Also, it's not Nikolai because there's no accent.

Yeah, because the real tragedy of the last 10 years has been the suffering of the middle-class.  Not any other class, nope.

He tried to get the Republican nomination in '88 but they weren't having it.

I don't think the point of Christopher is to precipitate a general uprising of American workers, the Soviets aren't -that- naive.  I think it's meant to interfere with American command-and-control by attacking the personal and infrastructure that make up the National Command Authority (eg the SecDef).

@berkowit28:disqus People who came to political maturity during the Iraq War will continue to feel Rumsfeld is an important lesson from history that maintains relevance, but they'll increasingly resemble people who make jokes about Spiro Agnew.

@avclub-6da71fa7fbd3901899eaa210b3e4caf3:disqus You said between -parties-, not between individuals.  The fact that Switzerland doesn't have a single powerful executive is neither here nor there in this comparison.

Where did you get your turtleneck?  At the turtleneck store?

He's definitely a great example of how people can seem politically extremely important at the time they're in office but quickly lose relevance.  Like Donald Rumsfeld.

It reminded me a bit about Newt Gingrich, actually, constantly looking to lambast people with "Hey look, I know history, and now you're going to know it too" speeches of dubious relevance.

"for all intents & purposes America's presidential election of 1800
(Jefferson over Adams) was the first peaceful transition of power
between rival parties in modern history"

While I appreciate your general point, I don't think the average American Cabinet member was really that much nicer than the average Soviet politburo member.

You do realise that Stalin had officially been denounced by the time the show is set, right?

@avclub-3db41011acc2d229176bf6a92202728d:disqus That's always been one of my favourite translations.

Hey I've got an idea let's all stop talking about Kevin Smith and instead discuss thirdnipple's views on the socially constructed nature of human rights

@avclub-4655fc5d0db55c8b1af0c48752a5f5f2:disqus I don't think the KGB really cared about people's ideological adherence to Marxism-Leninsm so much as it did their compliance.

@avclub-fe667cc638187e2a2ed9661c0b94f457:disqus Like I say, I'm using "Marxism-Leninism" as a proxy for official Soviet state ideology.  Call it something else if you like, my point stands.

But, there's no Gay Town on this map

I think the fact that the wife wanted her kids to be trade union activists shows they are committed to socialism on some level.  If she was a pure Russian nationalist she'd have probably wanted something else.

@avclub-fe667cc638187e2a2ed9661c0b94f457:disqus Yeah, I don't want to get into the whole academic theoretical communism vs actual Soviet communism, although it's certainly interesting.  I'm using "Marxism-Leninism" as a shorthand to mean the official ideology of the USSR, regardless of the degree to which Marx or…

I don't think true belief in Marxism-Leninism was really as helpful in ascending to power in the Soviet system as all that.  The people who succeeded were generally successful because they were good at gathering contacts, manipulating the bureaucracy and forming coalitions.