Putin says he wishes the Soviet Union had not collapsed. Many Russians agree.

[DonViejo]

By Adam Taylor March 3 at 1:18 PM

A day after unveiling dramatic new weapons — including a nuclear-powered cruise missile — that sparked talk of a return to Cold War tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that he'd reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union if he could.

Putin's comments on the 1991 collapse of the U.S.S.R. — which bound Russia and many of its neighbors while exerting influence in Eastern Europe and abroad for almost seven decades — came at a question-and-answer forum held Friday in Kaliningrad. Taking questions from the audience, the Russian leader was asked what event in his nation's history he would have liked to change.

"The collapse of the Soviet Union," Putin responded, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

Though a fringe idea in the West, regret about the collapse of the Soviet Union is not unusual in Russia — in fact, it is widespread. And with Russian elections just a week away, it's a factor still worth watching.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/03/putin-says-he-wishes-he-could-change-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-many-russians-agree

[Turbineguy]

1. The Soviet Union collapsed

because power was given to stupid and corrupt political hacks.

You know, like the republican party over here.

Chernobyl exposed their system.

The September 11 attack should have exposed it here. But we had Fox News and RW hate radio. So that evil day of reckoning still awaits.

[mr_lebowski]

2. Don't forget that collapse involved a tremendous loss of territory and with it, power ...

It's one thing to wish that 'Russia' was still 'USSR' with control over a HUGE mass of land ... and something altogether different to wish for the days of 'Socialism' in those lands.

Putin wishes he had the level of power that Stalin had, but I doubt he wishes for the Socialism that came with it.

[Igel]

3. A lot of older Russians were truly bitter.

They truly believed they were good, kind, and loved by the peoples they had occupied and controlled. They sacrificed for them. Many parts of the USSR were more prosperous than Russia, and eastern Europe most certainly. Russians were told that they lived in deprivation to some extent because of the help given to them. It was fiction, not explicit, but a convenient fiction.

When those people turned on them, they felt betrayed. Like what was properly theirs had been taken from them unjustly.

Few wanted to call the USSR an empire, but the reaction was that of imperialists. Many wanted to call the USA an empire, but the reaction to loss of bases and territorial control was much, much less pronounced.

The USSR had more honor, more prestige, more solidarity, less perceived crime and corruption. Those are values. Free speech, religion, etc.? Not culturally that important.

[kimbutgar]

4. Was watching a documentary recently about Stalin

The Russian way of poisoning political opponents is not new. They hinted in the doc that Lenin was probably poisoned and that’s how Stalin took power after getting rid of his opposition Trotsky.He went after the familiar way as to Putin’s arresting and having his opposition disappeared or poisoned mysteriously.