The difficulty with his thesis is that it was not a cultural victory, and that those that he proposes overwhelmed the ossified nomenklatura in fact were largely in sympathy with them or at the very least made great efforts to promote the idea of moral equivalence between a parent society that indulged and defended them and a Soviet Union that, were it victorious, would have crushed them. It wasn't the Beatles, it wasn't peace, love, and dope, and it certainly wasn't "we are the world."
What it was defies efforts to overintellectualize or to see in multitudinous shades of gray. It was this: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: 'We win and they lose.' What do you think of that?" -- Ronald Reagan, to future National Security Adviser Richard V. Allen, 1977.
Hershberg and his will go to their graves denying this simple proposition because of its simplicity. Pity them.
I think they like the "complicated" scenario because they are cowards and this gives them cover from taking a clear stance on anything. It's always...then again...on the other hand...they hate absolutes because they are cowards.