Was Russia always destined to be hostile and 'different' to most of the West?

[Tooting Carmen]

That's true but I'd rather live under PAX AMERICANA than PAX RUSSICA.

Like saying it is better to have ulcers than tumours.

[Incal]

Like saying it is better to have ulcers than tumours.

I think a more appropriate analogy would be cholesterol than cancer.

[Dick]

I noticed that my account got two new reputation comments today. Unfortunately I couldn't read them before they were erased from my TA cabinet. Just like were erased some of my later posts here.

Whoever wrote those comments may try luck and double them

This might be a dumb question but since you're one of the only Russians posting here nowadays... did the Soviet Union ever have an ethnic Russian at the helm? Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky lived in London, England at the same time. They were obviously Crown assets and all three were not ethnic Russians. Communism was a westen invention. Eastern Europeans were for the most part apolitical and had other worries back in the day. Brezhnev, Krushchev and Gorbachev's ethnicities seem to be disputed via wikipedia, Yeltsin didn't look like an ethnic Russian either.

[Rumata]

This might be a dumb question but since you're one of the only Russians posting here nowadays... did the Soviet Union ever have an ethnic Russian at the helm? Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky lived in London, England at the same time. They were obviously Crown assets and all three were not ethnic Russians.

If Stalin were a Crown asset, I see no explanation of the existence of Stalin's USSR as a real superpower when its might peaked.

Concerning ethnicity. I don't think that ethnocentrism is important for many people anyway. And many of those who have this priority still have other priorities above this one. And of course one can be very unfree in ones actions because of compromising evidences and of some more brutal things. Even if one is ethnic Russian caring about his people.

They say Nikita Khrushchev was ethnically Russian. He who took Crimea away from RSFSR.

Communism was a westen invention. Eastern Europeans were for the most part apolitical and had other worries back in the day. Brezhnev, Krushchev and Gorbachev's ethnicities seem to be disputed via wikipedia, Yeltsin didn't look like an ethnic Russian either.

As a modern Russian saying goes: if you don't deal with politics, politics deal with you
Well, it's a vast and difficult question what is the nature of communism. As for Russians, I'd dare to say that the Orthodox faith taught us that people were naturally equal (except that weird nuance with the tsar). And the climate urged the collectivist mindset.

[Rumata]

Do we agree that in 1953 USSR was a fully independent superpower?