Yes I know about the “collapse” of the Soviet Union. Friends of mine were responsible for a large part of it.
However the Hitchens and the Cockburns (or most of them) were toadies for the Soviets and the new “Russians”.
There are a lot of Sovietologists (esp. the older ones) who have some doubts about the “ideology collapse” of the SU/Russia.
Old Russian saying: “You can take someone out of the KGB but you can’t take the KGB out of them”. Putin, esp.
If you know the history of the creation of the Soviet secret police, many of them came from the ranks of the Czarist police. They just got a new paymaster (and Derzhinsky and Beria).
Some friends and acquaintances spend their Soviet holidays in Lubyanka Prison, Potma, Archangel/Murmansk camps/mines, Vorkuta, Lake Baikal, and the Trans-Siberian Railroad Slave labor camps tour.
Others enjoyed the scenic cells of No. Korea, the tiger cages of SVietnam/Ho Chi Minh Trail and the luxurious accomodations of the 5 Red Star Hanoi Hilton, complete with Cuban masseuses (i.e. torturers). One had his own prison stripes from Romania, beaten into his chest and back.
It ain’t over till the Fat Lady sings and she’s still on the Red Stage from Moscow to Syria, Iran, Cuba and Western/Eastern Europe.
I spent too many years in Berlin back during the Cold War. I agree with you completely.
You still talk only about the past. Russia is not what it was, and sadly, neither is the United States