I keep wondering about the term "empire" and how we apply it to the Soviet Union but not, for example, to today's Russia and China, which are both instead called "multiethnic states". Is there an actual reason why we do this apart from convention?
My sense is that there is no conceptual difference between, say, the Soviet incorporation of the Baltics in 1940, and China's incorporation of Tibet in the 1950s.
Nor is there a great conceptual difference between, say, Moscow's relationship with Dagestan and Tuva today and Moscow's relationship with Moldavia and Turkmenistan in the 1960s or the 1970s.
Once we start unpicking what made the Soviet Union an empire, we find many (if not all) of the same characteristics in contemporary Russia and China. Why, then, don't we call Russia and China empires. Views?
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