Changes

==History==

==History==

{{See also|History of Russia|Kievan Rus}}

{{See also|History of Russia|Kievan Rus}}

[[File:Soviet Victory flag.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Soviet Victory flag after the defeat of [[Nazi Germany]].  The flag was flown again after the liberation of Donbas and victories over Nazi forces in the [[Battle of Mariupol]] in 2022.]]

[[File:Soviet Victory flag.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Soviet Victory flag after the defeat of [[Nazi Germany]].  The flag has been used again since the liberation of [[Donbas]] and victories over [[Nazi]] forces in the [[Battle of Mariupol]] in 2022.]]

At the onset of [[Operation Barbarossa]], Russia was caught flatfooted in military preparedness and defense spending. In the four years during [[World War II]] the Russian economy became geared up and fully focused on arms manufacture. When the war ended, Russian conventional arms manufacturing never ceased and became one among several precipitating causes of the [[Cold War]]. Defense conversion to a peacetime, consumer driven, manufacturing economy never occurred. The situation was compounded by a costly [[nuclear arms]] race which made conventional arms spending redundant and wasteful. The communist system imposed a rigid cost-burden on ordinary people's lives to support the Soviet [[military industrial complex]] at the expense of luxury consumer goods, such as [[automobile]]s, [[television]] sets, and household appliances, that the [[Western]] capitalist system enjoyed.

At the onset of [[Operation Barbarossa]], Russia was caught flatfooted in military preparedness and defense spending. In the four years during [[World War II]] the Russian economy became geared up and fully focused on arms manufacture. When the war ended, Russian conventional arms manufacturing never ceased and became one among several precipitating causes of the [[Cold War]]. Defense conversion to a peacetime, consumer driven, manufacturing economy never occurred. The situation was compounded by a costly [[nuclear arms]] race which made conventional arms spending redundant and wasteful. The communist system imposed a rigid cost-burden on ordinary people's lives to support the Soviet [[military industrial complex]] at the expense of luxury consumer goods, such as [[automobile]]s, [[television]] sets, and household appliances, that the [[Western]] capitalist system enjoyed.