# Older Dopers: Did You Ever Think The USSR Would Fall? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 17, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758 "2011-04-17T21:51:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/41 "2011-04-18T03:28:45Z")
I was in my very early 20s and never would have believed it. The funny thing is, though, that IIRC the whole aim of America’s Cold War [containment strategy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSC_68#Conclusion) was more or less what actually happened: keep the Soviet bear in check until his system collapsed from within. I guess once detente came along in the 70s this scenario was forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/42 "2011-04-18T04:12:08Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > 1. Even after the Berlin Wall fell, did people still think the USSR would last? I was 9 at the time (and very clearly remember it), and always had the impression that that event was the writing on the wall for the Soviets, too. At that time, Gorbachev was attempting to institute major changes in how the Soviet Union operated. It seemed likely (to me, at least) that the USSR was going through some significant structural change, at the minimum. > [@Rodgers01](#): > > 1. Having seen the way the USSR fell apart so quickly, are you more willing to believe that another drastic change could happen? **Icarus** wrote “The map was considered static”, and that’s kind of how the world feels today. Oh, you expect that various third world countries will split apart or rename themselves, but I (for one) usually roll my eyes when I hear predictions that the European Union will break up, or that Quebec will secede from Canada. What think you, “older dopers”? The Quebec issue has been debated for as long as I’ve been alive; to an outsider, if anything, it seemed more likely 25 years ago than it does today (though I’d be very interested to hear Canadian / Quebecois views on it). I wouldn’t discount the possibility of another significant map-redrawing in my lifetime. It seems like, today, the most likely area in which this could happen is the Middle East, but, as the example above shows, I suspect it may be very difficult to see these sorts of events happening until they’re on top of you. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/43 "2011-04-18T04:44:00Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > What’s the title, because that writer would be a genius. [Brain Wave](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Wave) by Poul Anderson. All humans and all animals in the world suddenly become five times smarter than they were before. This results in the fall of most governments, including the Soviet Union. But the bit about the breakup is just a sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/44 "2011-04-18T05:02:03Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > The Quebec issue has been debated for as long as I’ve been alive; to an outsider, if anything, it seemed more likely 25 years ago than it does today (though I’d be very interested to hear Canadian / Quebecois views on it). At the risk of upsetting my Quebecois friends, I’ll suggest that all Quebecois are Canadians, just as Albertans are Canadians, and Ontarians are Canadians, and Prince Edward Islanders are Canadians. Do Coloradans, Virginians, Wisconsans, Texans, etc. consider themselves something other than Americans? If not, I’m left wondering why you would ask such a question. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/45 "2011-04-18T05:18:46Z")
No, I didn’t think it would collapse like it did. As I remember, I was glued to the news shows while it was going on, and I compared watching it to getting hooked on a soap opera. You couldn’t believe the storyline, but it was all true, and it was riveting to watch. East Germans getting into West Germany through Hungary, watching the Berlin Wall come down, the eastern bloc countries falling one by one. The Soviet Republics breaking off, one by one. (This last was fascinating to me because I am half-Latvian, and suddenly Latvia’s back baby!!) And then, there was that whole Gorbachev getting kidnapped thing. My god, it was must see TV every day! And then came Romania, and on and on… And meanwhile in the White House, Millie the first dog was having puppies… You couldn’t make this stuff up. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/46 "2011-04-18T05:20:32Z")
I was 11 during the Cuban missile crisis. (I was 8 when Chicago sounded the air raid sirens for the White Sox winning the AL pennant and panicked a lot of people for a few minutes.) I really did think there would be a nuclear war, although I didn’t obsess about it and lived a normal life. The Berlin Wall coming down was just unthinkable to me before it happened. A crackdown as in 1968 in Prague was a real possibility. When the USSR did fall, it was almost too good to be believed. I lived near San Francisco at the time, and a Soviet navy vessel docked there and allowed the general public to visit, so I went. They flew the US flag along with the Soviet flag! It was a practically surreal experience, something I NEVER thought would happen. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/47 "2011-04-18T05:21:22Z")
I was in my late 20s when the Berlin Wall fell, almost 30 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Together, the end of the Cold War is perhaps the greatest historical surprise I have experienced in my life, with the possible exception of 9/11. Up till that point I assumed that the Soviet Bloc would last indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/48 "2011-04-18T07:41:58Z")
I was in my early to mid 20s when it happened. By the mid 80s, I didn’t think the USSR would survive in the long term but I expected the complete collapse to take about 20 years. I didn’t see it falling apart as quickly as it did in 1991. ---
**Author:** ![SSgtBaloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@SSgtBaloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSgtBaloo)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/49 "2011-04-18T08:21:34Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I meant “comparatively older”. Don’t backpedal, it’s undignified. 😉 > [@Colibri](#): > > [Brain Wave](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Wave) by Poul Anderson. All humans and all animals in the world suddenly become five times smarter than they were before. This results in the fall of most governments, including the Soviet Union. But the bit about the breakup is just a sentence. Found a used copy online and ordered it. Sounds like my kinda fun. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/50 "2011-04-18T13:12:43Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Paul, > > The final sentence of your post fascinates me. > I’m curious what you mean. Could you start a thread? Sure, over in GD? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/51 "2011-04-18T13:53:55Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > I’ll be different than everyone else, and suggest that it _didn’t_ happen suddenly. Well, maybe in the historical perspective it was sudden, in that it didn’t take decades. But at the time, there was glasnost, Hungary’s opening its western borders, and the fall of The Wall, Yugoslavia, and East Germany. At this point it was almost a fait accompli that the Soviet system would fall apart. Well glasnost, sure, but the rest happened awfully fast. It was just a few months from Hungary opening its border with Austria in August 1989, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, to Ceaușescu’s being deposed and executed in December, ending the last of the Communist governments in the Warsaw Pact countries other than the USSR itself. I was 35 that year. I’d always figured the Soviet Union and its Eastern European zone of hegemony would eventually fall, but I was hardly sure that I’d live long enough to see it. It still gives me goosebumps that it happened at all. After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, I assumed that we’d eventually pry the Baltics free, because they’d been a part of the USSR for a much shorter time than the other Soviet ‘republics,’ and the United States government (along with much of the Western world) still recognized the three Baltic republics as independent entities. The pre-Communist governments of those countries still had embassies in Washington, D.C. But even in 1990 and the first half of 1991, I didn’t think the other component parts of the USSR would split off. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/52 "2011-04-18T14:09:12Z")
We’d have bull sessions about stuff like this when I was in college (1977-83), and I’d go _way out on a limb_ by predicting that, in our lifetimes, the Soviet Union would lose control over _eastern Europe_. This was a really radical prediction at the time. I never, ever, thought we would see the Soviet Union fall. The Soviet people just seemed so, I don’t know, beaten down and docile. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/53 "2011-04-18T14:09:16Z")
That is the thing about political change. It is impossible until it is inevitable. Look how quickly Hitler came to power. Look how quickly he fell. ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/54 "2011-04-18T14:19:45Z")
I’ve seen mentions of the Soviet Union in 1980s science fiction that takes place far into the future (OK, Star Trek), and didn’t doubt that they were right. I didn’t think that WWIII would ever come, but I figured that someone like Gorbachev would come along, cool things down on both sides, and the USSR would keep on keeping on, but as a “kinder, gentler, Communism” (as someone said before, yeah, I guess China is a better analogy, but with the famous Chinese repressions being less brutal in this USSR). I figured that a majority of the Soviet republics would stay on this way (after all most of them has been part of Russia pretty much since the days of Peter the Great (with the exception of some short-lived independences around the Revolution of Ukraine and the Caucasus). I was surprised to see it fall apart, but, being a geography geek into maps and flags was excited to see the new changes! And, I guess if it hadn’t fallen apart I might not have [started getting into national anthems](http://www.nationalanthems.info/faq.html?expanddiv=32), a hobby I greatly enjoy now, and have been considered a leading expert on. > [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > When I watched the USSR fall apart…I was overwhelmed. One of my brothers & I stared at the TV in utter disbelief. I’m wondering how you could “stare at the TV in utter disbelief”, as it didn’t really happen in a single news event, as was pointed out before, a few Dopers saw the Berlin Wall fell and thought the Soviet Union would survive that. I suppose the defining moment on TV that said “the USSR is officially done and gone” is Gorbachev’s resignation on Christmas Day (non-Orthodox Christmas), 1991. But, by then even the densest idiot in the world knew the USSR was gone, it was just a matter of making it official. I am curious, **Bosda** , what _was_ the defining moment on TV that you “stared at in utter disbelief”? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/55 "2011-04-18T14:55:47Z")
I believed there was a 50% chance of it collapsing under its own weight, and a 50% chance of us beating them in a war. But I never thought it would happen so fast, or not even in my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/56 "2011-04-18T15:05:29Z")
Yes, please. I was thinking that or MPSIMS. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/57 "2011-04-18T15:07:20Z")
It makes me feel old that something that happened in 1991 is being characterized as something remembered by “older Dopers.” 🙂 I was not shocked, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but I was a little surprised that it happened so quickly. I thought about the fall of the Soviet Union as sort of akin to how I used to think about the possibility of a black President - something that I recognized was vaguely possible and might happen sometime in my lifetime, but it happened sooner and more suddenly than I thought it would. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/58 "2011-04-18T15:10:26Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > For those of you who existed during those years and before it became quite obvious in 1991, did anyone ever believe the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would fall apart? No, absolutely not. Truth be told, it’s still a little unreal. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/59 "2011-04-18T15:34:06Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in the coldest part of the Cold War. The idea that the Soviet Union would simply collapse under its own weight was something unimaginable. It was sort of like seeing the Wicked Witch of the West melt after having water thrown on her. And the idea that it would fragment into 15 different countries was even more far fetched. (I recall reading a science fiction story once where such a thing happened.) Me also. But the idea that it could sustain itself if Gorbachev hadn’t come along doesn’t wash. It perhaps would eventually have dissolved into chaos and bloodshed if a less practical man had been in charge, but the USSR had bankrupted itself on weapons and military. Serious discontent among the population was rampant, especially with the younger generation, and it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down. Gorbachev was at least able to salvage a civil turnover of government instead of another revolution. The USSR seemed invincible and very scary when I was growing up, with lunatics like Krushchev and other remnants of the Battle of Stalingrad in charge. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758/60 "2011-04-18T15:55:12Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Me also. But the idea that it could sustain itself if Gorbachev hadn’t come along doesn’t wash. It perhaps would eventually have dissolved into chaos and bloodshed if a less practical man had been in charge, but the USSR had bankrupted itself on weapons and military. Serious discontent among the population was rampant, especially with the younger generation, and it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down. I would have said the same thing about the Peoples Republic of China in 1968. Or 1976. Or 1989. And yet, here we are. Reforming, but never collapsing. Yet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/older-dopers-did-you-ever-think-the-ussr-would-fall/578758.md?page=4)