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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: More double standards
Message-ID: <7800775@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Nov-85 13:36:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800775
Posted: Thu Nov 28 13:36:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Dec-85 20:47:27 EST
References: <1124@cornell.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 28 13:36:00 1985


[Gil Neiger :gil@cornell]
>For those who are unaware, the Soviet Union is less than 70 years old, and
>have *not* been building up their empire for 700 years.  The Soviet Union
>came to be so large because it inherited the lands of Imperial Russia.  Much
>of the land the Soviet Union has acquired since 1917 (Sakhalin Island,
>Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia, parts of Finland and Poland, and, if you will,
>the Ukraine and Belorussia) were parts of the Russian Empire at the turn
>of the century.  True, much of this land as well as other parts of the
>Soviet Union were obtained via expansionism and aggression (whether by the
>Soviets or by the Romanovs), but these are things on which neither the Soviets
>nor the Russians in general have a monopoly.

All these facts are true. Apart from Sakhalin, these  lands  that
you  mention,  as  well  as the three Caucasian republics and the
Central Asia, all broke off after the Revolution. Their  indepen-
dence was *recognized* by the Soviet Russia who then proceeded to
reconquer them by force of arms.

I quite agree with you that expansionism and colonialism  of  the
old Russian empire was no worse (and no better) than that of some
other powers. It just happened to grow on a large plain and  have
some  weak neighbors; because of geography, its conquests were on
land, not overseas. 

		Jan Wasilewsky