Former Soviet Union Question.

The Communist Soviet Union has been gone for a long time now, but that’s not going to stop me from asking a question about it anyway.
They accused us of being imperialistic.
Ok, when they conqured countries and incorperated those countries into themselves, what term did they use for what they were doing, and what was their justification?
Thanks.

Do you mean Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia specifically, or are you generalizing all the countries that made up the so-called “East Bloc” (Poland, East Germany, Hungary, etc) ?

Any independent country that became a “Satellite Nation” or in some other way, was gobbled up the Soviets. If they had different terms taking over a country and making it part of the Soviet Union, then what terms did they use, since they didn’t see themselves as being imperialistic, even though imperialism is “The policy of extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.”
This is what the Soviet Union clearly did, so, if they called what they did to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia one thing, and what they did with the “East Bloc” another, what two terms did they use to describe their actions?

They were aiding the proletariat in their revolution against the bourgeoisie.

The pretense was always that other countries voluntarily sought the Soviet Union’s “fraternal assistance”, either in the form of outright annexation (the Baltics) or mutual defense treaties (the Warsaw Pact). The fact that the Communist governments which sought such fraternal assistance would not have come to power without Soviet muscle was not acknowledged.

Ok, that pretty much answers my question. Thanks.

Also … apologists for the Soviet Union now claim that the former USSR had “satellite states” to protect the Motherland from another German attack. They said “never again,” and pretty much communism rule on most of Eastern Europe, so those nations would serve as a buffer … cannon fodder, really.

The USSR government played up the fear of “encirclement” (vo’okruzheniye) to its own citizenry - being surrounded by hostile nations. That made the presence of Soviet troops in the neighboring countries necessary.

Also, the USSR itself was geographically pretty much just a new name for the tsarist Russian Empire, give or take Finland or so. Generally, Russians didn’t see much of problem in ruling countries that they had ruled for centuries already.

jklann is right. “Friendly and fraternal assistance”, “Temporary occupation”, “Protection from imperialist agression”… All of these and more were used.

On the other hand, people in the various forced labour camps (e.g. deported Germans) often called them Imperialists. They also called the guards “Sir” instead of “Comrade”. How about that?: D