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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: The myth of Allied invasion of R
Message-ID: <7800671@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 11:50:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800671
Posted: Wed Nov  6 11:50:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Nov-85 06:32:11 EST
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov  6 11:50:00 1985



[Larry Kolodney (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa]
> In article <7800608@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes:
> >Let me add this. 
> >Though hypotheses in "alternative history" are unverifiable,
> >it is quite likely that, without Communism, the Russian empire
> >would have fallen apart. All the others did (count:
> >Austro-Hungary, Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Portugal,
> >Spain...). This one survived, and spread, and keeps spreading.

> What about the American empire?  Seems like an equally important
> factor in keeping such empires together is contiguity.  The only
> contiguous empires I can think of off hand are U.S., China, and
> U.S.S.R.  They're all seem pretty permanent.

Well, I admit I have not defined "empire". I was speaking in  the
context  of  the original note (to which Gabor answered). It men-
tioned the fact that only half of Soviet population  is  Russian,
and  the  others  mostly live in contiguous republics. If you add
Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Cuba and Mongolia, the  ratio  falls
to less than one third. It is an obvious factor of instability.

So, for the purposes of this article, let an empire be a combina-
tion,  under  a single de-facto government, of several contiguous
territories populated by different nationalities, of comparable
size,  some  of  which  are  dominant, and the others not free to
leave.

China has something like it, but on a quite different scale:  the
great  majority  are  Han (Chinese), though some of the others do
live in large contiguous territoties. (But then, of course, China
is as Communist as Russia). USA has nothing like it except Puerto
Rico (and they are free to go) and the Indian reservations. The
Soviet situation is much like Austro-Hungary.

I think you are quite right about contiguity; it is a factor.  We
should  remember,  however,  that  the  Russian empire *did* fall
apart during the Revolution, and was  then  reassembled  by  main
force and ideology in the following years and decades. And, look-
ing at the events, my estimate is that it took  *both*  contigui-
ty  and  something  like  Communism  to  overcome the centrifugal
forces.

 The Soviet ruling elite has been toying for several decades  now
with  the  idea  of  replacing  the outworn Marxist creed with an
ideology of Russian chauvinism. Mythological systems akin to  Na-
zism but with Russians as the true Aryans are currently quite po-
pular there. The reason they have never made the crossing  is,  I
believe,  that  an  ethnocentric  doctrine would not be fit for a
multi-ethnic empire.

		Jan Wasilewsky