RUSSIA, Always(Since 1917) Been An Enemy, But for a while pretended to be our friend?

RUSSIA, Always(Since 1917) Been An Enemy,          
But for a while pretended to be our friend?            
Did Russia really go from Communist to democracy for a short time,          
But now has gone over to authoritarianism, In other words dictatorship??          
Or did it go from Communism directly to  authoritarianism with the "democracy" phase being only "potemkin democracy"        
(a term Hillary Clinton once used. )      
Has Communism really fallen or is it just playing possum??          
If the fall of Marxism/Leninism was more surface than substantive, what is the point??          
What do the diabolical deceivers gain for all their effort??          
You dont put on an act for nothing, right??          
     
Academics like anne applebaum, a (former?) columnist for the Washington Post, an expert on Russia, have no clue on why Russia ended the Cold War, etc.        
I mean, they - none of them -  have used the Kremlin's notorious track record of cheating on treaties and elaborate didinformation campaigns over many decades as a basis for the West to view  the ending of the Cold War as just one more Stalinist plot.  (The only exception that I have found is Edward Jay Epstein, author of "DECEPTION: the Invisible War Between the KGB And the CIA."  
He identifies "six periods of glasnost" or openness that were all deceptions, the last one being Gorbachev's.)  
   
Let me give you the definitive answer that you won't get from ANY other source.    
   
We tell Russia "If you hit us, we will retaliate with our nuclear arsenal."    
So starting with Stalin's time, the Kremlin has always been working to destroy all 3 "legs" of our nuclear Triad, our retaliatory arsenal.  Gaining that ability is the Kremlin's version of "finding the holy grail."  
   
The Kremlin has three means of destroying our nuclear arsenal.    
ONE, offensive missiles with which to bomb our weapons before we can launch them;    
TWO, defensive missiles with which to shoot down our missiles after we launch    
them.    
THREE, Disarmament agreements.    
If Russia can get us to dismantle our own missiles, that saves Russia the effort of trying to destroy them in wartime.    
   
But during the Cold War America couldn't be persuaded to disarm,making deep cuts in our arsenal, of course.    
The only hope the Kremlin had of tricking us into disarming required Russia to end the Cold War.    
Only by removing the enemy, the "Soviet threat,"   -  which was the whole reason we built our nuclear arsenal, - would the Kremlin stand even a chance of getting America to disarm to the degree that Russia was hoping for.  
 
To get to the point, the whole "political theater" of ending the Cold War was performed solely for the purpose of getting America to DISARM DRASTICALLY !!!
 
But it wasn't enuff for Russia to stop promoting "wars of liberation" and "world revolution." For skeptics and cynics would see thru such half-way measures.
No, to "prove" its sincerity, the Kremlin would have to go much further.  
It would have to shed its empire - the "captive nations" in Eastern  Europe.
For empires, by definition, are aggressive.
Eastern Europe is a bridge between Russia and Western Europe.
If Russia plans on overrunning Western Europe, they would never let go of Eastern Europe.
So by letting Eastern Europe become free,
The Kremlin won over droves of "doubting Thomases."
But even that Herculean feat wasn't good
enuff.
For as long as Communism ran Russia, the ideology of world revolution, totalitarianism, was still there like a cancer in remission is still cancer and can reappear.
No, Communism had to "fall."
And this is where the Communist leaders showed their evil genius.

Jeane Kirkpatrick, America's ambassador to the UN during the Reagan years, was famous, at least within conservative circles, for her essay published in Commentary journal in the late 1970s(?)
In it she defended America's support for authoritarian regimes that were anti-Communist - even though they violated human rights.
She reasoned that authoritarian regimes are more likely to be succeeded by democratic ones than Communist regimes are. As was the case with South Korea.
And would have been true of South Vietnam if our Democratically controlled  Congress had not cut off all military aid. Which led  to its defeat when North Vietnam tanks invaded.in 1974.

As Soviet thinkers like Georgi Arbatov poured over Jean Kirkpatrick's essay, they realized that if they, the Communists, morphed into a non-Communist regime with only the most superficial trappings of democracy,
they could (1)maintain social control thru dictatorship while as the same time (2)reaping the benefits that America willingly bestows on authoritarian regimes !!
In short the Kremlin could gain tremendous advantages simply by becoming a "Communist front," an organization that claims to not be Communist but actually is. And running Communist fronts is something the Kremlin has some expertise with
PS: it is called "having your cake and eating it too."