How the U.S.S.R. prevented communism

 

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (CCCP), founded in 1922, in the rubble of World War I and the Russian Civil War, somewhat misnamed because much of it was fought in what is now Ukraine, Belarus and other nations, was essentially the product of a social-chauvinist or social-imperialist "Great Russian" "westward offensive." This was the same year that Lenin, already in poor health (and having been shot in the head in 1918), would have his first stroke, becoming paralyzed on one side and unable to speak.  Over the next several years, the U.S.S.R. gradually established a bloc that reshaped geopolitics, in effect creating a new balance of power that stabilized international relations and thus entrenched the status quo in international politics for generations.


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