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Podcast: Cosmopod
Episode: End of an Era: 30 Years After the Soviet Collapse
Description: Connor, Christian and Donald sit down to discuss the collapse of the Soviet Union. They begin by situating the economic and political problems of the system, such as the siege economy and the centralization/decentralization dichotomies which led to the general malaise of the late Brezhnev period. They continue by discussing the rise of Andropov and Gorbachev, and what reforms they tried to implement: bans on alcohol and the opening of political discussion, and how those reforms ended up backfiring.  They follow up by discuss the Five Year Plan of 86-90, the two stages of economic reforms and their ad...