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> That's not true. True enough to have become the standard periodization of Russian history from early-1970s to mid-1980s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of
by mopsi 6y ago
> That's not true.
True enough to have become the standard periodization of Russian history from early-1970s to mid-1980s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation The deepening paralysis and apathy of administrative and security apparatus eventually made tanks non-scary. It takes willpower and determination to use them, but that was nowhere to be seen, everyone just sat on their asses and preferred to wait things out instead of doing what the Chinese did on the Tiananmen Square.
- watwut 6y agoThe political violence by state did not stopped. The secret service was still looking for enemies, arresting people or threatening their families. Not just physically, but also by forcing you to relocate, preventing education of your children or moving you into worst job possible. Just because violence and threat was not as high as during monster processes, it does not mean it did not existed. You really really don't need tanks for that. An ordinary police is just enough. You really don't need willpower and determination to arrest people nor to confiscate their properties. You just ... do it. Easily. Yet also, it is not like people and society would recover from repression instantly and forgot what happened a year later. The people stay traumatized and scared.
- simonh 6y agoIndeed. I saw an interview with the tank commander that was ordered to drive his column through the crowds in front of the Kremlin. He refused. In China they did it. But the Chinese were smart. They used units recruited in the regions, far out in the countryside with no connections to Beijing or the big cities. Tiananmen Square wasn’t a spur of the moment response, it was meticulously planned.