By the way , the Nazis , accompanied by fascists from some Eastern European countries , murdered 27 million Soviets and substantially destroyed their economy . So, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, including East Germany was not an empire ! It was the Soviets putting the fascists “on ice” to protect their people against another invasion , a profound obligation they had to their people .

Also , the German genocidal invasion was CAPITALISM cheating in economic competition with socialism. So, the relative poverty of the Soviet Union during the Cold War was not at all the failure of socialism . In fact , the Soviets had built their economy out of the Czarist Russian backward economy. Soviet Socialism built its forces of production up in just 23 years close to the size of the US economy which took a century to build under capitalism.

Not only that: after the massive destruction inflicted by the fascists, the Soviet Socialism rapidly built their economy back up close to the US size .

All proving the superiority of socialism.

Of course , the Soviet Union was exhausted after that , having lost a huge part of the most important part of production- LABOR POWER- lost 27 million ! .

Also, the Soviet Union was under threat of imperialist invasion from the very beginning when the white armies, US and French troops tried to strangle the revolutionary baby in the cradle . SO, IT HAD MILITARIZE ALL OF SOCIETY TO PROTECT ITSELF AND DIDN’T HAVE THE LUXURY OF FULL “DEMOCRACY.”

Glory to the Soviet working class and the Soviet Communist Party ! Glory !

By the way , the Nazis in Ukraine today trace their heritage to one of groups of non-German Nazis who aided the German invasion of the SU in WWII

See Russ Bellant’s article below from 2014 long before the current Russian military action to neutralize Nazis in Ukraine in 2022:

https://fpif.org/seven-decades-nazi-collaboration-americas-dirty-little-ukraine-secret/