Quote:Vilnius used to be a Polish/Lithuanian city, until under the early Soviets (who were suspicious of the Poles) removed the taint of Polish-ness from Lithuania. Stalin made it clear throughout the Soviet empire that "Russian" would be the language of science/education and politics.
I spent my first 12 years under Brezhnev and not Stalin and in the Ukrainian schools, everyone spoke Russian and Russian was the language taught in and taught first, with Ukranian being taught as a 2nd language. My uncle who was born in Uzbekistan, was also taught in Russian, and Uzbekistan is so far away from Russia, that it might as well be Mars.
As far as the other Eastern block countries, maybe they still maintained their language as the primary, but I bet given another 50 years, that would have been fazed out also.
BTW, IMO what caused communist collapse in the 80s/90s is D-Day in '44. It should be celebrated not as the day of liberation of Europe from the Nazis (they were already dead by then), but as the day of prevention of Communism from spreading it's foul wings all throughout Europe, which it was fully intending to do.