Comment by bregma
16 hours ago
Would that be possibly because while Venezuela and Iran have oil to extract and sell on the international market to enrich the coffers of the oligarchs in power, the only resources Czechoslovakia had was labour. The oligarchs could only enrich themselves by exporting manufactured goods like shoes and buses, mostly made from imported materials, extracting the excess wealth from the labour of others the way Venezuela and Iran extract oil from the ground?
No, the whole USSR had exit visas but it was resource rich. Russia still is. It's not the case that the USSR's only resource was labor.