this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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you grew up during The Cold War? That’s about it unless you get more specific for example Im interested in the decline of the USSR and the rise of the CIS.
I was actually born at the "end" of it. I generally am interested in US-Soviet relations and how the Cold War/Communism became a major factor in political campaigns after WWII, specifically the Dewey-Truman upset.
It's funny, all through college I had either older people looking askance at me about why I'd be interested in "ancient" history or peers teasing me about being a Russian asset just for the interest... I just never thought the Cold War actually ended, and when I was in college in the late 2000s, that was a wild take to have lmao
My professor for a class on Soviet intelligence was ex-KGB stationed in East Germany who was a spy for MI-5. He pointed out in 1998 that all his colleagues were still very angry about the decline and that most former Soviet citizens were not doing well and would want revenge. I believe this is it.
When you look at the immediate aftermath post USSR collapse, nearly every ex-soviet country got into really fucking deep economic trouble. There was also the little fact that pretty much every position of power was achieved by being friends with powerful people, so corruption and incompetence were rampant. Combine the two and it's no wonder most people would rather go back to the old system, especially in the first 10 years.
I recommend anyone interested in the topic checking out how the German reunification worked out. It was quite a mess that they plowed through.
"When you look at the immediate aftermath post USSR collapse, nearly every ex-soviet country got into really fucking deep economic trouble."
An economic collapse of your system will do that.
"There was also the little fact that pretty much every position of power was achieved by being friends with powerful people, so corruption and incompetence were rampant. Combine the two and it’s no wonder most people would rather go back to the old system, especially in the first 10 years."
This was true for the nomenklatura in the USSR. The Soviet nations weren't any less corrupt or any more competent than anyone else has been.
Idk, no matter what happens to America, it's still not Russian, and that will always be a win.
interesting. I'm most interested in the Khruschev era, during de-Stalinization and when the USSR was at its peak, and the satellite countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc.) the collapse just makes me sad.
I graduated high school in 1993. The fall was happening while I was in school. I was interested in how an empire falls apart as I believed it could happen to the USA as well. I wouldn’t have predicted it would be in my lifetime though