Imperial Russian institutions compared to Soviet - any holdovers?

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It certainly didn’t provide that any state could invade another just because it had been ‘left out’, sovereignty of states was an important component. Certainly, Poland was lost without much choice but Lenin agreed not to reoccupy these territories, and the West proposed solutions that actually would’ve been favorable to the Soviets compared to the final border.
was this before or after the West had invaded Russia?
 
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After Bolsheviks broke alliance during war, entered separate peace treaty and attacked (backstabbed even) Entente - in particular the Czechoslovak Legion.
The USSR attacked the Entente? Was there some Red Army landing in Plymouth I was unaware of?
 
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The USSR attacked the Entente? Was there some Red Army landing in Plymouth I was unaware of?

Chechoslovak Legion was a part of Entente and it's armies. Formally so after revolt, under guarantee of France before and with Bolsheviks assuring that it wouldn't be halted from evacuation from Russia - which it was.

Whole Civil War boomed after Bolsheviks provoked them on Revolt, after Trotsky's decree. Without it there would be no Kolchak and war on East, probably no active hostility with Entente and much less reasons to blame Bolsheviks in 1918 for being defacto German allies in their eyes.

Or is it okay to quit your side in war and backstab your corps? I think that is pretty much equal to starting a war.
 
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was this before or after the West had invaded Russia?
How large was this western invasion did they deploy a whole combat division?
Ok the Japanese maybe... but they a.) hardly West b.) did not influence anyway because it was somewhere in the Taiga ca. 2.3 lightyears away from Moscow.
 
The USSR attacked the Entente? Was there some Red Army landing in Plymouth I was unaware of?

With all due respect, can you please articulate what point you are trying to make? We have been moving goalposts so much we are now playing hockey on one end and beach volleyball on the other.

I think your original point (page 2, top post) was that the USSR did not intend to vassalise anyone, which was handily disproved by <gestures at the area between the Oder and the Dnieper rivers between 1918 and 1922>, which featured not only interventions by the USSR to prop up native red governments, but also outright invasions. Similar stories can be told about breakaway regions in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Granted, it is true they weren't vassalized, but only because they were directly annexed instead (or the rebellious provinces put down).

And yes, Germany and the Allies also intervened in these areas, but that merely makes them guilty of the same sin, it does not absolve the USSR.

Now we are dealing with some whataboutism about the West invading Russia. If the USSR's intervention can (and by you, is) be dismissed as "rebellious provinces", then the pro-White intervention is likewise not an invasion of Russia, but an intervention to prop up one side. The goal of this intervention, at least before 11/11/1918, was to get Russia to re-enter the war on the allied side.

The only country that can be said to have invaded in the traditional sense is Japan, and I don't see how their intervention in Primorsk justifies the russian intervention in Poland.

We can make the point that the USSR was both aggressor and victim of aggression (and indeed it was), but that nuance is lost if we engage in whataboutism.
 
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Apropros of nothing in the last page or so, comparing Soviet economic development in the 1920s and 1930s with Polish development is slightly disingenuous considering that Congress Poland was already one of the most industrialised parts of the entire Russian Empire.

In fact the Russian Empire was so backwards and poorly managed that it couldn't even do imperialism right - it allowed the subjugated Polish lands access to the Russian market for raw goods, and then allowed the area to develop and industrialise by exporting finished goods back to the Russian "core". Economically, Russia had the position of a colonised country vis-a-vis its own supposed colonies.

So the two states had different challenges - the Polish state had the challenge of stitching together the relatively well-developed lands from Germany and Russia with a backwater in Galicia. The Russian/Soviet state had the challenge of basically handling a giant Galicia - actually, I would guess that Galicia would probably have been considered comparatively well-developed compared to the RSFSR and then most of the Soviet Union up until the late 1920s or early 1930s.
 
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Apropros of nothing in the last page or so, comparing Soviet economic development in the 1920s and 1930s with Polish development is slightly disingenuous considering that Congress Poland was already one of the most industrialised parts of the entire Russian Empire.

In fact the Russian Empire was so backwards and poorly managed that it couldn't even do imperialism right - it allowed the subjugated Polish lands access to the Russian market for raw goods, and then allowed the area to develop and industrialise by exporting finished goods back to the Russian "core". Economically, Russia had the position of a colonised country vis-a-vis its own supposed colonies.

So the two states had different challenges - the Polish state had the challenge of stitching together the relatively well-developed lands from Germany and Russia with a backwater in Galicia. The Russian/Soviet state had the challenge of basically handling a giant Galicia - actually, I would guess that Galicia would probably have been considered comparatively well-developed compared to the RSFSR and then most of the Soviet Union up until the late 1920s or early 1930s.
This was repeated in the Comecon period where the USSR supported its vassals with cheap fuel. Although this time they managed to get at least the military part well.

There were not many Soviet products in a typical East Bloc household (Lada maybe). But then again they were not self sufficient is consumer products so it is no wonder they barely exported anything.
 
Chechoslovak Legion was a part of Entente and it's armies. Formally so after revolt, under guarantee of France before and with Bolsheviks assuring that it wouldn't be halted from evacuation from Russia - which it was.

Whole Civil War boomed after Bolsheviks provoked them on Revolt, after Trotsky's decree. Without it there would be no Kolchak and war on East, probably no active hostility with Entente and much less reasons to blame Bolsheviks in 1918 for being defacto German allies in their eyes.

Or is it okay to quit your side in war and backstab your corps? I think that is pretty much equal to starting a war.
The Czechoslovak Legion? Really? That amusing side story is all you have?
 
This argument seems weak. By this logic, Hungary had every right in 1918 onwards to reconquer Slovakia which had never existed as a sovereign state, only as so-called ’Upper Hungary’ for the last 1000 years. Yet much of that land was not ethnically Hungarian north of Kosice. Same for Austria and the Czech half of the union, it had been under the Habsburg boot for 400 years. The idea of ‘rebellious provinces’ is not compatible with the prominent beliefs of the last 150 years and is a wholly imperialist viewpoint that spits in the face of Westphalian peace systems.
Should the Soviets have just allowed the Polish to conquer Ukraine and Byelorussia?
 
The Czechoslovak Legion? Really? That amusing side story is all you have?

Military action against Czechoslovak Legion was one of if not the biggest military actions Soviets did. Not against Germany, Austria, Turkey, UK, Japanese, national republics or White Army.

It was the backbone to the White Army revolt in itself, which was virtually impotent without it.

Or do you think anyone cares about few thousands meme troops from Entente occupying Murmansk & less than half of Odesa, denying Finns and Ukrainians those ports, until Bolsheviks came and asked them to leave? I think @Jopa79 can tell how Entente was hostile more to Finland than to Bolsheviks for the most part, especially at first.
 
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Military action against Czechoslovak Legion was one of if not the biggest military actions Soviets did. Not against Germany, Austria, Turkey, UK, Japanese, national republics or White Army.

It was the backbone to the White Army revolt in itself, which was virtually impotent without it.

Or do you think anyone cares about few thousands meme troops from Entente occupying Murmansk & less than half of Odesa, denying Finns and Ukrainians those ports, until Bolsheviks came and asked them to leave? I think @Jopa79 can tell how Entente was hostile more to Finland than to Bolsheviks for the most part, especially at first.
so maybe the Soviets were correct to attack it?

and remember, those soldiers sent to Murmansk and the Crimea were not sent in order to withdraw.
 
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The Czechoslovak Legion? Really? That amusing side story is all you have?

Again, with all due respect, if you think the Czechoslovak Legion is "an amusing side show", you have no idea what you are talking about wrt the Russian Civil War.
 
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Should the Soviets have just allowed the Polish to conquer Ukraine and Byelorussia?
This is very similar to “preventive war is like committing suicide from fear of death”, conquering land just because someone else is. Using your logic, please remember that Poland was in these territories because they had once been a part of the Commonwealth, just as they were part of Russian Empire. Sure, they were part of Russia more recently but guess how it became part of Russia? Conquering Poland.

We are playing a game of severe double standards and downplaying crucial factors of the Civil War. It’s a very complicated situation and nothing was black and white, but pushing all the way to the Vistula over a Ukraine and Belarus that never requested Communard assistance cannot be justified by any means.
 
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Again, with all due respect, if you think the Czechoslovak Legion is "an amusing side show", you have no idea what you are talking about wrt the Russian Civil War.
Attacking the Czechoslovak Legion, with all its 20th Century Anabasis energy, does not 'an attack on the Entente' make.
 
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Revealing details of secret wartime treaties with the Entente too.
Yup, sure did. And considering how much damage those secrets did...
 
I think @Jopa79 can tell how Entente was hostile more to Finland than to Bolsheviks for the most part, especially at first.

Simultaneously, during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a much less known event, Heimosodat - the Kindred Nations War (1918-1922) was also happening on the Finno-Soviet frontier and borderland. It was an attempt, supported by the Finnish extremist and nationalist, mostly consisting of voluntary forces and the Finnish Whites, by skirmishing and waging war against the weakened Bolsheviks, to create the Greater-Finland.

Someone has said, the Finns were like "a spike in the flesh" while during the British Northern Russian Expedition. It was not only the Finnish Whites, but also the Finnish Reds whom had fled to the Soviet-Russia after being defeated in the Finnish Civil War. The Finnish Reds cooperated with the British intervention troops and at least, having a mutual understanding, the Brits and the Finnish Reds, and the Russian White Guard fought against the Finnish Whites. In the same time, the Finnish Whites fought not only against the previous ones, but their main opponent were the Russian Bolsheviks. This short era surely was a quite confusing one.
 
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Thanks @Jopa79 for the information about your "ridiculous" 'country' and this "amusing side story". (Not my words, for those who for some reason seem to think so.)

Seriously, I appreciate giving me the word Heiomisodat, now I have plenty of reading to do!
 
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Apropros of nothing in the last page or so, comparing Soviet economic development in the 1920s and 1930s with Polish development is slightly disingenuous considering that Congress Poland was already one of the most industrialised parts of the entire Russian Empire.
The Soviet Union was totally isolated with no access to markets, Poland had no problems with trading with the rest of Europe during the entire period. That has to be stressed to underline that it is a very disingenuous comparison.
 
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