[coldtea]

>But even if they did, I doubt it would be worse than what we have now. You can infer that what we have now is pretty bad.

Today's Russia would be worse than a Nazi-occupied Russia?

It's a typical eastern European country, with the typical corruption and political power patterns that come with it. Nothing more, nothing less, except its size.

The image of Russia as some global rogue power is ludicrous, especially coming from a global rogue power itself, which has invaded, occupied, took the oil, toppled, etc, places tons of miles outside its borders for the best part of the last 30 years, creating a hell of a mess in the process.

>French understood that and abstained from the fight.

That's a novel way to look at WWII. Perhaps somebody should have told the allies that all those sacrifices and blood toll wasn't needed, because they'd win anyway.

[thriftwy]

Nazi occupation won't stick. That's unprecedented in modern world.

No. Russia has it worse than any other Eastern European country. Shorter life span, worse wealth inequality, higher incidents of murder and drug use, AIDS epidemy, weaker political system. We're done pretty well. That's the result of the whole communist XX century.