[robotresearcher]

Russia was a leading world power long before the creation of the USSR. Your "backwater" was:

"One of the largest empires in world history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires."

(Wikpedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire)

[dllthomas]

While it's true that Russia was a major world power, the passage you quote only really establishes that it was large, which would be true of a "huge backwater" too.