Exactly. Had the west not interfered, the USSR would recover from the 80s crisis. Instead, they took advantage of its shortcomings and managed to break up the union: Gorbachev is considered by many Russians a traitor, but he was not the only western investment in toppling the Soviet Union.

Let's remind that full-on opening of the market was not what the west promised, but it's what they pushed for once the reforms passed a point of no return and they wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Propaganda is what won the cold war.

I think you miss a crucial fact here - large part of Soviet block was incorporated by force and wanted to get rid of their influence as fast as possible. Nobody misses USRR here in Poland.

Poland is a weird example since it doesn’t seem like they fit in the EU either, almost like an outcast.

But let’s look at other ex-Soviet countries. Territorial quarrels and dumb nationalism were unthinkable back then. Look at Azerbaijani and Armenians, ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine, Georgia...

If only we ("other ex-Soviet countries") could stop our "dumb nationalism" and go back to being nice "little-brother nations", speaking Russian, fighting Western imperialism together somewhere in Afghanistan after being drafted to glorious Red army... Those where the times, comrade!

Or you can compare countries from a similar regions that decided to stick close to Russia (Ukraine and Belarus) vs countries that decided to stick with the West (Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia).

> Also yes. Saying that Cold War and the arms race had absolutely no role in USSR collapse is either a blatant lie or incompetence.

USSR could've easily continued its existence if it went full "North Korean." Union's army had no problem to force populace to eat grass in case of a complete economic collapse.

I attribute the single most important contribution to Union's collapse to US funding exchange visits for hundreds of USSR's senior officials, and completely nullifying their will to struggle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24728237

The very same thing has happened to China, and Xi is trying hard to undo it.

His message of absolute committment to, and inreversability of "opening up" don't mean anything to 99% of ordinary citizens.

Whom he addresses these messages to are not ordinary Chines, but elites whom he tries to convince to the best of his abilities to not to drop the ball on him, and the system.