Comment by vkou

I mean, yes, you are right, I lived through all that, and I remember it well.

But to me, even at the time, this was at best, magical-thinking bullshit. But what does a teenager know..? I just write the things my teachers tell me to and get graded on them.

The massive backslide in Russia throughout the 90s and 00s towards autocracy at the same time as it was turning into a capitalist country... Wasn't exactly a state secret.

Warsaw pact states tying themselves to a democratic union in an effort to get as far as they could from Russia was, I think, the larger reason most of them didn't go down the same road.