Sorry if too tankie
your post caused me to learn that "within the Soviet Union itself, "URSS" was the preferred Latin-script abbreviation for the country until World War II"
URSS = Ursine Republic of Sexual Soviets, the best bear bar in Novosibirsk :hexbear-pride:
The Soviets were a beacon of human progress. In some ways society now - forty years later - has advanced beyond what they had achieved in the eighties, but I have no doubt that if they hadn't been destroyed and were still around they would still be in the lead on just about everything, and the rest of the world would be forced to be better in order to compete.
Thinking about the Soviet response to covid and a rapidly produced and internationally provided vaccine, ending the pandemic quickly in most of the non-western world :Care-Comrade:
1, critical support for Deng in staving off the ultra-left rot that was infecting the PRC.
2, gonna have to report you to the NKVD for sectarianism, comrade.
