Long queues and empty shop shelves were inevitable features of everyday life in the Soviet Union, which increasingly lagged behind the Western world. This, of course, only increased the frustration and resentment felt towards 'the most progressive country in the world' and made a mockery of the rhetoric employed by the local puppet leaders. The Soviet regime increasingly resembled a cumbersome giant-feared for its strength, but at the same time increasingly ridiculed for its apparent incapacity.

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