GSlob: Sorry I didn't see you post. I wasn't ignoring you.
Yes, it would be hard to find someone in the former Warsaw Pact without some history to him, or at least one qualified to run a country. Patton left mid- and lower-level Nazi bureaucrats keep the lights on, at least until a new generation of clerks could be trained. It may also be true in Iraq.
Leo: 
, that's very true. BTW: Ukrainians and Donbas Russians pronounce the 'g' in 'golod' as an 'h'. Where'd you pick that up?