[glogla]

It is not that Russia is USSR, it is that USSR was Russia + colonized, enslaved nations, like Russian Empire before it.

The evil of USSR did was because Russia was in charge.

[int_19h]

There was never such a thing as a Russian state that didn't include colonized neighbors.

Even if you unwind all the way to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, we'd have to talk about Kazan etc.

[nine_k]

How about Novgorod, which was a member of the Hanseatic Union back in the day, among other things?

[ivan_gammel]

I‘d reserve the word „colony“ for its original meaning. USSR was a dictatorship, but not a colonial state. As a matter of fact it even prioritized the reduction of inequality between the republics of the union for several decades.

[aguaviva]

I‘d reserve the word „colony“ for its original meaning.

Which per Wikipedia is simply:

   A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule.

And which was a perfectly reasonable description of the situation in all the peripheral republics, as well as many constituent parts of the RSFSR itself.

The fact that it might have also provided subsidies to some of the republics at various times (when not withholding food and/or engaging in massive, violent repressive actions against them) is entirely irrelevant to this definition. Recall that the Western colonial powers always bragged about all the infrastructure they built in their colonies, and South Africa always tried to point out the subsidies it provided its Bantustans, etc.

[epolanski]

I think this is highly debatable, as even the European part of Russia hosted no less than dozens of different ethnicities. What you say makes little sense in the context of Russian and generally eastern European history.