this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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"Russification" was stopped by the soviets, and there was a two-fold effort to promote an internationalist "soviet" identity while preserving national identities. Derussifying surnames was not a priority, but numerous gains were made for cultural preservation.
You're also confusing culture with imperialism, which is a form of international exploitation on an economic basis typically reinforced by methods like couping, installing compradors, etc.
No it wasn't, otherwise Tajiks wouldn't still have -ov and -ova at the end of their surnames. Also see link to article written in the late 70s by an actual anti-imperialist socialist, explaining why the Soviet Union totally was imperialist. https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-3/iwk-ussr.htm
As explained earlier, your supposed "anti-imperialist socialists" were upholding Pol Pot in Cambodia against Vietnam, and siding with the US over the USSR, while the USSR was supporting Vietnam, the DPRK, Cuba, Algeria, and more. The groups siding with China in the Sino-Soviet split took all manner of incorrect lines as an overcorrection from Khrushchev's revisionist stance that class struggle was over in the USSR. In the same time period, the USSR was supporting revolution in Cuba, the DPRK, Vietnam, Algeria, South Africa and more.
The USSR did not colonize nor plunder internationally, instead it focused on internationalism and mutual development. It was in no way fascist either, public ownership was the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes in control of the state. Is the Red Flag Flying? by Albert Syzmanski is a good book going over the political economy of the later soviet union.
I like how Emopunker omitted your last reply in a thread griping about you.
Also, -ov and -ova are prerevolutionary loans which probably feel as foreign to Tajiks as Fitz- does to us. Frankly, griping about the Soviets failing to derussify surnames is pretty boneheaded given how protective most people are of their surnames, but even if they did derussify those, anti-Bolsheviks would instead be whinging about the Soviets forcing people to change their surnames.
Unsurprising that they ran to that nazi bar. And you're absolutely correct, either we'd be hearing about forcing people to give up their historical names, or we hear about them failing to derussify enough like we do today.