Quote Originally Posted by 14Russian View Post
LOL! Funny post. All of that is what social democracy is - socialism with 'capitalist' elements except it's not capitalism, per se. It's crony capitalism. How is it capitalism when the media is practically a monopoly. They are not Swedish and the PM is not Swedish, either, really. Sweden has been taking away people's rights and trying to join other Western countries in administering a police state. Besides multiculturalism and 'liberalist' removal of rights, the country is also going into the drain in other ways. The most recent explosion of granting asylum to Syrian refugees is this continued destruction of the state. They will do like the rest and just print more money (to pay for things). From what I've read of Swedes, they are as deliriously inept and clueless as many Americans and other Westerners. As long as they are told, 'the economy is okay', they ignore all the problems. It is what I consider the epitome of stupidity. (Deleted. L.)
Once again you leave me completely perplexed as to what ideology you actually support.
I don't see any consistency at all. All I can detect is some extremely strong nationalistic vibes (anti-immigration). If you are going to deliver strong diatribes like this you should be aware that they make no sense at all unless you explain what national or ideological background you have. As it is, it just seems like you despise everyone, particularly immigrants..

Quote Originally Posted by maxmixiv View Post
Thanks, Hanna, for your sad story. I never imagined that USSR's fate could influence so much a capitalist state.
As I understand there was no dramatic change in standards of living, so you "had suffered" more ideologically than physically.
Yes, I took the opportunity to get all my feelings about this off my chest, didn't I ! What a rant! Hope some of it was of interest...

As for the demise of the USSR:
Yes - it sent waves outside it's own borders, and even Eastern Europe. Across the developing world and to people with leftist sympathies in Europe and America.

I am fascinated and shocked by what everyone in the USSR area went through in the 90s. It must have been like the rug being pulled from right under your feet and being pushed from a rather elevated position into the gutter! Not to mention the economic hardship and day-to-day struggle everyone went through. Adding the slack from seeing the country's accomplishments being dragged in the mud and factories that were supposedly built for the people by the people being auctioned off to oligarchs and foreigners. And the older generation that had believed in the ideology discovering that they spent 70 years working towards something that was then just stamped on... and living on a dirt poor pension after they spent their lives trying to build communism.

But apart from all that, the USSR left a power vacuum in large parts of the world. It left an ideological vacuum, a military vacuum and an economic vacuum. Countries like the USA became smug and thought it had the right and ability to dictate how every single country in the world should be run. As we've seen from one war leading into the next for the last two decades.

China has not stepped into the super power vacancy, and Russia is not able to at the moment. USA is on the way to either self destruct economically, or became a right wing dictatorship, or both.
It's scary times we live in. One thing I liked with the USSR was that it's foreign policy was grounded on principle/ideology. You could guess what the reactions would be. Whereas with the USA and China it completely lacks any principle - all about short term economics and power.