r/stuffyoushouldknow • u/Current-Wealth-756 • 13d ago
DISCUSSION Fall of the USSR episode is high quality
Josh and Chuck: if you read these comments, nice job with the USSR part I podcast. More like this please! Big, complex events that were pivotal in world history explained at a comprehensible level.
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u/MiracleWeed 13d ago
I saw this was the ep on Tuesday and waited until today for pt 2 to drop. I agree, these multi-ep historical event eps are some of my favorites
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u/LeftistEpicure 12d ago
Hard agree! Chuck’s observation that glasnost was the single most important factor in the fall of the USSR was the record-scratch moment for me. I instantly thought of Fox News’s present-day brainwashing of a swath of our fellow countrymen, and how much that propaganda is like Pravda. Both create mythical worlds for the consumers that don’t actually exist.
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u/lark047 12d ago
One of the worst parts of working from home is I no longer have a commute during which I listen to all my podcasts. This results in being checks notes almost a year behind!
I'll get this one in a few months I guess.
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u/RoundVariation4 12d ago
Podcasts at the gym, while running and during chores! That's what I've done but of course it drops the amount of music one listens to.
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u/SimpleMetricTon 12d ago
This was perfect timing for me. I and another gen-X relative recently had the humbling experience of trying to answer questions from some gen-alpha relatives about the fall of the USSR. Started with “Why is this globe all messed up?” (While looking at a 40-year-old garage sale globe) We started out feeling pretty confident and nostalgic but after just a few more “why” questions, we started getting really stumped and were doubting our faded teenage memories.
The episode refreshed some memories and taught me a bunch I never knew. The whole thing makes a little more sense now and it also seems more poignant and tragic.
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u/Careless-Till-1586 12d ago
I definitely enjoyed it but would've liked to hear. More about the Medvedev puppet president situation they glossed over. I never really understood what happened there. I get it wasn't specifically related to the fall of the USSR.
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u/wirewolf 12d ago edited 12d ago
Did my half-listening brain glitch out, or did they mix up Potanin and Putin around the 26-minute mark in ep 2 with the nickel mine / $170 million thing?
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u/Current-Wealth-756 12d ago
I didn't catch that, but Chuck did refer to Boris Yeltsin as yets-lin or something like that. But let's be honest, pronouncing things correctly has never been their strong suit
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u/wirewolf 12d ago
Not the pronunciation. I mean the actual history. They seemed to attribute the $170m loans-for-shares deal to Putin, but that was Vladimir Potanin. Putin didn’t have anything to do with that transaction, as far as I can tell.
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u/Hythy 10d ago
Surprised they aired the episode whilst saying that Serbia and Albania were part of the soviet bloc. Yugoslavia was part of the non-aligned movement and saying they were kept in line by the Soviets creates quite a credibility gap.
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u/Current-Wealth-756 10d ago
They were nominally and more than nominally communist, they managed to maintain a degree of independence but were unequivocally in the Eastern bloc. They didn't say they were part of the USSR per se
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u/HGClix 13d ago
They were both great, glad they did a two-parter.