On the other hand, Russia refers to a particular location, government, and country in the world. After the Russian revolution of , it joined the Soviet Union as one of its republics. It works under a semi-presidential government headed by the Prime Minister. It became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December At the time of formation of the Soviet Union, Russia was existed and after disintegration, it was also existed, but the difference was that before disintegration Russia was part of the Union and after disintegration it became Russia as an independent state.
Today, its government is a federal republic and has its own culture and traditions that are distinct from those of its former members of the Soviet Union. Hence, we can say the main difference between Russia and the Soviet Union is that Russia is a country, whereas the Soviet Union was a political state, in which Russia was one of the republic's states.
It is a former federation of Communist republics comprised of 15 republics. It is officially known as Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. It had single party state and govern on the philosophy of Marxist-Communist.
It had syncretic ethnicities, culture and tradition. In other words, union of ethnicities, culture and tradition. All these changes came at a great price. During his reign of terror, an estimated thirty million people lost their lives.
The forced collectivization The process of taking privately owned farms, merging them with other farms and turning them over to government control. This took place in the USSR in the s. Stalin led periodic purges of his perceived political enemies. At that time —38 , about one million so-called enemies of the state were executed. However, some historians believe he was poisoned by his close associates. Marx wrote that all political and economic life can be understood as a struggle between the various classes in society.
In Marxist thought, capitalism An economy based on the free market. Marxists believe that the proletariat should revolt, rise up against the bourgeoisie, take the property away from the rich, and give it to the government to control it for the benefit of the common people. Ultimately, a pure Communist In theory, a system in which there are no economic classes and economic resources are shared equally by all members of society.
In practice, this term describes socialist countries such as the USSR. In real life, governments that adopt these ideas practice socialism An economic and political practice in which the government owns the means of economic production, distribution, and exchange.
Socialism is thought to be a step on the path to Communism. As a socialist state, the Soviet Union did not include open markets.
The Soviet Union was a command economy An economy in which economic decisions are made by a central authority and not according to market demands.
During the Soviet era, for example, industrial production was planned by the central government. The government would decide what would be produced, where it would be produced, the quantity produced, the number of workers who would produce it, where the raw materials would come from, and how the final product would be distributed. By mobilizing the entire country to work toward common goals, the USSR was able to achieve the rapid industrialization that it so desired.
However, the Soviets underestimated the power and efficiency of free-enterprise capitalism, and their socialist system was undermined by waste, fraud, and corruption. Another main economic feature of the Soviet Union was collectivized agriculture. The Soviet leaders did not want individual, capitalist farmers to become rich and threaten their economic system.
Nor did they want thousands of small, inefficient farms when the country was perpetually unable to feed itself. Instead, they decided to streamline agricultural production into large farm factories. All the farmland in each area was consolidated into a government-owned collective operation.
Some collective farms were run by the state, while others were run by private cooperatives. During the transition period to collective farming, individual farmers were forced to give up their land, animals, farm equipment, and farm buildings and donate them to the collective farm in their area.
The state also demanded a high percentage of the crops produced. At times, the government collected the entire harvest, not even allowing seed crops to be held for the following season. This brought about widespread famine in — Each side attracted allies, and most countries were on the side of either the United States or the Soviet Union; very few remained neutral.
This era, known as the Cold War The protracted competition for military strength, scientific prowess, economic growth, and control of resources between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from to Whenever the Soviets would enter into an alliance with a certain country, the United States was right there to try to counter the move.
Wars, armed conflicts, sabotage, spying, and covert activities were the methods of the Cold War. Both sides stockpiled as much deadly weaponry as possible, including nuclear warheads and missiles. They also competed in the race to put people in outer space. Figure 3. Covert wars or guerilla wars with secret agents and political assassinations were fought in Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala, Mozambique, Laos, Cambodia, and a host of other third-world countries.
The Cold War divided the world into two main camps, each with a high number of nuclear weapons. These physical barriers divided the communist countries of Eastern Europe with the capitalist democracies of Western Europe. Germany itself was divided into two separate countries, as explained in Chapter 2 "Europe". Various Soviet dictators came to power and died in office before the end of the Cold War.
The last Soviet leader was Mikhail Gorbachev , who assumed power in The US president at the time was Ronald Reagan. During the s the United States was outspending the Soviets militarily, and its economy was growing at a much faster rate than that of the USSR. At the same time, the Soviets were engaged in a costly war in Afghanistan, and their economy was faltering and in danger of collapse.
I think the fact that 12 Americans showed up, participated, met with Heads of state at that conference made a very strong statement of American support for freedom and for looking westwardly in trying to get their problems solved and their infrastructure needs met. We also had a very meaningful visit to Norway, where we saw some American-Norwegian defense initiatives. I am very proud of the partnership that this Helsinki Commission—our organ of the American OSCE PA—and the way that we joined together to express our support for freedom, for democracy, for the rule of law, for opposing corruption, both at the petty local level and also at the larger State-sponsored level.
One other thing before I yield back and let my friend close. Particularly in Bulgaria, but also all during our trip, we were met with hearty thanks for the United States leadership in the global Magnitsky Act. This began as an initiative with Senator Cardin, Senator Lieberman, Senator McCain, and me several years ago directed—during the Obama administration—directed toward individual Russians who had violated human rights and individual liberty in a very outrageous and gross way, allowing us to sanction individuals rather than causing harm to the people of Russia in that case.
That has been expanded now to the global level and other countries are adopting this. But I can tell you, when we arrived in Bulgaria, we were met with great thanks from people who are trying to combat lawlessness and corruption at the top level of government. I just have to say, of course, Ben Cardin has been the premier leader in this worldwide effort. It was gratifying to know and to learn firsthand on the ground there in Sofia, Bulgaria, that an initiative that began right here in this U. Senate years ago, and continues to this day, is having a beneficial effect on the people all across Europe and particularly in some of the countries that we visited.
I yield back to the Senator from Maryland. The Senator from Maryland. Madam President, let me again thank Senator Wicker. Thank you for your leadership on so many issues. But on this congressional delegation, for those who are not familiar, it is not easy to put together the type of opportunities to advance American values.
And Senator Wicker took the responsibility as the leader of our delegation to make sure that we had the opportunities to advance American values. I thank him for all the effort he put into it. It was certainly extremely successful. I just want to emphasize a few things before closing. That is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has the responsibility of monitoring the nuclear programs throughout the world.
Obviously, it has played a bigger role in regard to the program in Iran, and it was monitoring exactly what was happening in Iran under the JCPOA. And I think it was helpful for all of us to understand exactly the role that the IAEA can play in regard to getting us information about what is happening on the ground in Iran. We showed our support by going to Narva, which is on the Russian border. It is a town that has a majority of Russian-speaking Estonians.
It is an interesting community. But we could see across the river, very clearly, the Russian patrol boats. We know and heard firsthand of the concern of the Estonians. They saw what happened in Ukraine and they worry that same thing could happen in Estonia with Russian aggression. I must tell you, our presence to reinforce the NATO commitment, I think, was an extremely important message that we gave to the Estonian people.
Would the gentleman yield on that point? I would be glad to yield. The Senator from Mississippi. If I might add, people in Narva, Estonia, and people in the city across the river have access to each other across a bridge there. And it is clear to the people on the Russian side that their cousins and friends in Narva, Estonia, live a better life and have a better standard of living in this free country, this NATO ally called Estonia, than the Russian cousins and friends have on the other side.
I just thought I would add that to the discourse before Senator Cardin moves on to discussing Norway and Bulgaria. Thank you. Madam President, let me move onto Bulgaria very briefly. Senator Wicker did cover Bulgaria.
It is an initiative by twelve states that are basically part of the Eastern European Coalition, states that are developing democratic institutions and democratic economies after the fall of the Soviet Union.
They need to build up their resilience as a collective entity in energy, transportation, and digital infrastructure. The Three Seas Initiative is to attract investment to connect the twelve countries together on infrastructure needs. It is for many reasons. It is for its own economic strength and growth, but also for resiliency against the efforts of China on its Belt and Road Initiative, which is trying to infiltrate these countries and convert their way of economy to more of the Chinese system.
The Three Seas Initiative is an effort to have their own independent way of attracting capital. The United States is participating in the Three Seas.
We are not a member, but we are participating and providing resources for the fund that is being developed that would be leveraged for these type of investments.
While we were in Bulgaria, we had a chance to have bilateral meetings. There were twelve heads of state there. We had very constructive discussions about what is happening in their country.
We raised Helsinki issues with all these countries. Senator Wicker already talked about how we were welcomed by the Bulgarian leadership in regards to the imposition of the Magnitsky sanctions. We are heroes. They feel like they have a second chance to try to develop the type of anti-corruption mechanisms that they desperately need. Our visit to Varna, which is on the Black Sea, was very educational to see how Russia is trying to dominate the Black Sea area and one of the reasons why they are so aggressive in Ukraine and the Crimea.
I think that was extremely helpful for us to understand the security risks and how we have to work with our NATO partners to protect the Black Sea area, particularly from the potential aggression—not potential—from the aggression of Russia.
Also in Bulgaria, we had a chance to visit a Roma village. It is not my first visit to a Roma village. I have visited over the years. It is a real tragic situation. The Roma population have been in Europe for centuries. They lived in communities for hundreds of years, yet they do not have property rights. They have lived in their homes, and yet they do not have the opportunity to have their homes registered.
And at any time, the government can come in and take away their property without compensation. They rarely have reliable utilities. The village we visited did not have water systems, so they had to use outhouses, et cetera. They had limited availability of fresh water. Their utility service is not reliable. And they go to segregated schools. So we, once again, will raise the rights of the Roma population as part of our commitment under the Helsinki Commission, and we are following up with the local officials to try to help in that regard.
Then, lastly, on our way back, we visited Norway. I learned a lot because I did not know about the pre-positioning program. I know my friend Senator Wicker already knew about this from his Armed Services service, but it is where we pre-position equipment so that we can respond rapidly to a circumstance anywhere in the world.
The Norway pre-positioning is actually used to help us in regard to the Middle East and our needs in the Middle East. So it was an extremely, extremely, I think, productive visit to these countries. I think we did carry out our commitment under the Helsinki Commission, and we advanced American values. I think we represented our country well, and we were very well noticed.
Madam President, one other thing that our colleagues might not understand about the OSCE is their role in election observation. As we were leaving Sofia on the morning of July 11, we crossed paths with some other representatives from the OSCE from European countries who were there to observe the parliamentary elections being held in Bulgaria that very day. We have every hope that the results of these elections will be a further resolve in those two nation members to counter the corruption at the highest level, and we want to congratulate both of those member states of the OSCE for free and fair elections in Europe.
With that, I thank my colleague. I yield the floor. RADA, which was signed into law last December, allows the United States to prosecute individuals for doping schemes at international events involving American athletes, sponsors or broadcasters. The July Aug. They will not be clean, that much I guarantee," Jim Walden, attorney for Rodchenkov, told the hearing.
As resilient as the Mob proved to be, it pales in comparison to the deeply entrenched corruption in international sports. Walden said Congress could super-size RADA's impact if it uses its oversight authority to ensure the FBI and Justice Department have a complete plan and allocate sufficient resources to bring cases. He also said a second imperative would be to withhold funding for the World Anti-Doping Agency until more transparency and Executive Committee comprised primarily of former clean athletes and anti-doping scientists are achieved.
Edwin Moses, emeritus chair of the U. Moses said the state-sponsored doping of the Russians competing at the Sochi Olympics was shocking, but even worse was a "lack of repercussions" that he described as a nightmare realized and one that we have not yet woken from. It was inspiring to see the extraordinary economic advances of Estonia and Bulgaria. While in Tallinn, we learned that Russian diplomats had been expelled in April across the Baltics to join the protest of the Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babis, exposing the irrefutable evidence that two Russian GRU agents were behind the ammunition depot explosion at Vrbetice, which killed two persons.
The same two Russian agents named by the Czech Republic are suspected by British authorities for poisoning former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in The Czech Republic has correctly demanded Russia pay for damages.
Skip to main content. Russian Federation. Sort by Newest Oldest. Category Article. Helsinki Commission. In the News. Press Release. Country Afghanistan. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Czech Republic. Holy See. North Macedonia. Participating States. Partners for Cooperation. Republic of Korea.
San Marino. Slovak Republic. United Kingdom. United States of America. Issue Anti-Semitism. Citizenship and Political Rights. Confidence and Security Building Measures. Economic Cooperation and Trade.
Energy and Environment. Freedom of Association and Assembly. Freedom of Movement. Freedom of Speech and Expression. Freedom of Thought, Conscience, Religion, or Belief. Freedom of the Media. Gender Equality. Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, and War Crimes. Good Governance and the Rule of Law. Human Trafficking. International Law.
International Organizations. International Parental Child Abduction. Internet Freedom. Migration, Refugees, and Displaced Persons. Military Aspects of Security. Minority Rights.
0コメント