Russian gov has quietly informed US embassy in Moscow it will remove the ban on employing Russian staff it announced with a lot of media coverage as a "reprisal" for expulsions of Russian diplomats in response to GRU activity on the ground and the Internet.
When US embassy said it will then only offer services to US citizens and suspends issuing visas to Russians, Kremlin quietly stepped back. Which kind of shows that Russian bargain is quite weak in such international sabre rattling.
Back in 80's, on the ground in countries like Poland, everyone understood we are kind of part of Eastern Bloc.
But the economic situation was so dire that reforms were required - and they were not at all directed at the "road to socialism" directed by USSR (and nobody really believed in it anywhere), although they were formally in violation of the die-hard Marxist-Leninist dogmas.
The expectation was that USSR will at least not interfere, because then you'd have to face an actual revolution.
