>I agree with everything you've said here. I would also point out that the other difference in 1945 was that the United States, through the Marshall Plan and the occupation system in Japan, did something that was completely unprecedented in the history of conquerors.

And the important lesson was forgotten. The countries aided by Marhsall plan became strong allies, and also important business partners. Nothing of the kind was done for countries in transition, if we don't count the then forms of outsourcing, which were moved into even poorer countries as soon as it was calculated to be more profitable.

>I think more attention should have been paid to this in the post-cold war. I think part of the reason why it did not was that the collapse of the regimes came so quickly and so unexpectedly

Whoever planned that should have had some kind of plan for phase B.

>and, in the case of the Soviet Union, certainly, the criminal element was already so firmly established and so intertwined with the power structure.

As comrade Lenin said, "if anything will be our end, it will be the thugs in our ranks".

Though, while the system was strong, organized crime was low. It was tolerated only as much as it helped the security forces; it's a known fact that many of these guys were forgiven their crimes if they performed some dirty work for the security. When the system came down crashing, they thought the time has come to make profit of their "patriotic services", and they quickly found a common language with the new nomenklatura. The old nomenklatura didn't really have any need to indulge in crime - they had pretty much everything for free, or at ridiculously subsidized prices anyway. But the new ones saw their chance in the chaos, and used it, and welcomed the connections to the netherworld and used them too. They were promised wealth, and they were out to get it, this way or another.

>I agree that Yugoslavia was historically unique for a lot of reasons and certainly Tito was one of the more complex people in European history. Only after the change could we really appreciate what an amazing thing he had been able to accomplish for as long as he did ( some of the same problems faced by Saddam, but with solutions that seemed a lot more oriented to the actual welfare of the country )

We did live well and could travel. As the popular song went,

"Tito stole but gave to us all
Sloba steals but gives to noone"