I was only 14 when the USSR broke up, but living in the UK I remember “Russia” as being a standard shorthand for “the USSR”. I’m sure that in careful usage, people would say “the Soviet Union”, but I would say that the average person didn’t really think too much about the distinction between the Soviet republics, and considered the whole lot to be “Russia”.
For example, the infamous official who awarded England a controversial goal in the 1966 World Cup (soccer) final was universally referred to as the “Russian linesman”. He was actually from Azerbaijan.
One wonders – far-out “alternative” stuff – if somehow the Revolutions had never happened, and Tsarist Russia’s empire had endured in some form, up to the present day: would the leaders of that country have sorted out some way of referring to it, which would mollify the feelings of the country’s non-ethnically-Russian parts?
Well, long before the Soviet Union existed, many monarchs have found it handy to keep foreign troops on hand. If there was a dangerous, bloody war going on overseas, French citizens didn’t want their OWN sons being sent off to fight in it, but didn’t mind if Napoleon III sent off the Foreign Legion (i.e. non-French mercenaries) to do the dirty work.
Similarly, if there was a riot in Moscow, the tsar could send a company of Tatar or Cossack soldiers to put it down, without worrying that the soldiers might sympathize with their brethren.
The King of England kept elite Scottish troops around for the same reasons- either to do the jobs Englishmen didn’t want THEIR kids doing, or to crack down on uprisings among ENglish subjects.
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