In 1960 the Soviet Union was the 2nd most powerful nation on

Here the commercial. Can you imagine Stalin doing such a degrading thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgm14D1jHUw

how many people did they kill tho?

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>>2542368
You tell me.

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>>2542349
communism was making its full cycle combined with the extreme anti-communist rhetoric infiltrating the populous from the West.

Nazi Germany wen out like a school shooter, USSR went out like an emo kid on prom night

The lend lease act allowed them to beat off the nazis and fill the power vacuum in Eastern Europe. It is a fluke of history. An outlier. We should have given them just enough to keep their heads above the water and no more to be quiet honest.

Russia's natural position in the global economy is providing raw materials, it is the lumberyard with a rusty corrugated roof owned by someone's fat uncle outside town. They didn't deserve an empire and it was only a matter of time before it fell apart.

>>2542453
>We should have given them just enough to keep their heads above the water and no more to be quiet honest.
Nobody knew how strong they exactly were.

Give them too little and risk that Hitler fucking conquers all of Russia and has enough resources to be untouchable for the next centuries.

Give them too much and you just have a Soviet Union which lasts a few more decades before collapsing.

Go figure which one was the less risky option.

>>2542499
Just the possibility that Hitler could possess the vast riches of Russia and use them to kickstart a world conquering campaign was so terrifying that the Allies forget everything they hated about the Bolsheviks and just went: "Holy shit, kill it Russians! We don't care how, we don't care how long it takes you. Just stay in the fucking war, we will give you everything you want!"

The fear that after Russia was defeated they would be next was far too big.

>>2542349
The cold war happened

Communism was moribund by the 80's and no amount of >muh strongk leaders could save it.

Go home, /leftypol/.

>>2542349
you get a kind of respect from throwing enough money into military and propaganda to crash your country

the same kind of respect people give to an armed madman

>>2542349
Russian industry was propped up by the government and Russian society was kept in check by a strict government, laws, and police force....also, Russia probably inflated its own prestige. That all changed when the government, which supported the industry, kept the society in check, and maintained the facade, disappeared. Also, after the cold war, immigration became easier and many educated Russians and non-Russians living in Russia, left.