Wasn't its industry developed?
The exact same justification/apology used by every colonizing power ever (including the U.S. and all the European powers), of course.
Welcome to the club.
Wasn't its industry developed?
The exact same justification/apology used by every colonizing power ever (including the U.S. and all the European powers), of course.
Welcome to the club.
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> So, which industries did European countries develop in their African colonies, for example?
Racists usually bring up ports, railways and whatever resource extraction they set up in Africa as their gift to humanity. As the other poster said, that's a very common thing to say for imperialists who justify colonization. Incredibly funny that you keep doubling down on the same tropes without recognizing how they sound.
> Compare that to what USSR developed in Moldavia: power plants, large steel plant, metalworking, machine building, construction materials production, chemical industry, electronics, parts of defense industry, etc
... as if as a free European country, none of that (and much more) would've happened. The common case study is Estonia vs Finland, two very similar countries in the 1930s, both got invaded by Russians, one remained free, the other occupied for 50 years. Despite a very similar culture, language, history and socio-economic starting position, Finland ended up as one of the most prosperous nations on the planet, while Estonia was a "1 dollar a day" shithole (along with rest of the USSR and Eastern Bloc) by 1990. After Russian geniuses were overthrown, Estonia started a meteoric climb and is on track of catching up with Finland. All these Russian "factories and industries" were nothing but a horrible stagnation that robbed the country of 50 years of proper progress. They were wasteful and polluting, produced for USSR's internal consumption and had to be scrapped because they were utterly uncompetitive on the global market.
It's been the same externally forced stagnation, followed by meteoric success everywhere where they decisively got rid of Russian domination in the 1990s (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, etc). The greater role Russia has played in post-USSR times in a country, the worse the outcomes (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, etc).
This map sums it up: https://i.imgur.com/4bEf0Sr.jpeg
As does this chart: https://i.imgur.com/uDpWHNq.png (Polish GDP PPP per capita as a fraction of the US')
Even the most envied parts of the Eastern Bloc were depressingly poor by Western European standards, several laps behind the worst performers. Immense negative impact on Central and Eastern Europe is the reason why Russia and Russians are considered a cancer on humanity in this part of the world. Somehow, everything you touch turns to shit, and you can't stop sticking your fingers into where they don't belong.
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Why? That's a very mild way to put it. Entire generations of people were robbed of freedoms and natural progress of their society. Most of Central and Eastern Europe will catch up with the rest by around 2040-2050. Moldova will be lucky if they recover and reach parity even this century.
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