Originally Posted by TheSquealer

It was total hype. If you don't agree... you were never in the Soviet Union and never in post Soviet Russia.

I guess you weren't paying attention during August 1991 when there was a coup in Moscow at the White House and they called in the elite Tamanskaya infantry division, the bulk of which couldn't make it to the area because of broken down trucks, tanks, vbtr's etc.

The Soviet Union was little more than a pile of painted rust and broken down factories.