@Lt Ripley - I don't know where you live - but I am old enough to have had experience with the former soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, or at least my mother did, who kept up a friendship with a Hungarian lady, and my in-laws with Slovakija - I got to hear the stories, even here in Australia.
These places were nothing to shout about - shortages of just about every basic thing - people used to come over to Austria to shop, because there were no goods in Hungary, Czechoslovakija.
The big boast of Communism (I was a Socialist for 2 years of my teenage life, still harbour some love for a more integral system of economics) was that it educated people - and the running joke was that now in Hungary even the road sweepers had matriculation certificates, but there was nowhere for them to work, to use their education.
Those countries you quote, and who have a few ardent supporters on these threads, are all Slavic and they are dreaming of a 'Greater Slavic Empire' where they are the lords and masters over the rest of Europe - most of them have forgotten what life was like under the Soviets.
I have a friend like this (or rather had, he no longer speaks to me) and that 'belief' is mostly based on what some might call an 'inferiority complex'; vis-a-vis Western Europe, the Germans, the better educated people, who manage to run a decent economy, or did then.
There was a united Slav nation, i.e. Yugoslavia for a while and it lasted only as long as the strongman lived (Marshall Tito) and see how they managed to kill one another, in order to have precedence over the other, snitch a bit of land, a house, from the other - some of those hatreds spilling over into Australia (Serbs v Croats).
Good luck to them.
Taurisk
