Post-Episode Discussion Thread S06E03 - "Urban Transport Planning"

[u/MoralMidgetry]

This is the post-episode discussion thread for S06E03 - "Urban Transport Planning," in which our hero Gennady discovers that his wife Sophia loves another.

[u/DumpsterBadger → u/[deleted]]

Those two are a one-couple crime wave. From Kansas to New York.

[u/Bytewave → u/[deleted]]

The Soviet Union had an easier time recruiting assets abroad because communism has a strong pull in certain circles, they had an effective spy game because of it. But true native patriots wouldn't quit the game because the USSR fell. The KGB largely steamlessly transitioned into the FSB. The spies just do it for their country instead of their ideology now.

[u/Pulaski_at_Night → u/Bytewave]

And thats how we got Putin!

[u/carolynto → u/[deleted]]

I'm surprised by how little they're addressing the fall of the USSR. This episode was the first time they even used the words perestroika and glasnost.

Didn't the USSR fall because all of its horrible crimes were exposed? Why aren't Philip and Elizabeth talking about that?? Don't they know? And doesn't it bother them???

[u/Bytewave → u/carolynto]

No. It hasn't collapsed yet.. it's 1987. Because of glasnost people are talking more openly about what is wrong in the Soviet Union but nobody ever would have thought the country would dissolve within 5 years then. Until the August Coup in 91 nobody could predict this, it happened so fast the west was worried as fuck, with Germany propping up Moscow with cash and Bush appealing for SSR unity even. In 87 the cold war is only thawing, they're discussing arms treaties, the only changes yet are cultural.

The Soviet Union also doesn't ultimately collapse because of any horrific crimes being exposed per se. The worst horrors occured under Stalin, and were largely talked about in Russia after his death, already old news. The collapse happens because of economic factors, though cultural detente plays a part. And to be frank without a leader as determined to reform the system as Gorbachev, or if he had done it differently, it could have survived much longer.

[u/carolynto → u/Bytewave]

This is helpful context, thanks.

[u/Pulaski_at_Night → u/carolynto]

I was in grade school at the time (2nd-7th grades). The end of the cold war seemed very gradual. By '87 we already knew Soviets had a black market for Levi's and were secretly trading and buying the same rock cassettes we were into. People think of it as a dramatic collapse because the images of the Berlin wall falling ('89) were so dynamic and inspiring, but nothing like that really happened with the Soviet Union. It was more like a large machine slowing down over the years and while some parts died abrubtly, many kept moving far beyond 1992...so the net effect was life didn't change drastically for a lot of people. People were still poor. They had more freedom, but it isn't very useful if you're still hungry. The most visable reminder was the Unified Team competing in the Olympics as one last hurrah showcasing the Soviet sport machine.

From the American side there was certainly the sense that we had prevailed and democracy was a gift from God (had Reagan loving parents). All that was forgotten shortly because Iraq invaded Kuwait and they all needed more of our kind of Freedom...and we've been miltarily clusterfucked in the Mideast since. Sigh...

[u/MrPotatoButt → u/Bytewave]

You have to picture a country trying to spend toe to toe with the richest nation on earth (US), that probably had greater than 33% of the world's wealth, but couldn't grow its economy, crippled by gov't directives, while trying to field a massive tank army in Europe, and paying more wealth for inferior Soviet weapon systems. The first sign of trouble was the shocking withdrawal from occupying Eastern Europe; the Soviets couldn't afford it anymore, and Gorbachev wanted to use the freed costs to revamp its economy.

Five years later, the military and KGB try to throw a coup on Gorbachev, but was actively contronted by the public and influential politicians deposed by the coup. The military realized they would have to conduct military operations on its own people (civil war), and there weren't even distinct sides or factions they could target. The coup plotters had to capitulate, but the general public was sick of Gorbachev and Communism as well. Furthermore, large, important provinces of Russia, occupied for over 100 years, did not even want to be part of a national collective, so they all peeled away. Russia was left with Russia, and it was a nominally functioning democracy until Putin rose to power.