lecoqsportif
Well-known member
I’m listening to Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav Zubok.
During the attempted putsch against Gorbachev, many insiders feared exactly what we have now - backslide to authoritarian nationalist regime. The putsch was a weak-kneed attempt to turn back the clocks by Putin’s bosses. The reality was they were too broke to withstand sanctions if they harmed Gorbachev or Yeltsin, so it petered out.
But one thing they had at their disposal was immense psy-ops they could deploy against their own population and Spetsnaz and KGB commandos to deploy violence.
Nothing has really changed.