Born into a family of Canadian Communists (208)

Fred Weir was a third-generation red diaper baby from Toronto and a long-time member of the Communist Party. His uncle, trained at the Lenin School in Moscow in the 1920s as an agent of the Communist International, the Comintern and spent many years in the USSR.

Fred had visited a few times, had studied Russian history up to the graduate level, but never wanted to live there until Gorbachev came to power in 1985. The new general secretary, the party’s first to be born after the revolution, talked, unlike any Communist leader since the original Bolsheviks. Suddenly, there was the electrifying prospect of socialism powered from below, a system focused on creative human potential rather than crop statistics. 

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I am delighted to welcome Fred Weir to our Cold War conversation…

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0:00 Introduction

3:00 Introduction of guest Fred Weir and discussion on his early life

9:16 Recollection of the Prague Spring and its impact

15:24 Decision to stay in Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union

19:03 Socializing with local Communist Party members and life in Soviet Union

25:48 Covering the impact of Glasnost and Perestroika

35:41 The transition from Yeltson's to Putin's leadership

39:15 Fred Weir's experiences during the 1991 coup

52:09 Predicting and understanding the collapse of the Soviet Union

55:13 Life after the collapse of the Soviet Union

1:00:34 Acknowledging the support of patrons

1:01:20 Cold War Conversations discussion group on Facebook

1:02:28 Cold War Conversations store

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