EU Like Soviet Union?

Leonid Bershidsky writes about the West for Bloomberg View, from the viewpoint of a sympathetic Russian. Here he writes about supposed parallels between what is now happening to the European Union - Brexit, for a start - and the fall of the Soviet Union.

To nationalists within Europe, the EU with its supranational institutions resembles the Soviet Union in many ways. It's ruled mainly by an unelected bureaucracy, it has a weak parliament, it propagates political correctness.

Most importantly, however, they are worried about what they see as its attempts to erase national identities and promote a sort of European super-identity in its place. Within that narrative, what happened in the U.K. is seen as the beginning of the kind of nationalist awakening that tore the Soviet Union apart.

The analogy has an obvious fatal flaw, though. The Soviet Union was based on coercion. The EU -- whatever may be said of Germany's economic pressure on weaker members -- is not.

There are, however, lessons to be learned from the Soviet Union's collapse. Poorly managed superstates -- also known as empires -- tend to fall apart. Yet jealousy, racism and a stubborn desire to go it alone do not lead to riches.

The nationalists' criticisms of the EU appear valid and obnoxious. I concede free men (and women) are often poorer than semi-slaves,
but . they . are . free.