I mean Elizabeth pretty much betrayed the KGB and blew their entire operation up, and i have no doubt Claudia went home and informed them of her betrayal. So why is it they feel so safe going back to Russia?
When they was leaving i was thinking they was gonna go to France or Mexico or anywhere other than Russia. Why the fuck would you go back where the dangerous organization you betrayed resides?
Well, they were at least able to achieve what Oleg and Phillip had wanted...they had saved Gorbachev from the conspiracy and had outed the KGB and their plans to keep the old guard in power. I'm not sure if there would be a reconstruction of the KGB or how that would be handled but they are square with the current regime.
They have helped their country and the USA move toward peace which kind of means that all those years and all those things they did before were all for nothing. But what they did in the end mattered a lot.
It seems to me that Claudia would have some issues returning to Russia, wouldn't she?
Phillip and Elizabeth might have to look over their shoulder but what's new about that?
> I mean Elizabeth pretty much betrayed the KGB
I got the impression it wasn't the entire KGB, or even most of it; rather, it was a conspiracy among some high level people in multiple organizations (KGB, military, etc). Think of some of the wackier "who shot JFK" theories where factions in the Mafia, CIA, Army, industry, and so on, are all in on it; a much more plausible USSR equivalent of that.
Which of course doesn't make your main point any less valid ...
> So why is it they feel so safe going back to Russia?
When they pulled over in the woods (after entering the USSR) and dropped their car off, I expected them to be disposed of -- Arkady would distract them by offering smiles and welcomes while an assassin crept up behind them and shot them both.
I can only speculate. Maybe the anti-Gorby plot had failed and those behind it had been disgraced and arrested; and these things, as well as P&E's actions, were well-known enough (to those in power; Politburo, Gorby, etc) that this protects them. For now, the USSR government is stable and generally pro-Gorby. The anti-Gorby elements are still there, but if P&E "have an accident" they'll have hell to pay because it will be obvious what really happened and who caused it.
That's raw speculation, nothing more. It seems odd to me too that they'd seem to feel they could live "sadly but safely ever after."
> When they was leaving i was thinking they was gonna go to France or Mexico or anywhere other than Russia.
Well, if they chose some other country, they'd have to live under fake IDs, etc, infiltrating that society just to establish their own faked existence as ordinary people. And if would be a society they hadn't been trained to live in. And they'd also have to consider the possibility that the USA might find out where they were and demand extradition -- whatever the pros and cons are of them returning to the USSR, at least they don't have to worry about that.
I thought they might get taken out, but once we see it was Arkady who met them, I figured they were in the clear. They did too, because they were able to let down their guard and go to sleep. Arkady would have been one of the first to go if the coup succeeded.
There really was a coup attempt against Gorbachev by his own party (which did include some KGB leaders), but it was in 1991. They were opposed to giving the Soviet states more autonomy. The ones responsible for the coup were caught and got locked up for a while. It was ironic because it ultimately split the communist party and allowed the populists to take over via their relatively new election process. That's how they ended up with Boris Yeltsin, and corruption so widespread that it destroyed their economy.
Even if the coup plotters had succeeded there's no real reason to think corruption wouldn't still be widespread. It'd still be as bad as it was in the Soviet Union, which was pretty bad.
The only difference is there would have been a stronger central state with tighter controls on the populace. It probably wouldn't be much different than what Russia looks like today.
Seeing how Gorbachev continued peace negotiations through Reagan and Bush Sr until the SU finally collapsed in '91, I think it's safe to assume his hand was strengthened upon his safe return. He had conceded the dreaded "Dead Hand" (nuclear version of a dead man's switch) as part of his continued rapprochement with the West, and continued opening up the Soviet Union to Western influence until its dissolution.
If the coup plotters had any sway we would have seen them endangered upon re-entering the Soviet Union. I think we can reasonably assume they'd been deposed of. Of course, as mentioned already above, 3 years later there was another attempted coup so as soon as this coup was deposed of it's pretty clear some remnants began organizing and plotting another one. But we can only speculate if P&E would have gotten caught up in round 2. I sort of doubt it since they would have been safely retired from active duty at that point and probably making a killing in the new wild west capitalism of Russia in the immediate aftermath of Soviet dissolution.
Anyone that had been part of the KGB and had familiarity with the West were poised to rake in Yeltsin's Russia.