askchapo

I know that’s what Kruschev tried to do

Liberalisation predates Khrushchev, Stalin started it and Beria continued with Malenkov. For example huge mistake was not discretely sidelining Zhukov when his looting came to light, since he was really the hinge of Khrushchev's coup. What should they do? Imo listen to Zhdanov, as he was essentially correct (which future proven greatly). Also they shouldn't trust west, should help Greece and trust Tito more.

And wasn’t the bloated conventional military one of the primary reasons for the economic stagnation of the 70s? Most of those forces were just standing around waiting for an invasion that never came, and it never came because of the nuclear deterrent. Even in Afghanistan the USSR didn’t really utilize its professional forces, they used conscripts instead - let alone in the various proxy wars

The invasion did came multiple times, but not openly (it would be openly if Soviet army was weaker, nukes were MAD only in theory for most of that time) and was defeated each time. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Afghanistan, not counting all other proxy wars. If any of those were lost now you would be cursing Soviet leadership why they weren't better armed. Again back to fundamental error of not treating the west like west treated them.