• MisterScruffy@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    You said:

    ask someone over 50 who lives or lived in Eastern Europe.

    Are you backing down on that statement now or are you saying that Russia isn’t in Eastern Europe?

    • Cleverdawny@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      Russia is sometimes included in that, I wasn’t. My apologies for being unclear. Russia is the former imperial center of the Soviet Empire, so they benefited dramatically from the labor and resources of their colonies. They also never adopted the kind of modern democratic capitalism which was a competing ideology to communism during the Cold War, instead adopting a form of fascism, so I thought it was obvious to anyone that when making the comparison between capitalism and communism in Eastern Europe, a good faith participant in a discussion would look at Bulgaria, Poland, East Germany, etc.

      • MisterScruffy@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Silly of me the think that someone who lived in Russia during the USSR would know what it’s like to live under communism

        • Cleverdawny@lemm.eeOP
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          1 year ago

          When you’re contrasting communism and capitalism, it’s strange to do it by asking someone in a fascist kleptocracy whether they miss being at the heart of a massive empire

          Russia is about the only former communist nation which is worse off now, excepting perhaps Ukraine - blame Russia for that, too - and it’s because they’re Russia, not because they’re ex communists.