What is your opinion on the USSR, and its role in History

It did nothing good. Because of the USSR so many people suffered and died. The existence of USSR also slowed down the developing of peace and prevented disarmament on the cold war era.

Although it showed that communism doesn't work in a country like that.

Except for the "alot of people died"-part, USSR was just awsome!

What else except "ideology" and "Dead Guys"?

What about the fact that The USSR won WW2 and kept peace for decades standing against USA expansion all over the world.

I dont agree with your point of you. I will reply later (unfortunatly I have no time now).

will3141d wrote:

Johann21 wrote: What about the fact that The USSR won WW2 and kept peace for decades standing against USA expansion all over the world. First, the USSR won WW2 as part of a huge international alliance and was heavily dependent upon American and British material aid. Second, the USSR did not keep peace at all. The Soviet Union exported communism and arms to North Korea, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Cuba. The results of this were 40 years of conflict and mass-murder which cost 10's of millions of lives. So I fail to see how the USSR could be considered a 'peacemaker' in any capacity.

I agree completely. It wasn't the US who was expanding, but communism was, with USSR in the lead.

"any technological or cultural aspects which were purely 'Soviet' either"
What about Space. Russians were the first who conqeгred Space. The first sputnik, the first dog, the first man. woman....
H-bomb
SS 18.
Kalashnikov! Majority of todays guns were based upon this technology.
All these purely Soviet technologies.

Cultural? Ok! Maybe they had no big break-throughs. But what about West countries. Did you have something special!

I don't like the USSR,they did a lot of bad things in our(I mean Polish) history,e.g they killed our officers in Katyn forest or attacked us on September 17th and illegally took part of our territory...
During the WW2 they did nothing to help us,they were as cruel as Nazis,sent many people to camps in Siberia,killed others in executions and during the Warsaw Uprising they did nothing to help us,they were jus staying on the Vistula bnak,when the Poles were fighting!And a few months later they came to our country as if it was theirs and made us their satelite country...
And by taking half of our country they didn't achieve anything big,these areas were even in worse condition than they were before the WW2..
They were just driven by their ambitions and because they wanted to rule the world.
OK,Soviets were first in space,but what next? it didn't help their economy,it costed huge amounts of money and it caused big financial problems I think..And their technology,devoted to the system was not good enough to compete with the American one...
And they didn't keep peace at all..What about the war in Afghanistan or the Korean War(i know,they were not in Korea,but they supported its northern part)?
Their ideology also doesn't convince me at all...They wanted everything to be good,everybody to be equal,but they did nothing really...Their economy was almost all the time really weak(even when it seemed strong outside,it had a lot of problems inside!),people were suffering and dying(e.g Great Famine in Ukraine in early 1930s) and were made to work in huge farms only for communist system and not for themselves! And they were stealing food and other goods from the Eastern Bloc countries,making them send everything to USSR and leave these worse things to them...
Censorship there was also strong,they didn't allow anyone to reveal the truth,nothing more than was written in books could be said,there was no freedom even in such areas of life as poetry,films,arts or music!
Country with so many sins can't be considered as a good one!

OK,OK,the had woderful football team,that's the one positive thing

i'm glad to read so many "democratic means".

actually it's impossible to say only "black" or "white" about USSR.
right, there wasn't no freedom of speech in USSR. but every man in USSR had work, there weren't baggers, homeless, jobless people. Soviet people didn't know what "economic crysis" is.
right, people of USSR were't rich, but they weren't poor.

after Russian Revolution (1917) bolsheviks became a great company aimed to eliminate illiteracy couse most soviest people even didn't know how to read and write letters.

soviet education was best in the World. USSR had best free medicine. soviet people got appartments for free. every family where wife is pregnat got appartments in short time. no credits, no rents, no etc.

right, USSR exported communism from others countries. but USA is doing same thing now. so what's the difference?
USA exported democracy bombing peacefull people.
i won't argue that soviet soldiers killed peacefull afganian citizens, but in samt time soviet builder build houses, schools, hospitals, roads in Afganistan. did american do something of it? oh, i forgot, they brought democracy, this is much more important than stupid hospitals.

China? What about it? 99% of chinese weaporns are copied from USSR weaporns. is it bad when someone gave weaporn technologies for you? China will dominated the World in many respects soviet weaporns.

I know that Poland has its personal history, but for all that it were soviet soldiers who fight with fascism in Poland. They gave their lifes fighting in Poland.