I'm not the one being disingenuous here. Totally insane to think there's a difference.

Also may want to check the emigration numbers on the USSR. Btw how did you leave? Seems they let you.

Ironically enough, my mother left illegally. She went to the UK on a work visa and overstayed.

Curious as that is not the history I was taught.

Would you say East Germans could always leave too just so I have a point of reference?


100% outside those who have issues such as criminal records that would prevent them.

I have known penniless people leave, via hitchhiking and relying on working as they go, while heading to start a new life in Mexico or South America or elsewhere.

There is nothing to stop them. Although the method they choose to leave will change depending on their resources.

Do you actually understand the things you are saying?

Victor why was it so common for any athlete from the Soviet Union, E.Germany or Cuba attempting to leave to do it so surreptitiously and do you think a US athlete, at that level had the same issue if they wanted to leave the US?

Also when many of these athletes told their stories they were often mixed in with great regret and them saying they knew the family they left behind would pay a cost for them leaving by a gov't looking to set an example. Do you think they were lying?

Perhaps Victor could explain to us why we needed a Berlin Wall. I guess it must have been for all those desperate West Germans trying to rush in.

On occasion, certain people, and even certain groups, were allowed to leave the Soviet Union.

But you know full well that there were significant restrictions on the movement of Soviet citizens. It's pretty rich for someone who constantly accuses others of lying to suggest otherwise.

I suspected that you would agree with me, but I was sincerely curious about your opinion. Leaving your home country behind (as well as your immediate or extended family) is no small matter, regardless of how ****ed up the country is.

I will look up the numbers. Yes there were restrictions. No it wasn't like NK. Even wiki says 13m were able to emigrate Frome east to west from 1950 to 1990. That's a lot.

But you know there are extenuating circumstances.. you also know that such freedom of movement is a myth in our country too..

He has no opinion but rabid communist bad. They stole his life of luxury. Truly sad ****. Dude could be chilling on the beautif russian countryside with a bunch of serfs but the commies took that from his great grandparents.

What in the actual **** are you talking about, bro?

I have two answers to this, actually.

The first, trivial one is that I was 8 and kids at that age are pretty malleable.

The second, perhaps more interesting one, is that I do not, and to this day have not, ever have/had patriotic or nationalistic feelings about a country. So, from that point of view, I really didn't and don't care.

I don't think it's hard because of nationalist sentiment. It's hard because moving to a country with a different culture, language, etc., is disorienting and hard for a lot of people.

Is there some reason to believe that d2_e4 descends from Russian aristocracy?

It was pretty disorienting, as it happens. My first school in the UK was an ESL school in Glasgow, where I learnt English. Believe it or not, I didn't speak a word of English till the age of 8!

But, like I say, kids that age are pretty malleable.

This Wikipedia article says that there were a grand of total of 500,000 people who were allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1982. The overwhelming majority were ethnic Jews, Germans, and Armenians, and separated families who were allowed reunite.

That is not a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigra...ree_emigration

No, I have absolutely no interest in you jumping from hill to hill, never responding to anything that shows your grievous factual errors.

As has already been stated, the Soviet Union attacked Poland together with Germany.

But also feel free to explain how this peace-loving utopia invaded and occupied Poland, Estonia , Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Explain how peaceful it was to install puppet regimes in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, and east-Germany and crushing the people revolting in order to keep control. In what universe was it peace-loving to retain control over these countries for some 40-50 years?

Admire the Soviet Union all you want. It was however not a peace-loving utopia. It was an aggressive international superpower which throughout its history invaded a dozen neighbouring countries, engaged in scores of proxy wars and was in several periods the world's largest exporter of guns to the third world (and if we include the Eastern bloc likely the largest by a wide margin).

And it doesn't help to point fingers at others. That isn't your claim. You are claiming this was a peaceful nation. There is nothing in its history that supports that claim.

Pretty sure he is trolling at this point.

Could be, but there are still a few Marxist-Leninists in my country (and even the odd Stalinist), and this is pretty much their jam.

The Soviets were invading Afghanistan before it was cool.

Ahaha nailed it !

nothing unites the posters in this forum like someone pushing back against the anticommunist orthodoxy

Haven't been paying too much attention. Do you mean he doesn't favor com over cap? - or something else.

I know two hardcore communists IRL, one went that direction after their hatred grew as a result of what the US was doing in their opinion. I understand their hatred to a point. The other is a full blown sadist that want's to kill everyone. I share vic's pov's on a lot of **** so not sure.

I think a big part of this discussion is identifying what communism theoretically could be in a perfect world vs what it had become or likely would almost always become. There is a difference, imo.

Im not the one jumping from point to point. I am trying to play whack a mole addressing all the garbage y'all throw.

I'm not really a full Soviet liver and certainly not a Stalinist. It's only in comparison to the USA that this stuff has meaning. I am willing to apply the same criticisms to both societies unlime y'all.