From: "Phil Payne" 

> I never visited the USSR or Eastern Europe, but my impression is that
> by the late Brezhnev years, there was a level of popular cynicism that
> makes US or UK whingeing ("government can't do anything right, leaders
> just feather their own nests") look mild by comparison.

Once Gorbachev introduced perestroika, criticism started right at the
bottom.  It was the ordinary people at the grassroots who didn't feel
intimidated any more and whipped the support out from under their own local
party officials.

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