6 ms·

Not officially. In practice, it might as well have been. Likewise East Germany.

varjag 4y ago
While they certainly were dominated and dictated by USSR, neither belonged culturally. Neither was as stiff with sexuality for instance; they didn't have collectivization in the earnest and understandably there was no cult of war in DDR other than in token solidarity with occupying Soviet troops.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > While they certainly were dominated and dictated by USSR, neither belonged culturally. Hmm... that seems more like a distinction without a difference. Though dominated by Russians (mostly... Stalin was a Georgian), the USSR was made up of over 100 different nationalities with widely varying languages and cultures.
  - varjag 4y ago
    Yes and you couldn't use all those fine languages for anything else than attending a folk festival. It was Russian-language monoculture in every aspect of your living (source: lived there). Certainly not so in satellite states. Besides you waved off my examples and these already were enormous cultural distance.
hef19898 4y ago
No, not even close. Those were sovereign countries under communist single party rule and allied with the USSR. Ukraine, for exampke, was a sovereign Soviet Republic as part of the USSR, just as Russia was. Totally different things.
- badpun 4y ago
  > Those were sovereign countries under communist single party rule and allied with the USSR. They were countries conquered and occupied by USSR troops, with USSR military bases in them to guarantee obedience. There were local rulers, sure, but major decisions were consulted with Moscow. Many decisions just were out of question, because it was obvious that Moscow would not approve and it may end in a military intervention (as in happened in Hungary and Czech Republic). So no, I would not describe them as "sovereign countries". The proper term is something like "puppet state".
- fzzt 4y ago
  "Allied" in the sense of having a USSR-installed puppet government propped up by the massive presence of Soviet troops. This was a part of the concessions made by the West to Stalin, not an expression of the will of Polish or German people.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  I'm not sure if you are being factious or not. I know its not trendy, but its probably easier to think of the eastern bloc countries as colonies of the USSR, just as india, egypt, and the african nations were to the UK. Sure, on paper they were sovereign, and they certianly had a government made up of people from that country. But they were a colony.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    Might be splitting hairs, but I’d characterise them more as client states or even puppet states, rather than colonies. A colony would imply more direct governance.
    - anikan_vader 4y ago
      Satellite state is the usual term. It's not clear that the term colony implies direct governance. For example, the Brits applied almost no direct governance to their colonies in the Americas from 1650-1750. One could also just say that the Russians occupied Eastern Europe for the half-century following World War 2.
      - mr_toad 4y ago
        I think that the American colonies were more like the Latin colinia, deriving from the Latin for cultivate. It implies a large population movement, and exploitation, not just a conquest. It was more like the Saxon colonisation of the UK, which replaced the native Celtic population, rather than the Norman conquest, (or the colonisation of India) which just replaced the oligarchy. What came quite a lot later in America , was the attempt to assert more direct Imperial rule over the colonies.

While they certainly were dominated and dictated by USSR, neither belonged culturally. Neither was as stiff with sexuality for instance; they didn't have collectivization in the earnest and understandably there was no cult of war in DDR other than in token solidarity with occupying Soviet troops.

Turing_Machine 4y ago
> While they certainly were dominated and dictated by USSR, neither belonged culturally. Hmm... that seems more like a distinction without a difference. Though dominated by Russians (mostly... Stalin was a Georgian), the USSR was made up of over 100 different nationalities with widely varying languages and cultures.
- varjag 4y ago
  Yes and you couldn't use all those fine languages for anything else than attending a folk festival. It was Russian-language monoculture in every aspect of your living (source: lived there). Certainly not so in satellite states. Besides you waved off my examples and these already were enormous cultural distance.

hef19898 4y ago

No, not even close. Those were sovereign countries under communist single party rule and allied with the USSR. Ukraine, for exampke, was a sovereign Soviet Republic as part of the USSR, just as Russia was. Totally different things.

badpun 4y ago
> Those were sovereign countries under communist single party rule and allied with the USSR. They were countries conquered and occupied by USSR troops, with USSR military bases in them to guarantee obedience. There were local rulers, sure, but major decisions were consulted with Moscow. Many decisions just were out of question, because it was obvious that Moscow would not approve and it may end in a military intervention (as in happened in Hungary and Czech Republic). So no, I would not describe them as "sovereign countries". The proper term is something like "puppet state".
fzzt 4y ago
"Allied" in the sense of having a USSR-installed puppet government propped up by the massive presence of Soviet troops. This was a part of the concessions made by the West to Stalin, not an expression of the will of Polish or German people.
KaiserPro 4y ago
I'm not sure if you are being factious or not. I know its not trendy, but its probably easier to think of the eastern bloc countries as colonies of the USSR, just as india, egypt, and the african nations were to the UK. Sure, on paper they were sovereign, and they certianly had a government made up of people from that country. But they were a colony.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Might be splitting hairs, but I’d characterise them more as client states or even puppet states, rather than colonies. A colony would imply more direct governance.
  - anikan_vader 4y ago
    Satellite state is the usual term. It's not clear that the term colony implies direct governance. For example, the Brits applied almost no direct governance to their colonies in the Americas from 1650-1750. One could also just say that the Russians occupied Eastern Europe for the half-century following World War 2.
    - mr_toad 4y ago
      I think that the American colonies were more like the Latin colinia, deriving from the Latin for cultivate. It implies a large population movement, and exploitation, not just a conquest. It was more like the Saxon colonisation of the UK, which replaced the native Celtic population, rather than the Norman conquest, (or the colonisation of India) which just replaced the oligarchy. What came quite a lot later in America , was the attempt to assert more direct Imperial rule over the colonies.