S8 Ep256: THE COLLAPSE OF 1989 AND THE MODERN AUTHORITARIAN PIVOT Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. In the final segment, McMeekin challenges the narrative that the 1989 collapse was solely a popular

THE COLLAPSE OF 1989 AND THE MODERN AUTHORITARIAN PIVOT Colleague Professor Sean McMeekin. In the final segment, McMeekin challenges the narrative that the 1989 collapse was solely a popular uprising. Instead, he argues it was a "top-down disintegration" caused by the withdrawal of Soviet force via the "Sinatra Doctrine" (letting satellites go their own way). Regimes fell because security forces mutinied or stood down, not merely because of protests. Regarding modern Russia, McMeekin notes that while Putin has jettisoned Lenin, he retains a nostalgia for Stalin as a "builder" of state power. The conversation concludes with a warning: while traditional communism relied on extreme violence, modern authoritarian regimes, particularly China, may now use advanced surveillance technology to achieve total control without the same level of overt bloodshed. NUMBER 8