Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[JohnH]

More like "make the Soviet Union great again".

[Ken]

More like "make the Soviet Union great again".

The Soviet Union was more or less the old Russian Empire in new clothing. Centralized control from Moscow and dominated/controlled by the Russian majority.

[JohnH]

More like "make the Soviet Union great again".

The Soviet Union was more or less the old Russian Empire in new clothing. Centralized control from Moscow and dominated/controlled by the Russian majority.

I don’t really see how anyone could consider the USSR to be remotely the same thing as Czarist Russia.

[R7ehr]

More like "make the Soviet Union great again".

The Soviet Union was more or less the old Russian Empire in new clothing. Centralized control from Moscow and dominated/controlled by the Russian majority.

I don’t really see how anyone could consider the USSR to be remotely the same thing as Czarist Russia.

Are you two trolling the forum? You seem to have effectively swapped positions. Rewind the 300+ pages of this very thread and say it ain’t so. What next, we will see Ken siding with Putin and JohnH with Zelenskyy?

[Ken]

More like "make the Soviet Union great again".

The Soviet Union was more or less the old Russian Empire in new clothing. Centralized control from Moscow and dominated/controlled by the Russian majority.

I don’t really see how anyone could consider the USSR to be remotely the same thing as Czarist Russia.

Look at a map. They were essentially the same empire. Tightly ruled from Moscow and dominated by Russia. The only difference was the lightest green which was only Russian Empire, and the red/blue which was only USSR.

[Neto]

The Soviet Union was more or less the old Russian Empire in new clothing. Centralized control from Moscow and dominated/controlled by the Russian majority.

I don’t really see how anyone could consider the USSR to be remotely the same thing as Czarist Russia.

Look at a map. They were essentially the same empire. Tightly ruled from Moscow and dominated by Russia. The only difference was the lightest green which was only Russian Empire, and the red/blue which was only USSR.

I suspect that the disconnect here is related to what is considered the main or core identifier, or similarity. Area of rule is not the element that I would use to classify a nation or government as "the same thing". To do so is fine, but I think that one should define the determining factor being considered. (Personally, I think that the type of government or rule is a more important identifier than the area of control.)

[JohnH]

The Soviet Union was more or less the old Russian Empire in new clothing. Centralized control from Moscow and dominated/controlled by the Russian majority.

I don’t really see how anyone could consider the USSR to be remotely the same thing as Czarist Russia.

Look at a map. They were essentially the same empire. Tightly ruled from Moscow and dominated by Russia. The only difference was the lightest green which was only Russian Empire, and the red/blue which was only USSR.

I wouldn’t consider the NY state government and the Algonquins etc to be essentially the same thing.

[Ken]

I wouldn’t consider the NY state government and the Algonquins etc to be essentially the same thing.

The more valid comparison would be between New York in 1770 and New York in 1790.

There was a revolution and the form of government shifted from monarchy to republic. But it is still the same territory with the same boundaries and the same name and with the same towns and cities that are populated by the same people, speaking the same languages who have all the same customs and culture as before.

When you set aside the form of government, the Russian Empire and the USSR also behaved in much the same way. Just two different versions of the same Russian expansionist imperialism governed by Moscow.

[JohnH]

By that token, the Holy Roman Empire is the same thing as the EU.

[Ken]

By that token, the Holy Roman Empire is the same thing as the EU.

Do they have the same boundaries, and are they governed by the same dominant ethnic group from the same capital city with much the same expansionist and imperial foreign policy?

In any event, Germans did, in fact, refer to the Holy Roman Empire as the First Reich, the German Empire under Bismark as the Second Reich, and Germany under Hitler as the Third Reich. But they don't refer to the EU as the Fourth Reich.