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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
The words 'may be true' is not an admission that the statement is, in fact true.  Women may have similar opportunities to education and work but that doesn't mean they enjoyed equitable wages or partnerships.  The with few exceptions, the USSR is highly patriarchal.[/quote]

Wages in centrally ruled USSR were set from the top and didn't make a distinction for gender.  If you want to argue that culturally, the USSR was highly patriarchal in that women were expected to take care of the home and children, then that is true, but a single generation ago, where in the world wasn't that true? Only in this generation of American women are husbands expected to shoulder the burden of housework and childcare equally and it is STILL not working perfectly.  Fathers of 30- to 40-something American women probably rarely changed diapers or folded laundry; is it fair to expect more of Soviet men of the same generation? Looking at the laws of the USSR, you'd be hard pressed to find anything that specifically discriminated against women with regard to voting, education, employment, access to justice, access to public services, you name it.  Paid maternity leave and free childcare didn't hurt either.

[quote=Anonymous]I have to wonder what your experience in the former USSR is as you seem to have so little actual experience - or perhaps you're just a toady.  Russian language and Russian people had preference no matter where they lived.  [/quote]

I'm a person born and raised in the USSR whose experience differs from yours - is that so extraordinary to merit name-calling? It was a big country you know.

[quote=Anonymous]Of course, in the other republics there were some figureheads from the ethnic majorities but there was no doubt ethnic Russians were the dominating group and their culture dominated. [/quote]

What?  Nowhere in the other republics ethnic Russians dominated anything.  The leadership of, for instance, Soviet Armenia was 100% ethnic Armenian; the same for Soviet Tajikistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and the rest of them.  Schools, theaters, newspapers, poetry all existed in local languages.  In fact, you can make an excellent argument that it was much better to be a Tajik in Moscow than an ethnic Russian in Dushanbe.

[quote=Anonymous]Anyone not 'Russified' could not expect to advance in any area.  The discrimination was very prevalent within the same ethnic group.  [/quote]

I don't know what you mean by Russified. Certainly fluency in Russian was necessary for advancement in a multi-ethnic state but since Russian was taught in schools and spoken widely, it wasn't exactly hard to attain.  In a multiethnic state like the USSR, there had to be a lingua franca, and Russian took that role. If you want to argue that these enclaves should never have been integrated into a single state, that's a valid point, but they were, and as such, needed a common language. They found it Russian.

[quote=Anonymous]Discrimination against Jews, especially, occurred at all levels, not just the 'upper echelons of power'.  (It's thanks to Russians we have the word 'pogrom'. )  [/quote]

Jews were discriminated against but not to the degree you claim.  They were widely present at the top of arts, sciences, medicine, academia, and the creative class.  The word "pogrom" may be Russian but if you want to have a serious discussion of anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, you have to perhaps acknowledge that the most famous pogroms took place in Odessa, Kishinev, Gomel, Kiev etc. - Ukraine, Moldavia and Belorussia - enclaves that were part of Russian empire but ethnically non-Russian.  
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