Thread 17955228

I'm so fucking tired of this narrative.
Russia was a great power since Peter the Great, Russia took most of german losses in WW1, Russia was equal to Austria-Hungary in terms of contribution to science. Russia would industrialize without commies, it would just use French machines instead of American ones.

>>17955228 (OP)
You can't pretend like Tsarist Russia wasn't a backwater medieval shithole in comparison to the rest of Europe which only began to change once Nicholas II and his family were offed.

>>17955228 (OP)
Americans unironically believe the communist revisionist history of the Russian empire

Like it or not, during USSR times russia peaked in the amount of power projection. But one can make argument, that culturaly-wise, it was the last 50-ish years of the old empire, that left the biggest heritage to the human history.

Other than that, was it communism that "made russia stronk" or not - isn't really something that we can say for sure. As an argument for it: the reforms in the empire were slow, the monarchy kept brutally oppressing the population at any sign of inobedience/demonstration of political will. There was no capitalist, liberal, or even any political tradition rooted in russian society, besides - of course, 6 centuries of russian czarism/absolutism.

>>17955237
case and point >>17955234

>>17955245
>that left the biggest heritage to the humanities culture. Soviet art was mediocre at best, communism failed to create a lasting cultural impact - besides, well, the ideology itself, lol.

>>17955237
Commies were idiotic morons, but so were the empire. Even though I hate the reds, these >>17955245 are facts and it is just what it is.

>>17955245
Alexander the second tried changing some of that and got offed by anarchists.

>>17955259
one of the few moments in history that unironically makes me seethe

>>17955259
Yup, it just shows how reforms in the empire came not dute to some "shifts in socioeconomic landscape", but rather exclusively as a personal will of a very tight group of elites in power.
Western powers at this point already had more or less politicaly active industrial societies and governmental systems with capacity to adhere to peoples voices and, more or less, reform.

Russians though... Well, they were still mostly illitirate peasants.

>>17955228 (OP)
90% of Eastern Europe couldn’t even read before gigachad Stalin showed up

>>17955250
Soviet art is actually very influential

>>17955228 (OP)
Russia was a great power. The Soviet Union was a superpower. That's the difference.

>>17955318
In the 1920s. Russia's most interesting artistic movements come during times of revolutionary change until a reaction sets in and the police smother the creative life out of people, and the country falls back to its historical pattern of passivity, fatalism and non-development. That also happened in the USSR after a spark at the beginning, and there was another spark at the end of it, and now it's repeating the pattern all over again with the state cobbling together an ideology from above with whatever is available that basically serves the purpose for the country to remain as unchanging as possible.
https://youtu.be/F3PsE6GaA18

>>17955318
It's not. Being popular among some leftists circles in the west doesn't put it even close to, let's say, Dostoevskiy. I live in a post-soviet country, no one here can even name a piece of soviet art, besides maybe two-three mainstream movies that keep getting shown during new years eve.

>>17955348
>Tsoy
This is already irrelevant - and, even though very influential for the region during its time, pretty mediocre in comparison to the artists from the parts of the world that didn't suppress culture. Most of the "perestroyka" music consist of western tune with some post-irony soviet bullshit slapped on top - the only way to cope in a country where everyone must lie to each other.
We're talking Dostoevsky level here, something that will stand at least a couple centuries as a certified world classics.

>>17955228 (OP)
A decade before ww1 Russia seceded territory to the fucking Japanese, a Asian empire managed t both beat and conquer land from a pseudo-European one. The modern day equivalent of this would be America loosing Hawaii to the Taliban after the war on terror

Soviet era clasical music and especially film will clearly be remembered

>>17955381
Not by the minds of the regular people

>>17955381
Almost all the stuff people in America admire about Russia is pre soviet

>Russia took most of german losses in WW1
??????????