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From: mat@hou5d.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Empires:  History Question
Message-ID: <729@hou5d.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Nov-83 01:31:29 EST
Article-I.D.: hou5d.729
Posted: Thu Nov  3 01:31:29 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Nov-83 09:31:13 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 16

Being caught up in arguments and questions, etc about Grenada and Cuba
and the USSR, I got to wondering.  The USSR is known for oppressing its
people as well as the people of the lads that it rules by might and terror.
Food shortages are the order of the day in the USSR and its satellites;
alchohlism is said to be rampant, ... .

Question is, did other large empires in history face these problems in the
chronic fashion that the Soviet Union does?  Has lightr-speed communications
made Soviet mismanagement more effective (?) than the management/mismanagement
of the empires of Ghengis Khan or the Caesers or Napoleon (who was supposed to
have been a masterful logistician) or ... ?

						Kind of wondering,
						Mark Terribile
						hou5d!mat
						Duke Of deNet