The love affair between Russia and the west in the era of perestroika was always likely to turn sour. The loss of empire is usually bitter. To imagine a British equivalent to the collapse of the Soviet Union you would have to think of the British Empire's disintegration in the 1930s, when for most English people it was still regarded both as fundamentally benevolent and as part of the natural order. Empire's fall would have had to coincide with the secession of Scotland (Ukraine) and Wales (Belarus), with a devastating economic depression, and with the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary system (the Soviet party-state).
蘇聯經濟改革(perestroika)時期俄羅斯和西方世界之間的風流韻事，總是可能由愛成仇。帝國的隕落通常令人痛苦。若要以英國爲例，形容一下蘇聯的解體，你肯定會想到上世紀30年代大英帝國的瓦解。當時在大多數英國人看來，大英帝國解體本質上是好事，是一種自然規律。你會想到，在帝國沒落的同時，蘇格蘭（相當於烏克蘭）和威爾斯（相當於白俄羅斯）也退出了聯合王國，伴隨著毀滅性的經濟蕭條，君主立憲整體和議會制度（相當於蘇聯政府）也被顛覆。