USSR-Russia. 1988-2018. Timeline.

There is a view of Russia in the West, certainly in the US, held openly by some and half-consciously by others, that Russians are really just primitive peasants yearning for a strong leader. "Upper Volta with rockets" was how some American diplomat put it in the 80s. "Racism" is a word now distorted beyond sensible meaning, but it applies to this view.

The Germans used to be seen outside Germany as terrifyingly efficient robots, blindly obedient to orders ... caricature Prussians. No one who knows anything about Germany today (or German history) will believe this now. Similarly, the Japanese were seen as cruel and utterly devoted to their emperor, almost non-human. Before the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese were seen as timid and pitiful. Then they became scary fanatics, human ants. No one who has lived among them at any time will recognize either stereotype now.

Americans may not know this, but in Europe they are widely seen among some people as vulgar, arrogant, shallow: the phrase "American culture" is laughed at as an oxymoron.

All of these stereotypes contain kernels of truth. Nations evolve under different material conditions. Now we're all converging towards the same material conditions, and a common human culture is slowly emerging.

The differences between typical 20 year old Americans, Russians, Chinese, Germans, Iranians, Mexicans ... are today infinitely less than they were 100 years ago. And this is doubly true for the 20 year olds who are going to be their countries' ruling elites in twenty years.

We could divert this evolution by a really big war between nuclear powers. Let's try not to have one.

 

Wrong

They are both two sides of the same authoritarian government coin

 

In the end both systems are class based systems. (Although class has shifted to be support for candidate/idealogy rather than ethnic)

 

I would estimate that this would be close to the time frame for mail order Russian brides to be advertised. I just did a Google search, man there are a lot of links to Russian and eastern European brides and dating services.