To them there is no Soviet Union, and Russia is almost a third world country, struggling in its attempt to get on its feet. In their eyes, the small Baltic Republics have always been there. They think that the adults are strange because they use the old names like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. For the adults, Russia s St. Petersburg is Lenningrad. The KGB isn t just a San Diego radio station, but an unseen force that may well be watching your every move ready to arrest you at the slightest mistake you make.
Fear is the way of life.
The Soviet Union was the ultimate in bad guys, almost reaching Star Trek s Borg hive mentality. Communism, if not kept in control, would assimilate smaller countries and increase their collective until they were big enough to take on NATO and the United States, in what was also known as the domino effect. The thought of going to bed at night, knowing that Mother Russia had all her nuclear missiles trained on you, wasn t easy. One button and nuclear winter would pelt down on the entire world, like so much radioactive hail. Luckily, democracy never believed in Resistance is futile.