I think the point that this article somewhat strenuously tries to make is, if the ship was rotting and falling apart on the inside, why didn&#x27;t it do it in the Brezhnev years, during the stagnation and attempted economic reforms, especially when oil prices dropped to an all-time low?<p>To say that simply &quot;the system was bad, and 1985-90 was just when the bottom fell out&quot; smacks of hindsight bias.