Re: Why did the USSR fall?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Chris writes: >it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless the word is being used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.<

there are several degrees of the general phenomenon of "colonialization" or external domination, forming a spectrum: 

1. classic colonialism, i.e., the political and economic domination of one country by another. What the US is doing to Iraq. 

2. neo-colonialism, i.e., the formal poltical independence of a country combined with informal political and economic domination of that country by another. Informal colonization, as when Francophone countries of Africa formally were independent but were controlled via various "multilateral" organizations. 

3. (economic) dependency, i.e., the political independence of a country, which means little because the economic structure of that country (a leftover from colonialism) is so poor that the government has few good choices and the country ends up being dominated. Most Latin American countries fit this mold, having thrown off the Spanish colonists a long time ago and having gotten a lot of political independence from the US. 

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Chris Doss" [mailto:nomorebounces@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 7:50 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
> 
> 
> Indeed, it is remarkable to what extent social relations in 
> Russia are similar to what they were in the tsarist era (of 
> course the continuities between the tsarist and societ eras 
> are notable too).
> 
> That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless 
> the word is being used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.
> 
> >
> > Russia seems to be back where it was a century ago, a nation that is
> > simultaneously colonizer and colonized.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
> >
>