I was wondering when you would do that! We've sparred gently over this subject a few times in the past without any explosive engagements. A Cold Debate, as it were.
I just can't buy the conspiracy line on this. Some Communists may have believed that they could survive the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of their empire in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Gorbachev, for instance, seems a prime candidate for this kind of delusion. He was--and continues to be--a very dangerous man.
But as Zviadist is so fond of pointing out, there is this nasty phenomenon of unintended consequences that tends to foil the most intricate long term plans.
Eastern Europe has tasted freedom again, and would easily submit to another tyranny. It is returing to its old Orthodox faith again--as is Russia. China continues to flex its muscle as a national socialist power and now represents a clear territorial threat to the Russian far East. The market reforms introduced in Russia, while far from a resounding success, make it nearly impossible to centralize the economy under government control.
If anything, the danger is that Russia will engineer more trouble in the world in order to justify and accelerate its realignment with the West, with Europe.
Even if you ignore these purely pragmatic considerations and choose to view recent history as an occulted battle of ideologies and transcendent beliefs played out on the field of politics, why would the Communists feel the need to overthrow the capitalists? We in the West have done more to create the rationalist-materialist worker's paradise envisioned by Marx than Lenin or any of his disciples. The transition from Communist apparatchik to neo-capitalist is so common and so easy because it is so logical.
Eastern Europe has tasted freedom again, and would easily submit to another tyranny. It is returing to its old Orthodox faith again--as is Russia.
Aside from Russia, most of the old East is NOT Orthodox, friend. You have a mistaken view of the region based on mistaken information and a limited understanding. Also, there is no "conspiracy" of the former communists. They saw "democratic capitalism" as the opportunity of a lifetime. So they took it. The same people who were poor and voiceless under communism are still poor and voiceless. More so, because the old social contracts like a social safety net no longer have to be observed -- ALL the money can go into the pockets of the former nomenklatura.