[throwaway3060]

For much of that time frame, the Soviets were also meddling in the Middle East. That the middle east conflicts were themselves part of the Cold War rather than something unrelated, is knowledge that has gone forgotten in the West, I think.

[cess11]

Yeah, bad soviets, financing and arming decolonial movements and so on.

[throwaway3060]

Soviets who murdered millions of people.

Will those decolonial movements then accept complicity, even if reluctantly, for all the peoples the Soviets oppressed and even genocided?

[cess11]

It's obviously better to live under genocidal occupiers than being helped towards independence by a less genocidal federation, I see that now.

[throwaway3060]

Less genocidal federation? That is quite the claim.

The Soviets starved millions of people to death, in order to secure their control. All that help was then built on the backs and blood of those victims. At least let's be honest about that much.

[cess11]

Is it? I'd bet it is vastly outpaced by british, belgian, german and other genocides.

[throwaway3060]

If you're going to go pre-20th century, Russia has the dubious distinction of having waged the most "total" recorded genocide in history, the Circassian genocide.

Just because you haven't heard of Russia colonizing doesn't mean it didn't happen just as much. It just wasn't where the other imperial empires were. How else would one city come to a rule a continent-sized territory? A big difference is, they didn't keep records of such things. People picture Siberia as an empty wilderness and have no idea that rich societies once lived there.