The persecution of Christians in the USSR and the others communist regimes was recognized as Genocide

[Bulgarian Lion]

According to historians, the persecution of Christianity in the Soviet Union and by the Communists as a whole was the bloodiest in human history - in fact, according to some historians, more people died for the Christian faith in the 20th century than at any time before since the emergence of the Church of Christ. Moreover, even according to the anti-religious propaganda of the communists, they were most hostile to Christianity - for example, on a the 1911 Communist cartoon "The Pyramid of Capitalist System", the priests represented are only Christian, and that of all three main branches of Christianity - Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism, although even during the heyday of Western European colonialism in the early years after the First World War there were at least formally sovereign non-Christian states, as Shinto-Buddhist Japan was even a Great Power having colonies. (link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Capitalist_System) In his work "Marxism and the National-Colonial Question", Stalin wrote that the Communists would conduct propaganda only against the three main Christian denominations, despite the overrepresentation of Jewish Judaizers among the bourgeoisie, and in Muslim Central Asia, the Emirate of Bukhara enjoyed autonomy and without the Bolshevik coup could have gained formal independence for economic reasons, as did African countries (without the Portuguese colonies) after the Second World War. (link:http://grachev62.narod.ru/stalin/t2/t2_48.htm) And the Soviet Union, as a communist state, strove for the destruction of Christianity, regardless of the fact that during the Second World War, for tactical purposes, a puppet church was created, and the persecutions were mitigated. (link:https://knife.media/churches-in-ussr/) And as a result of the more than 50 thousand Orthodox churches in the future USSR in 1914, in 1987 there were just under 7 thousand, with two-thirds of them in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, and a significant part of the rest in other territories that fell under German control occupation during the Second World War - because the Germans allowed the restoration of the temples in order to try to win the support of the local population. Let me add that the methods of genocide are defined as the forcible obstruction of the reproduction of a group - the state monopoly atheistic propaganda in the USSR and other communist countries, such that education in atheistic schools was compulsory, and the silencing of Western radio stations where there were Catholic and Protestant religious shows, forcible removal of children from the group - children of active Christians were taken from their families during Khrushchev's anti-religious persecutions, economic policy - priests in the Soviet Union were heavily taxed, consigning them to poverty, and the church was deprived of all its property, other than temples, and information policy - the aforementioned propaganda. And I want to know what sociopolitical, cultural and legal changes need to happen in order for these persecutions of Christians by communist regimes to be recognized as Genocide by at least a few countries - just as the Genocide of Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire, who may have been recognized as genocide these countries and what will be the consequences for the communist ideology and Christianity (in particular the most persecuted by the communists Orthodox) of such an act, as well as for atheism in general! In such a case, will atheism in at least one post-communist Christian country (for example, the most devout Orthodox and staunchly anti-communist Georgia) be equated with communism, and anti-Christian propaganda will be virtually banned under the slogan "communism never again", as in many European countries after 1945, nationalism (and in Germany - patriotism) was equated with Nazism? Will the property of the banned CPSU be used to pay reparations to the anti-communist Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church?

 

[Sam R.]

"According to historians," whom please? In which presses? I did a large number of years sadly on wikipedia's "Mass Killings under Communist Regimes" or "Communist Genocide" as it was originally put. And none of the credible sources raised there made such claims. The closest is the excoriated Courtois' Introduction and Conclusion to his very hostilely reviewed work _The Black Book_ wherein Courtois theorises that communism is necessarily genocidal as it is not Christian: a form of theoretical argument universally dismissed in historiography regardless of what category occupies which place. Other theoreticians like the devout poet Solzhenitsyn's speculations really don't cut it here for claiming what historical consensus is: not sociologists, not poets, not hostilely reviewed French men with cheque-books: Could you please cite the historians publishing as historians in scholarly presses? Particularly for the theoretical conclusion. At my last in depth scholarly interaction the field of mass killing had retreated from grand categorical claims and into the nitty gritty of how exactly central european villages were processed by states, largely on the basis that theoretical claims appeared unsubstantiable, whereas the actions of groups of 500 or so men on a sunny forenoon meeting a population of 5000 at their business was capable of being analysed by scholars without falling into a pit of despair of what to call forcing most of 5000 living bodies dead into a pit of despair.

There is an easier way to save this speculation: "Genocide" as a theoretical construct was developed in the mid-20th century, for political reasons, and then used widely and approved of as a category of analysis by many thinkers across many fields. As an object in history the concept of "genocide" could have been produced differently: it could have been developed and received as an idea within the "history of ideas" explicitly including attacks on institutional churches. This could have been quite different. Raphael Lemkin was a central intellectual figure, who was open to a variety of suggestions, and whose arguments could have been put differently with significant effect. The most simple way: have Lemkin's seminal role help cast the academic political and popular reception of the concept of "genocide" differently, such that that kind of act is viewed widely as not merely appalling but as genocide. Given that popular reception or opinion seems to be of great importance to the speculation: changing the term to account for the reception of the acts desired makes it easier for the public to comprehend the acts via the term.

 

[Lalli]

It would be intresting see sources. Whilst communists discriminated religious groups, I have not heard them launching outright genocides.

And such of text wall is pretty distractive anyway.

 

[CalBear]

Okay. You made some MAJOR, quite dramatic claims here. You need to provide readily available cites, from respected peer-reviewed Journals, (with English language translation if needed) for all of these rather extraordinary claims.

 

[naraic]

Is this an attempt to post a timeline for a world where Christian persecution in Soviet Russia was worse than otl?

This is an alaternate history site.

 

[Beatriz]

Cease and desist

 

[YYJ]

The OP seems to me to be an Amy Goodman question, meaning a long pointed political speech followed by a brief rhetorical question to wrap up.

 

[Polish Eagle]

The difficulty is how to distinguish genocide against ‘Christians’ as a group from all the other genocides the Soviets committed. They shot priests in Poland and Lithuania, yes—but this was ‘merely’ a continuation of the Tsarist program of suppressing the Polish intelligentsia to weaken the last cultural echoes of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which constituted a rival system to Moscow’s ‘Great Russian’ hegemony. This is the same reason for their persecution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and indeed why the Orthodox Church was comparatively less persecuted in Soviet Ukraine—they wanted the Ukrainian nationalist impulse weakened. They suppressed Protestants as well not out of any particular animus against Protestant theology but because they were outside the Orthodox-Moscow cultural paradigm. The persecution existed before 1917 too, after all, though less efficiently and sometimes relaxed for political reasons.

Since the Moscow Patriarchate was a beneficiary and accessory of Soviet persecution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and many other sects, and since scholars recognized a primarily anti-Ukrainian impulse in Soviet genocides early on (indeed, the very man to coin the term ‘genocide’, Rafael Lemkin, recognized it as such in 1953) they’ll have to wait in line behind everyone else.

 

[Gnomepilled]

"According to historians," whom please? In which presses? I did a large number of years sadly on wikipedia's "Mass Killings under Communist Regimes" or "Communist Genocide" as it was originally put. And none of the credible sources raised there made such claims. The closest is the excoriated Courtois' Introduction and Conclusion to his very hostilely reviewed work _The Black Book_ wherein Courtois theorises that communism is necessarily genocidal as it is not Christian: a form of theoretical argument universally dismissed in historiography regardless of what category occupies which place. Other theoreticians like the devout poet Solzhenitsyn's speculations really don't cut it here for claiming what historical consensus is: not sociologists, not poets, not hostilely reviewed French men with cheque-books: Could you please cite the historians publishing as historians in scholarly presses? Particularly for the theoretical conclusion. At my last in depth scholarly interaction the field of mass killing had retreated from grand categorical claims and into the nitty gritty of how exactly central european villages were processed by states, largely on the basis that theoretical claims appeared unsubstantiable, whereas the actions of groups of 500 or so men on a sunny forenoon meeting a population of 5000 at their business was capable of being analysed by scholars without falling into a pit of despair of what to call forcing most of 5000 living bodies dead into a pit of despair.

There is an easier way to save this speculation: "Genocide" as a theoretical construct was developed in the mid-20th century, for political reasons, and then used widely and approved of as a category of analysis by many thinkers across many fields. As an object in history the concept of "genocide" could have been produced differently: it could have been developed and received as an idea within the "history of ideas" explicitly including attacks on institutional churches. This could have been quite different. Raphael Lemkin was a central intellectual figure, who was open to a variety of suggestions, and whose arguments could have been put differently with significant effect. The most simple way: have Lemkin's seminal role help cast the academic political and popular reception of the concept of "genocide" differently, such that that kind of act is viewed widely as not merely appalling but as genocide. Given that popular reception or opinion seems to be of great importance to the speculation: changing the term to account for the reception of the acts desired makes it easier for the public to comprehend the acts via the term.

Yeah the term genocide is losing all meaning. If you ask the average person they'll think of people murdering a rival tribe in the street. Not a race outbreeding another. These are both considered genocides by the UN.
Most people define genocide as an "intentional massacre of another race either supported or unsupported by the government" yet that would exclude many things that people consider genocides as well like the Holodomor or the Great leap Forward.
The actual definition of genocide recognized by the UN is the act of intentionally replacing another race. That could include literally anything.

 

[CalBear]

Actually the definition of Genocide (opposed to "Crimes Against Humanity" which came along later) was specifically edited by Molotov (at Stalin's personal instruction) to ensure that nothing the USSR had done from it founding until the Genocide article was approved could be legally applied to the USSR. In fact it was shaped in such a way that the only government of the first half of the 20th Century that was qualified as the 3rd Reich.

If you are a bad actor, it is always useful to get a chance to help write all the rules.

 

[Sam R.]

Rafael Lemkin, recognized it as such in 1953

If you are a bad actor, it is always useful to get a chance to help write all the rules.

There was a lot of bad action in the period. My speculation here presumes that states will be abhorrent and leaves them off the table for speculation, noting only their bad action as historical and overwhelmingly likely to remain so. This goes to the method of reception in the history of ideas of a novel and timely idea eminating from a singular intellectual and then being widely received in a critical moment.

Lemkin has between 1943ish and 1946ish to push a unique conception forward with sufficient force and public interest that he may condition the reception of his work before a large State influences public reception. Between 1946 and 1953 historically Lemkin fell in with a particular crew: a group of organisations which wished to be states and wished to act as states. Their inspiration and funding helped him further develop his concepts, but the public in general was no longer willing to receive his unique contributions ahead of the mass of competing receptions of the concept of "Genocide." More: historically a large state started opposing Lemkin as it opposed the imaginary states he hung out with. Getting Lemkin to have the transition in his conception earlier, in 1943-1946, and still be receivable is difficult: the state his mates wished to be will wish him to not be speaking: Lemkin can't get there effectively by hanging out with what would become the Captive Nations movement as it will draw Soviet attention and reduce the receptability of his ideas. If he had come to it without mates, that state would have been less interested in him, and less interested in stopping people's ears to him (or perhaps, "Not singularly fixated on stopping people's ears to a particularly Central and Eastern european Lemkin"). If Lemkin arrives by singular genius at a broader conception of the "genus" being eliminated, he will face less opposition to his promulgation of his broader idea, earlier.

So Lemkin by pure individual force of mind conceives between 1943-1946 of Genocide as the attempt to destroy as a category a body of people governed by an abstract classificatory category (a "genus" of people.) The particulars and their expression allow for attacks on institutional churches as the representatives of the people claimed to be engaged in their system of worship.*1 People fixate as historically on Lemkin's applicability for German efforts against the Jewish people of Western Europe.*2 The broad usefulness of Lemkin's conception results in its adoption by the public. The Soviet attempt to get the judicial meaning to exclude their actions succeeds in the court; but fails in the court of public consciousness (as historically), as Lemkin's conception is adopted by the public. Lemkin's adopted conception in this scenario is the broader version which allows for ready recognition later of events which were more contested as fitting the term in our time as central to the term in this time. The events are unchanged. The public's willingness to use a particular word in relation to them is greatly increased. I don't think the Soviet Union can effectively perturb a Western public narrative if Lemkin gets enough newspaper interviews and chats with people. I don't think the Soviet Union would display the excess attention in 1945 that they did in 1949-1953 to Lemkin: he has not chatted with the institutions of imaginary states that threaten (in imaginary ways) the Soviet State.

Between 1976 and 2006 historians turn over the documents, find all the previous terms useless and the attempts to invent new terms useless—there is a large push by sociologists to create a vast array of new terms, but these are rejected as deficient in the face of archival primary sources by historians. The historians discover the actions and modes of attempts to eliminate humans in village scale units for what they are and again retreat from attempts to produce broad theories which eliminate edge cases as "members" of the "set." Attempts to permute the history of ideas notes Lemkin's attempts to create a broad category. Actual and imaginary state institutions create endless special theoretical terms to justify their (until 2004, 20 years ago) particular current demands.

yours,
Sam R.

*1 I'm using *claimed* here to allow the institution to *claim* maximum harm. Barry doesn't attend except for Easter every second year, etc. Their claims do not change the events. The events do not change their claims. Moreover, given that their claims as social institutuions are of significant importance to them as social institutions, it is the claim that is of importance to the character of the institution. There are so many claims that can be made of a dead village, each state or imaginary state tearing apart the dead for its own meal. The dead just wished to bake today's bread and eat. They didn't think like a commissar or bishop.
*2 As historically. The destruction of central and eastern european peasantries which happened to be Jewish came much later in the *public* consciousness of the holocaust, and are still underplayed by the appeal to Western European Individuals Professionals and Artists as People Like Us who were murdered in death camps. The Western public consciousness still doesn't deal with Actions against villages sufficiently if at all. The Fiddler on the Roof is consigned without wide spread public recognition in the west. In the alternate trials as in the historical the public abhorration of the German state will in Western Evidence use "People Like Us." The Eastern evidence will focus, as historically, on crimes against the Soviet [state controlled] people as property of the soviet state. Or in giving evidence in the South East, as historically, on the people who ought to have been controlled by the then imaginary Yugoslav socialist state.

 

[Bulgarian Lion]

The difficulty is how to distinguish genocide against ‘Christians’ as a group from all the other genocides the Soviets committed. They shot priests in Poland and Lithuania, yes—but this was ‘merely’ a continuation of the Tsarist program of suppressing the Polish intelligentsia to weaken the last cultural echoes of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which constituted a rival system to Moscow’s ‘Great Russian’ hegemony. This is the same reason for their persecution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and indeed why the Orthodox Church was comparatively less persecuted in Soviet Ukraine—they wanted the Ukrainian nationalist impulse weakened. They suppressed Protestants as well not out of any particular animus against Protestant theology but because they were outside the Orthodox-Moscow cultural paradigm. The persecution existed before 1917 too, after all, though less efficiently and sometimes relaxed for political reasons.

Since the Moscow Patriarchate was a beneficiary and accessory of Soviet persecution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and many other sects, and since scholars recognized a primarily anti-Ukrainian impulse in Soviet genocides early on (indeed, the very man to coin the term ‘genocide’, Rafael Lemkin, recognized it as such in 1953) they’ll have to wait in line behind everyone else.

With all due respect to the role that Catholicism has played and plays in the history of your Nation - and through it in the history of Europe, if only because of the great King Jan II Sobieski, who saved Europe from the Turks, which is one of the greatest roles , played by Christianity for Slavic and European people, to the memory of your new martyrs for the Christian faith and to your current conservative rulers, the persecutions of Catholicism in the Polish People's Republic, if only because of the international support of the Catholic Church, pale in comparison to those of Christianity in Soviet Russia and the USSR until the Second World War and to some extent - until Perestroika. However, your first Stalinist president - mounted on Soviet bayonets Boleslav Berut ended his oath with "God help me" - the only one of the leaders of the Eastern European "people's democracies" in the first years after the Second World War, in some periods there were religious lessons (such as not present today in the de-Bulgarianized and anti-Bulgarian Republic of North Macedonia since 2019, 33 years after the formal "fall" of communism), according to parents' applications, in the classrooms they were able to return the crosses during De-Stalinization (which was impossible in the USSR even during Perestroika, and to this day it does not exist in a number of post-communist countries, including, unfortunately, in my Bulgaria), representatives of monastic orders taught, there were clergy in hospitals, schools, prisons and others - all things for which Christian believers even in the most liberal communist countries they can only dream, and some of them do not have them even in some of today's liberal countries - in France not even optional religious education is possible. I cannot know exactly where the temples were in Ukraine in 1987, but I am about 90% sure that the majority of them were east of the river Zbruch - the border between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, namely in Galicia it is spread Catholicism according to the Eastern Rite, as until the zero years in Lviv - the largest western Ukrainian city, was the seat of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and 3 out of 4 of its metropolitans and 7 out of 12 units operating on Ukrainian territory are in the Western part of the country, as the oldest of those in the eastern and central regions, was established in 2002 - nearly 11 years after the independence of Ukraine. I also thought of another sign of genocide in the Soviet actions against Christians - the negative epithets used against them such as "saints", "obscurants", "freaks", "fanatics" and others and Khrushchev's threat after 20 years to show "the last pop" (Slavic word for an Orthodox priest) on television.

 

[Gnomepilled]

Actually the definition of Genocide (opposed to "Crimes Against Humanity" which came along later) was specifically edited by Molotov (at Stalin's personal instruction) to ensure that nothing the USSR had done from it founding until the Genocide article was approved could be legally applied to the USSR. In fact it was shaped in such a way that the only government of the first half of the 20th Century that was qualified as the 3rd Reich.

If you are a bad actor, it is always useful to get a chance to help write all the rules.

Everytime I learn something new the about the USSR I hate them more. The only positive thing i ever heard about them was the industrialization of Russia (which requided genocide). There must have been something positive about the state at very least.

 

[Aluma]

Everytime I learn something new the about the USSR I hate them more. The only positive thing i ever heard about them was the industrialization of Russia (which requided genocide). There must have been something positive about the state at very least.

The colour red looked neat and they had a nice anthem

 

[Waltzing Brunhilda]

Everytime I learn something new the about the USSR I hate them more. The only positive thing i ever heard about them was the industrialization of Russia (which requided genocide). There must have been something positive about the state at very least.

Well as an amateur historian of the USSR, it depends where, when, and what you are looking for. If you're looking for the development of national culture, than the 20's and early 30's are the prime place to look under Korenizatsiya (The Affirmative Action Empire by Terry Martins is a very good book for that). If you're looking for social progress they were one of the first countries in the world to broadly integrate women into the industrial work force. There's so much about the USSR that isn't talked about or explored that only the most gory, and exciting details are really heard about in the west.

 

[Gnomepilled]

Well as an amateur historian of the USSR, it depends where, when, and what you are looking for. If you're looking for the development of national culture, than the 20's and early 30's are the prime place to look under Korenizatsiya (The Affirmative Action Empire by Terry Martins is a very good book for that). If you're looking for social progress they were one of the first countries in the world to broadly integrate women into the industrial work force. There's so much about the USSR that isn't talked about or explored that only the most gory, and exciting details are really heard about in the west.

Most of my knowledge of the USSR is from the the second half of the 20th century. I don't know much about the revolutionary period besides the Great Patriotic War period.
Thanks for the recommendations though. Is Kotkin's work any good?

 

[RedSword12]

Everytime I learn something new the about the USSR I hate them more. The only positive thing i ever heard about them was the industrialization of Russia (which requided genocide). There must have been something positive about the state at very least.

There's plenty of positives about the USSR, from dramatic improvements in literacy, education, and cultural life (depending on the period, since the Soviet state vacillated between extreme repression of local cultures and encouragement), major scientific advancements, etc. The thing is that systemic mass-murder isn't exactly something you can really balance out. That's the same reason why I can't see men like Truman, LBJ, Nixon, or Reagan in a particularly positive light, even though some of them had genuinely admirable traits. Aiding and abetting mass-murder isn't something you can just wash away with good acts. And many of the people responsible for the Soviet Union's more positive aspects suffered terribly at the hands at the regime, or were made to become perpetrators just to survive. Sergei Korolev and Anastas Mikoyan are just a couple examples.

 

[Fleurs de Merde]

Most of my knowledge of the USSR is from the the second half of the 20th century. I don't know much about the revolutionary period besides the Great Patriotic War period.
Thanks for the recommendations though. Is Kotkin's work any good?

Forgive me for tagging in!

Kotkin is a very good biographer, but somewhat ideological. It makes him immune to some of the mythologizing from both the pro-Soviet left and the Robert Conquest-style frothing anticommunists, but there are definite limits.

Broadly speaking be skeptical anything from before the 90s, or from popular histories - those will be either fellow travellers using a USSR they don't understand to rehash low-value ideological battles between Western microsects or - worse - hacks like Conquest whose method was oral interviews with the most right-wing exiles available. Good Soviet history starts with archival access.

The best history I've read of the revolution itself is Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy. Notwithstanding Figes' liberalism and erratic personality, it's a really balanced and magisterial work written in a compelling style. Nobody is better on the Stalin period than Sheila Fitzpatrick. Moshe Lewin is also incredible for everything, but specifically for understanding the 20s. For histories of the Terror as a bureaucratic process or a policy regime, J. Arch Getty is a little dated but fundamentally sound. Roy Medvedev's Khrushchev approach, as well as his treatment of the late Bukharin, Stalinism, and dissent in general, is very nuanced and well-informed by his having been a dissident himself.

If you want a more literary view, Vasily Grossman was an incredible observer of the structures and texture of Soviet life, and Life and Fate is both a really stunning and accurate portrait of the war effort and one of the best books of the 20th century.

And of course, how could I post here without plugging the true hero of Soviet historical study - the man himself - Grover Furr. Read him first, last, and always.

 

[Gnomepilled]

Forgive me for tagging in!

Kotkin is a very good biographer, but somewhat ideological. It makes him immune to some of the mythologizing from both the pro-Soviet left and the Robert Conquest-style frothing anticommunists, but there are definite limits.

Broadly speaking be skeptical anything from before the 90s, or from popular histories - those will be either fellow travellers using a USSR they don't understand to rehash low-value ideological battles between Western microsects or - worse - hacks like Conquest whose method was oral interviews with the most right-wing exiles available. Good Soviet history starts with archival access.

The best history I've read of the revolution itself is Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy. Notwithstanding Figes' liberalism and erratic personality, it's a really balanced and magisterial work written in a compelling style. Nobody is better on the Stalin period than Sheila Fitzpatrick. Moshe Lewin is also incredible for everything, but specifically for understanding the 20s. For histories of the Terror as a bureaucratic process or a policy regime, J. Arch Getty is a little dated but fundamentally sound. Roy Medvedev's Khrushchev approach, as well as his treatment of the late Bukharin, Stalinism, and dissent in general, is very nuanced and well-informed by his having been a dissident himself.

If you want a more literary view, Vasily Grossman was an incredible observer of the structures and texture of Soviet life, and Life and Fate is both a really stunning and accurate portrait of the war effort and one of the best books of the 20th century.

And of course, how could I post here without plugging the true hero of Soviet historical study - the man himself - Grover Furr. Read him first, last, and always.

Thanks for the recommendations. Like I said I'm more acquainted with the Brezhnev Era.
What's the best work on the Russian Civil War by the way? It's too romanticized in my opinion so I have no idea what's historical fantasy and what actually happened.

 

[Bulgarian Lion]

The only positive thing i ever heard about them was the industrialization of Russia (which requided genocide). There must have been something positive about the state at very least.

Russia between the 1880s and the Bolshevik coup actually industrialized rapidly, experiencing what today we would call an "economic miracle", developing economically the fastest in the world, and according to Western experts, while maintaining these rates of development, as according to the assessment of the American economist Paul Gregory, after the First World War could have been accelerated, in the 1930s it could have become the richest country in the world. (link:https://sputnikipogrom.com/history/empire-economics/86685/ee-1/) Suffice it to say that only Russia experienced economic growth in the early years of the First World War despite the occupation of rich territories such as Poland and part of the Baltic countries and despite the fact that as a result of the Civil War, War Communism and the loss of rich territories such as Poland, Finland and The Baltic countries Russia loses six-sevenths of its industrial production, it has returned economically by some indicators nearly 200 years ago, the hyperinflation towards the end of the 10s - the beginning of the 20s is lighter than that of Weimar Germany, which suffered less economically since the war, even taking reparations into account, industrial production per worker towards the end of Czarist Russia grew more than under Stalin, at that in completely natural ways and mainly in civil rather than military production. So, unfortunately, Bolshevism did not bring Russia anything good, unless you're a bigoted atheist, extreme feminist, or non-Russian ultranationalist - and not for all, because now there would be an Armenian majority in Atzrah, in Nakhchivan at worst they would be a significant minority, as well as in Baku, Sumgait and other Azeri and Transcaucasian cities. Also, the Baltic countries - Lithuania and Latvia, and to a lesser extent - Estonia, would not fall into a demographic catastrophe after 91, as the population of the first 2 countries decreases by more than a percent per year in peacetime according to CIA data, as in Latvia, even in the capital Riga, the population dropped from about a million to 600 thousand - while in the capital of my native Bulgaria, Sofia, despite the disastrous demographic situation of the country, the population of the capital is higher than in 1989, when communism fell. And in the Russian Empire, Riga would have been a city of a million, and the Baltic region would have been what the Basque Country and Catalonia are in today's Spain - some of the richest and most culturally liberal parts of the country. Let's not forget the small Russian peoples who began to die out under communism, and those in the national republics of the USSR, who began to melt them into titular ethnic groups - the Latgalians in Latvia, the Talish and Lezgins in Azerbaijan, and others.