@Jens_Rasmussen @thatbrickster @BowsacNoodle @themilkman The post you are replying to does not load for me, so I can't see the rest of the conversation, but I always considered the political collapse of the Soviet Union to be a long term effect of the purges. The purges ended whatever public discourse existed, even between the various wings of the Communist party itself, and prevented any "healthy" power process from emerging.

It's not a coincidence that the whole thing came apart when the last generation of leaders who were actually born before the Bolshevik "revolution" had died off.