Was the Soviet Union imperialist?
>>18474869Ask the Balts.
>>18474869In the Marxist sense no and also in the normal sense also no. Ukrainian SSR was created to combat Russian imperialism for instance. Because so called Russian chauvinists infringed upon the Ukrainian minority the Bolshies gave the SSR a ton of land like Donbas and Crimea so as to do away with Imperialism. That is as leftist as it gets though I am not saying that is right to do.
>>18474869No, they just occupied a bunch of territory with their troops and forced them to follow their laws and do whatever they say, and wouldn't let them leave or else they'd be sent to labor camps or killed. But they said they were anti-imperialism, so it wasn't imperialism.
Yes. Gorbachev's biggest mistake was genuinely believing the Soviet anti-imperialist propaganda and believing he could give the republics autonomy without them using it to secedeI would like to note something funny about the Eastern Europe situation. After decades of putting down uprising and dealing with Solidarity and whatnot, at the end of the day Gorbachev letting Poland go was one of his least controversial moves. The Poles contributed basically nothing to the Soviet economy by the 80s while costing billions in gibs. The same applied to a lesser extent to everywhere except East Germany.
