This chapter shows the proximity of underground to mainstream culture in the years leading up to perestroika, evaluating the long-term implications of symbiosis between establishment and countercultural figures. By the early 1990s, government authorities had shifted their policy on rock music from control and curation to promotion and collaboration. By popularizing late-Soviet rock and inscribing its personalities into the ranks of national heroes, state-controlled public media promoted the very Western influences it had once opposed. Ultimately, the author argues, this approach provided a blueprint for “soft” government intervention into popular culture after 1991, facilitating the development of a modern propaganda apparatus that co-opts youth and popular movements to its own ends.