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Originally Posted by svin
I think that explanation is much more easier. Even black students considered communist countries not a good place to live. That's why they left them after the end of their studies. With their education (and Soviet education was good, this is fact) they could afford much better life in their home countries.
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I think that's pretty much it.
As for the purposeful destruction of the distinct peoples and cultures of the world by 'mixing' them away, the Soviets advocated that every bit as much as the Capitalist states, particularly the US. Though the former called it 'fusion' and the latter 'integration', it was the same thing. That the Reds failed (thankfully) wasn't for lack of trying on their parts.
"Until recently the long-standing goal of Soviet nationality policy had been the eventual merger or fusion of all nations and nationalities in the Soviet Union into a single Soviet socialist community."
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Nationality Policy in the USSR and in Bulgaria: Some Observations
Ali Eminov
Wayne State College
Soviet Nationality Policy to 1985
Until recently the long-standing goal of Soviet nationality policy had been the eventual merger or fusion of all nations and nationalities in the Soviet Union into a single Soviet socialist community. This merger was to be accomplished in two stages. During the first stage, through participation in a common polity and economy, members of various nations and nationalities were to draw closer together (sblizhenie). During the second stage they were to merge (sliianie) into a single socialist community.(1) Attempts to manage cultural diversity based on these notions have been called syncretic amalgamation. According to Cohen and Warwick (1983:11), "syncretic amalgamation represented an attempt to dilute or eradicate existing cultural identities through the creation of completely new bonds or cases of collective solidarity" through high levels of governmental interference in social relations. Syncretic amalganiation in its revolutionary form attempted to replace existing group loyalties with bonds deriving from class consciousness so that parochial loyalties are superceded by regime ideology. Cohen and Warwick (1983:11-12) elaborate:
In practice, fusionist policy generally made allowances for the existence and even temporary cultivation of traditional cultural practices, provided that such activities (were) essentially of afolklore or pro-regime character.
The rationale for the temporary cultivation of ethnic institutions was that once different groups became aware of their own identities through the development of their languages and cultures, they would become aware of the superiority of an international identity and willingly substitute proletarian internationalism for parochial nationalism. However, such policies in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in Eastern Europe contributed to the strengthening rather than diminishing of ethnic loyalties, ethnic chauvinism and ethnic antipathies, in the process dampening the enthusiasm of leaders for fusionist policies. One result of this was the adoption on the part of these same leaders of "an evolutionary strategy to achieve revolutionary goals" by replacing the more "blatant sanctions of utopian normative appeals by more persuasive appeals and material incentives" (Cohen and Warwick 1983:12). The authors continue:
The expectation still remained that traditional cultural ties (would) eventually decay as a result of modernization, but it [was] acknowledged that this [would] be a very extended and gradual process. Moreover, although the merging of long-established identities(could) be encouraged and guided, this process require[d] methods more mild and subtle than those utilized by the earlier fusionist policies (Cohen and Warwick 1983:12).
This process of ethnic amalgamation was not based on the study of actual developments among various nations and nationalities in the Soviet Union; rather, it was determined a priori by party ideologues and presented as a historically inevitable process. Developments on the ground were expected to fit ideological requirements. Even though the persistence and resilience of parochial identities could not be denied, party ideologues kept insisting that the process of ethnic amalgamation was well under way."(2)
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Anthropology of East Europe Review 9(2)