Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
The USSR was a formidable power because of vassal states also known as good old imperialism, something Putin desperately tries to replicate. The mindset of Russia's leaders today isn't so different from Soviet times.
If that was the relationship, the USSR's constitution wouldn't have permitted SSRs to leave with a simple referendum, nor would they have suffered so much after breakup of the USSR. Instead we see their housing and public infrastructure has been left to rot without the cooperation and relative effectiveness of the USSR's economic system.
We know what imperialism looks like. When the UK built infrastructure in India and Africa, it consisted of railways from the mines to the ports. The literacy rate in India under Britain never got above 12%. The USSR built trains connecting even remote villages and subway systems in any city >1 million. Most of the former USSR countries still have some of the highest rates of educational attainment in the world.
They did absolutely not allow anyone to leave with simple referendum. They sent tanks against peaceful protesters who demanded independence
Hungary was never an SSR, Kruschev sent the tanks into the Hungarian People's Republic at the behest of their elected government to put down an uprising that had been coopted by fascists.
But yes they literally did secede, that was the legal mechanism which the SSRs broke off of the USSR in the 90s. It was enshrined in the soviet constitution.