05-16-2016, 11:24 AM
Brezhnev's Russia/USSR coincides with the Boom Awakening in the US, Britain, France, Japan, and western Germany. It looks like an attempt to suppress the Awakening era, at which Brezhnev was largely successful. If anything, Brezhnev tried to extend a 1T. See also Franco in Spain -- until he died. See what a Joseph McCarthy would have imposed on America had he gotten his way.
Cultural stagnation does not mark a 3T. The mass culture can get raunchy and mindless, but it is still vibrant. Was Russian cultural life vibrant in the 1860s and 1970s? Definitely not. Such vibrancy was underground. Libertarian trends also mark a 3T... and the demise of Soviet Communism looks very 3T. Was there any libertarian trend in Russia under Brezhnev? I think not.
Cultural stagnation does not mark a 3T. The mass culture can get raunchy and mindless, but it is still vibrant. Was Russian cultural life vibrant in the 1860s and 1970s? Definitely not. Such vibrancy was underground. Libertarian trends also mark a 3T... and the demise of Soviet Communism looks very 3T. Was there any libertarian trend in Russia under Brezhnev? I think not.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.