I think if nothing else, the collapse of the USSR shows us that things like party discipline and insurance of ideological commitment are not just gratuitous and bloodthirsty abuses of power.
I often think about how the guys that tried to coup Gorbachev ordered 10,000 handcuffs to be delivered to KGB offices in Moscow, mobilized the military and declared martial law, then called the whole thing off when two Yeltsin-aligned protestors died. The "military hardliners" of the late Soviet Union were too pure to order the loyalist forces to attack the pro-Yeltsin tank battalion and order the KGB to do the purge, and the USSR was dissolved two years later.
Of course we'll never know what would have happened if they did commit to the coup. It might have started Russian Civil War Part 2: This Time With Nukes.
I think if nothing else, the collapse of the USSR shows us that things like party discipline and insurance of ideological commitment are not just gratuitous and bloodthirsty abuses of power.
I often think about how the guys that tried to coup Gorbachev ordered 10,000 handcuffs to be delivered to KGB offices in Moscow, mobilized the military and declared martial law, then called the whole thing off when two Yeltsin-aligned protestors died. The "military hardliners" of the late Soviet Union were too pure to order the loyalist forces to attack the pro-Yeltsin tank battalion and order the KGB to do the purge, and the USSR was dissolved two years later.
Of course we'll never know what would have happened if they did commit to the coup. It might have started Russian Civil War Part 2: This Time With Nukes.