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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: More double standards
Message-ID: <7800705@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-Nov-85 01:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800705
Posted: Sat Nov 23 01:20:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 21:02:05 EST
References: <13348@rochester.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:rochester:-1334800:inmet:7800705:000:2507
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 23 01:20:00 1985


[ray@rochester]
>[Rebutting Tony Wuersch who argued the USSR is not an empire]

Mostly right, Ray, except for some details. Georgia is very  dis-
tinct ethnically from Russia; many Georgians don't even know Rus-
sian. They are a proud people and have  been  getting  privileged
treatment, in some ways, for decades.  

The Ukraine is being rapidly Russianized.

In Latvia, the Latvians are not allowed to come to their own cap-
ital,  Riga,  which  has become a predominantly Russian city.  It
has become that as a result of massive *deportations* of Latvians
to Siberia.

Tallin, the capital of Estonia, is not much different.

In Kishinev, the capital of Moldavia, by 1980  only  5
of  57 school were teaching in the "Moldavian" language (actually
the Rumanian, Moldavia being simply the annexed part of Rumania).

The attitude of most Russians living in the ethnic republics is
arrogantly colonialist; they hate and despise the local population.

In the armed forces almost all the officers and NCO's  are  Great
Russians  or  Ukrainians;  the enlisted men are increasingly from
Central Asia.  The torments and humiliations they  are  subjected
to are as ugly as anything you can imagine.

The largest group among political prisoners in today's  USSR  are
regional "nationalists" -  people  who  have  talked  imprudently
about some kind of autonomous development (usually just cultural)
for  their  republics.  The  most  numerous  are  Ukrainians  and
Lithuanians.

*Soviet Union is a prison for nations as well as individuals*.

As for Poland and other East European nations - no, I don't think
they are in any danger of losing their ethnic or cultural identi-
ty (ask Gabor, he knows better) - but of course they are  captive
nations  in  every  other  sense  of the word. Their governments,
their political systems and their policies  are  all  imposed  by
Moscow,  and the people there have few illusions on that account.
They know that if they budge, the tanks will come and crush  them
again. These countries are held by brute force, pure and simple.

In Afghanistan, the  Soviet  policy  is  that  of  extermination.
About 1 million have already been killed, about 4 million fled to
Pakistan and Iran. Even in the Communist party there  (which  was
only  some  5000 strong when the troops came) the Soviets have no
sincere support. But they've deported 20000 Afghan children  to
the USSR, where they are groomed to come back later and rule what
will be left of their country.

			Jan Wasilewsky