also and it's much better than civil war. Even if I sounded idealistic by times, my exemple shows that democracy works if we give the chance and it's much less disruptive than other options. But the peoples are not always rationnal . And about the Quebec economy, it's developped and fully viable. I hope you are not sleeping . Here is more informations about Quebec : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec .

P. S. : For our Americans and Russians friends here, I have nothing against your nations in themselves, I'm against the policies of your politicians. I admire the faith the American place in democracy and the perfectibility of their institutions. About the Russians, I admire their national resilience against invasion, the crushing defeat they dealed to the Third Reich and their great culture which is full of life (Your music, folkloric (The Red Army Choir is glorious) or classical; your hospitality; your great litterature; and your Beef Stroganoff meal ).