?
The Tsars had an empire. so did the Soviets.
[quote]
And yet, and yet....Just What Is this state created, led and directed
since Nov. 7, 1917 by what Lenin proudly called “the vanguard party of
the proletariat?”
Physically, it is the Czar's old Russian Empire with certain major
changes. On the eve of World War I, Nicholas II ruled a domain of
6.8 million square miles with a population of 139 million. It included
Poland, semi‐independent Finland and the Baltic states.
Lenin lost almost all the empire in the worst days of 1918‐19. But
Germany's defeat and the end of civil war and intervention restored
to the Bolsheviks most of Russia—minus Finland, Poland and the Baltic
states. Stalin restored the Empire after World War II. He got back the
Baltic states, carved out a large chunk of Poland, some of Bessarabia
and made good the Czar's losses in the Far East. He extended Soviet
dominance over Eastern Europe and, by the force of diplomacy and
military weight, Stalin's successors have achieved one of Czarist
Russia's oldest aspirations - they have made the Soviet Union a power
in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean.
Today the Kremlin holds direct sway over 8.6 million square miles.
The population has risen to 250 million souls, as the Czar would have
said. Even that great population figure falls shy of Soviet aspirations.
But they try vainly with bonuses to mothers and with propaganda to
counteract the steadily dropping birthrate, a by‐product of Russian
urbanization and that most chronic of Russian problems, overcrowded
housing. Young couples sharing a curtained room with their parents
refuse to have children.
The Czar's Russia used to be called "the prison house of nations."
Some Soviet critics feel this epithet can still be applied. About 60
percent of the Soviet population is Slavic. Great Russians, that is,
the basic Russian stock, make up half the total. The rest is divided
into more than 100 ethnic groups, the largest being the Ukrainians,
first cousins of the Great Russians, deeply resentful of what they
regard as Russian efforts to suppress their proudly held identity.
[/quote]
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/22/archives/russia-today-its-progress-is-into-the-world-of-materialism-the-old.html
China was an Empire. So were the Mughals in India, the Ottoman
Turks, the Mongols had a great Eurasian one. Empires can be contiguous.
Rome's ringed the Mediterranean. The USSR did have overseas satrapies,
such as Cuba, Angola, if you insist those are necessary for "real
empires."
definition from Oxford:
[quote]
1 An extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a
single monarch, an oligarchy,* or a sovereign state.
in names "the Roman Empire"
1.1 (mass noun) Supreme political power over several countries when
exercised by a single authority.
"he encouraged the Greeks in their dream of empire in Asia Minor"
[/quote]
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/empire
Stick to accounting. Your comparative politics sucks.
--
Kevin R
a.a #2310