Last Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Who Ended the Cold War, Dies Aged 91 (reuters.com) 143
Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91. Reuters reports: "Mikhail Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease," Interfax news agency cited Russia's Central Clinical Hospital as saying in a statement. Gorbachev will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, said Tass news agency, citing the foundation that the former Soviet leader set up once he left office.
Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany. [...] When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force -- unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
But the protests fueled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion. Gorbachev struggled in vain to prevent that collapse. "The era of Gorbachev is the era of perestroika, the era of hope, the era of our entry into a missile-free world ... but there was one miscalculation: we did not know our country well," said Vladimir Shevchenko, who headed Gorbachev's protocol office when he was Soviet leader. "Our union fell apart, that was a tragedy and his tragedy," RIA news agency cited him as saying.
Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany. [...] When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force -- unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
But the protests fueled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion. Gorbachev struggled in vain to prevent that collapse. "The era of Gorbachev is the era of perestroika, the era of hope, the era of our entry into a missile-free world ... but there was one miscalculation: we did not know our country well," said Vladimir Shevchenko, who headed Gorbachev's protocol office when he was Soviet leader. "Our union fell apart, that was a tragedy and his tragedy," RIA news agency cited him as saying.
Appropriate timing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Appropriate timing.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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He is seen as some sort of statesman in the West, because he tried to end the Cold War but the reality is that he was a hapless fool who didn't really understand what was happening.
Gorbachev led Perestroika. Google it. (Score:5, Informative)
Gorbachev was the leading figure of Perestroika, the movement to restructure the Soviet economy and government more along western lines. In other words, he's responsible for getting rid of communism in the USSR, to the extent they did gradually transition from communism.
In the 1970s he had become very aware of problems of inefficiency and corruption inherent in the authoritarian Soviet system. He was also of course aware that when the government is running all of the businesses, the whole economy (Communism), that kinda necessitates a giant bureaucracy that's authoritarian almost by definition.
At first, he hoped to break up the government into smaller, more nimble pieces, and therefore allow communism to work without the large, authoritarian central bureaucracy. Then Reagan came on the scene and Cold War fundamentally changed. I had the good fortune to be present in the room in 2001 Gorbachev was discussing this.
Reagan took a tact of direct and fierce economic competition. Straight up capitalism* vs communism bare knuckle cage fight. Gorbachev was not a stupid man. He saw how that was going. He saw the US system out producing the USSR by far in all new technologies, and producing twice as many goods overall. He couldn't avoid seeing it; trying to out-compete Reagan and the US was his daily job.
Seeing that, he introduced a new law that fundamentally changed the way the Soviet Union had worked since 1927. For the first time, groups of private individuals could decide all on their own to form and own a business together. "The people" actually owning the means of production directly, rather than only nominally while it's actually controlled by the politicians. You are a couple friends could open a restaurant and actually own the restaurant, rather than having the government own and control it. This is the system he saw working so well in the US, the corporation system.
Gorbachev more than anyone else brought American-style private ownership to the Soviet Union. Trying to *transition* between those two very different systems didn't go much better than one might expect from such a radical change, at a time when the old system was crumbling.
* Above I called it capitalism for poetic brevity, but it was actually the later system that evolved from both socialism and capitalism - a system in which the people can voluntarily CHOOSE to own the means of production together, banding together to own a factory or ship or whatever, the corporate system.
End of communism not always chaotic (Score:3)
The experience of the Soviet Empire of Eastern Europe was that communism could be ended and capitalism reintroduced with a good outcome quite fast; the present prosperity of those former enslaved states demonstrates that. Sadly the Russian solution did not work as well, and Yeltsin's choice of Putin as successor has proved horribly disastrous.
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Cuba and North Korea keep the Red Flag flying, although not with any great success. Sadly for their citizens it hasn't collapsed there.
And it's worth pointing out that Israeli Kibbutzim prove that collective production can work if it's small scale, strongly motivated and voluntary.
Re:Gorbachev led Perestroika. Google it. (Score:4, Interesting)
One could make the argument that the stupid USSR pointing a gun at the US and vice versa is what kept US corruption in check. Without the threat of a potential nuclear war at a moments notice, the US stopped thinking it's the world police, and allowed corruption to pretty much steam roll over itself. Wealth inequality skyrocketed, climate change skyrocketed, and now we're in this protracted state of emergency against an enemy that half the US populace puts their fingers in their ears about.
Would we have been better off had the cold war never ended? Chances are China would have never opened up, and the UK would have been less in a hurry to de-colonize. But let's say that the USSR dissolved in 2001 rather than 1991. This would have been under the backdrop of 9/11 instead of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Chances are nearly everything would have happened the same way, but the former USSR would have started from an even deeper economic crisis, and would have been a decade too late to get into the internet.
There's plenty of pivotal points in time, had the USSR broken up in 1979, at the peak of the oil crisis and the Three Mile Island meltdown, chances are the Chernobyl accident wouldn't have happened at all, and nuclear energy wouldn't have been so pooh-poohed as hard as it is now. Hell, Ukraine might be the world leader in nuclear power now, and maybe climate change would have been slowed down.
It's all a matter of perspective. The most critical events that lead to the break up the USSR were economic-focused, but you can't say Chernobyl wasn't indirectly responsible for it.
And here we are in 2022, seeing the consequences of a Russian military that has not been told basic nuclear safety training, irradiating themselves around the Chernobyl plant, fighting around another nuclear plant. Like it's not a far fetched thing to assume that Russia would like to cause a false-flag nuclear incident to justify their "involvement" in taking over Ukraine, but it's also not that far fetched that a third party would like to stir the pot and set off a nuclear incident to keep the war going.
Re:Gorbachev led Perestroika. Google it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd argue Citizens United was what undid the united states.
Once the supreme court decided money=speech and therefore you cant make laws restricting the buying and selling of political influence, it was all over. Although the laundry list of american problems is long (what is UP with political judge appointments america? The idea that judges can belong to political parties is repugnant) this particular one was what opened the flood doors imho.
What passes as the normal business of politics in the united states would have the anti corruption cops kicking down doors anywhere else in the western world.
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Yes, and it's astounding to me that the whole "money=speech" argument got so much traction. The obvious conclusion being that it grants the rich rights to much more (and influential) speech than the poor.
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Citizen's united is such a misunderstood ruling.
The government blew the argument. They were winning until one justice asked something like "So, if I want to publish a book about a politician a month before election that would reveal bad information about that politician, would the government be allowed to block the publication of that book?"
And the answer from the government was: Why yes, of course.
And ... poof. It's gone. And for good reason (on that reason).
Then all the rest is just ... political man
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The argument is that printing a pamphlet or hosting a web site does cost money. Exercising your free speech rights on any scale cost money when Benjamin Franklin printed pamphlets criticizing the king, and that hasn't changed.
The Obama administrations argument that you aren't allowed to make copies of a pamphlet that's critical of him, because making copies costs money, was just a ridiculous argument. It's just Trump-level ludicrous. OF COURSE you buy SD cards to use for making a video about how crappy Trum
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I'd argue Citizens United was what undid the united states.
Once the supreme court decided money=speech and therefore you cant make laws restricting the buying and selling of political influence, it was all over. Although the laundry list of american problems is long (what is UP with political judge appointments america? The idea that judges can belong to political parties is repugnant) this particular one was what opened the flood doors imho.
What passes as the normal business of politics in the united states would have the anti corruption cops kicking down doors anywhere else in the western world.
The Civil Rights Act is what undid the United States.
Before that the US effectively had 3 parties, Northern Democrats, Southern Democrats, and Republicans. Especially since the Democratic party was split it helped prevent complete polarization.
The Civil Rights act wiped out the Southern Democrats and simplified the political debate down to two clearly defined parties, it also gave Republicans the opportunity to try and become the party of white people. The moment that happened it was inevitable that one wou
100% viral social media. OF COURSE Michael Moore (Score:2)
Before Citizens United, it was fucking obvious to everyone that OF COURSE Michael Moore's company can make a movie criticizing Bush. That's whole freaking point of the first amendment.
How far back does this idea go? At least to Benjamin Franklin's publishing house printing handbills talking shit about the king. In the Constitution the founding fathers guaranteed your right and mine to keep doing what they had been doing.
Over 200 years later, Michael Moore was carrying on the fine American tradition (will a
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Actually- governments have been incredibly inconsistent since Julius Caesar on whether or not a corporation is a person, or just a representative "DBA-Doing Business As" the stockholders of that corporation.
In the United States- Southern Pacific Railroad vs Santa Clara County over the problem of charging a corporation property taxes is what settled the issue. Corporations are people, period. There are some of us who still think this is an error- for the meaning of the word "limited" in "limited liability"
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Absolutely agree wholeheartedly! It's the same here in Switzerland and the crazy thing is, the Swiss see nothing wrong with it...
What Citizens United actually said (Score:2)
I'd argue Citizens United was what undid the united states. Once the supreme court decided money=speech ...
That's not what Citizen's United said, that's how the losing side erroneously characterized the ruling. Have you read the ruling? I have.
What the Citizen's United ruling actually says is that:
(1) Groups of people have the same free speech rights are individual persons. That the nature of the group, union, activist group, corporation, etc does not matter.
(2) Media corporations do not have any special rights to speech. Every corporation has the same speech rights as media and news corporations.
Go read
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One could make the argument ...
And be wrong.
... that the stupid USSR pointing a gun at the US and vice versa is what kept US corruption in check.
That threat is one of various factors that enabled corruption. It rationalized bad behaviors as helping the anti-communist effort so lets give them a pass.
Without the threat of a potential nuclear war at a moments notice, the US stopped thinking it's the world police, and allowed corruption to pretty much steam roll over itself.
More corruption was inevitable as more self-absorbed generations came to power.
Wealth inequality skyrocketed, climate change skyrocketed, ...
Primarily due to those outside the US. Billions of people moving into the middle class globally and wanting their part of the good life.
... Would we have been better off had the cold war never ended? Chances are China would have never opened up, ...
China opening up was due to the Cold War, to play china against the USSR. It was based on the 1960s/70s Nixon/Kissenger theory
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By that time, Reagan didn't even know what room he was in, let alone what was happening in the USSR.
Somebody sees that differently :) (Score:2)
A guy who would have reason to know has a different perspective on that. :)
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Pretty sure Gorbachev knows a *little* more about those interactions than you do.
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reagan had little to do with Soviet's fall.
Gorbachev disagrees, "after Reagan defeated us, we no choice but to open up our economy no matter ..."
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
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I'm pretty sure he understood exactly what was happening but also was out of options. Basically he was like a surgeon noticing his patient goes into cardiac arrest and trying a last ditch effort to save his life.
Yes, he failed, but the alternative would have been to pull an Chernenko: Sit there, do nothing and watch it fall apart.
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The cancer in Russia was introduced in October, 1917. Removal of that particular cancer in 1991 is what ultimately caused the death. In between was nearly 80 years of non-stop bad for the Russian people.
It still hasn't recovered. It may never will, attempts by Putin to revive the Big Bad Bear notwithstanding.
And to think some want to bring that here. Tthe very phrase "Politically Correct" is Soviet in nature..
Re:Appropriate timing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
> the very phrase "Politically Correct" is Soviet..
" 'Politically Correct': The Phrase Has Gone From Wisdom To Weapon " + "Since as far back as 1793, when the term appeared in a U.S. Supreme Court decision about the boundaries of federal jurisdiction, "politically correct" has had an array of definitions."
https://www.npr.org/sections/c... [npr.org]
Re:Appropriate timing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
> We can all cherry-pick our citations.
So you were cherry picking :) ?
I was looking for the oldest citation I could find:
"Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793)" https://supreme.justia.com/cas... [justia.com]
Oldest usage is not determinative (Score:3)
In practice a phrase can have many different meaning over history and even at the same time. Fighting over which one is correct when it clear that all of them have been used frequently is a mistake; we need to learn to live with the fact that people use language wrongly a lot of the time and work to understand what they mean, not try to impose our interpretation when it's not helpful to do so. It is important to challenge a use when it is a way of winning an argument, but otherwise: leave it alone!
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"Politically correct" really took off in the 1980s. People would complain about things like the campus building they were studying at being named after someone who owned their ancestors, and they would be accused of being "politically correct". In other words, it became a shorthand for "complaining about trivial things", a way to dismiss grievances that had no effect on the majority, or which people did not want to address for some reason.
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No, not for complaining about trivial things, but for demanding people pretend that true things were false because the facts did not suit a political agenda. Which is what it meant in the USSR.
No, "political correctness" has come to mean "something I don't like".
Languages change over time, the English language faster than most.
Political correctness is an example of what happens when a term is not just incorrectly used, but horrifically overused. It loses not just any real meaning it has, but any impact. Now days even the most ardently "politically incorrect" have dropped it's use because they know that as soon as they say it everyone stops listening and starts rolling their eyes. Now days t
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There are two ways of parsing your wiki quote, and the second is that the phrase existed earlier in non-Marxist-Leninist vocabulary.
Re:Appropriate timing.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually that's a bit of an over simplification. Remember, what came before the USSR was Imperial Russia, and that sucked for a lot of people too. We may no longer have a regime based on harebrained Utopian economic ideas in Russia, but we *don't* have anything like the rule of law. It's more like a return to the Imperial system. Putin rules like a Tsar and his oligarchs and loyal state functionaries are his boyars who enrich themselves by their dependence on his power.
So you could argue the "cancer" goes all the way back to the Tatars. Why is *Moscow* the de facto power center of the Slavic world, and not Kyiv or Novgorod, which have longer histories as important religious and political centers? Because the Dukes of Moscow and their boyars were the tax collectors of the Tatars. When the khanate was weakened by internal divisions the Muscovites expelled them, then carried on bleeding people dry. And that has how things have been ever since. You can see how the idea of historical determinism seemed plausible in the Soviet Union, in that an arguably much more functional state replaced a dysfunctional medieval system. But what really happens in that part of the world is that whenever a regime loses grip on power it topples, because almost nobody feels any loyalty to their rulers, who are parasites.
Which brings this back to Gorbachev, I think his ultimate failure as a leader was that he actually believed in the system. The General Secretary of the Soviet Union was very powerful, but he was far from an autocrat; there were other important power centers, particularly the Politburo. This is how Khrushchev got removed; he didn't watch the Politburo closely enough and they formed a consensus behind his back to fire him. So to survive as a General Secretary you needed to be a ruthlessly cynical power player. Gorbachev allowed perestroika and glasnost because he was out of touch; he had no idea how little many people actually *wanted* to be part of the Soviet Union, particularly after Afghanistan.
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Why is *Moscow* the de facto power center of the Slavic world, and not Kyiv or Novgorod, which have longer histories as important religious and political centers?
Better hope the defensive nukes still work, or the way things are going Kyiv will again be the political center.
Which brings this back to Gorbachev, I think his ultimate failure as a leader was that he actually believed in the system
To be fair, it wasn't an easy task.
To be harsh, anyone who gets to the top of an organization through political skill tends to lack practical skill.
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All was easy by the time, he inherited it. It was pretty stale. There is another word, which emerged and was characteristic: zastoy. Gorby wished, he could kick it to some new lease of life. But the whole thing was assembled and held together with terror, which made it fall apart before anything else.
It is not quite true, this went without the spill of the blood. Here and there militant empowered would grab controls from Gorby and impose convulsions of terror. Yet his was the new order, that terror is not t
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Yet his was the new order, that terror is not to be priority anymore. Well, that was impotence of Brezhnev's continuing, to be exact.
I don't think terror is the way to go anyway. Mutual support is better. Bakunin was right.
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And down there you'll find on support of the West.
Far from mutual, astonishingly stupid ignorance.
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Yeah. Russians don't know how to do "win-win" agreements.
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For their defense, they had agreement of freezing NATO perimeter, very insightful.
The West did disappoint once again. Leaving junk as putin with an argument.
So, do not put all the blame on Russians.
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Nobody agreed to freeze NATO's perimeter. They said that they had no plans to expand NATO towards the Soviet Union. Which was true. But A. the Soviet Union no longer exists, so even if there had been such an agreement, any treaty with it is presumptively null and void
Nope. Promise of not expanding towards USSR was demanded, and provided, before demolition of Berlin wall could be agreed with. This is some cornerstone to be obeyed. It simply does not go like that in politics, when one power would "just say", politics are not happening like that. The West was way too ignorant after getting the deal. And yes, I wholeheartedly support choice of the countries to get protection of any sort, other than protection by bigger brother nearby. My country is one, lucky to succeeding
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But what really happens in that part of the world is that whenever a regime loses grip on power it topples, because almost nobody feels any loyalty to their rulers, who are parasites.
Which is true almost everywhere in the world, but in different shapes.
In most dictatorships and pseudo-democracies, people don't care who rules as long as their taxes don't rise. They feel no connection to their government anyways.
Even in most western countries, only a fraction of the population is politically active and cares much about who actually runs the country. Anyway, political parties have become interchangeable and politicians are all corrupt. It's rare that the public at large feels strongly abou
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The vast majority of citizens of the Russian Empire supported the Reds, and even France, Britain and the US invading in support of the Whites couldn't save them.
They must have been awful.
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You have it wrong, I guess. Russia was siding with allies in the war of that time, and Germany was sponsoring the coup, but foreigners generally were not representative on the soil of that particular empire.
The world was in anticipation of new era, though, it was in the air. Pity, the amount of brutality ahead was hardly accounted. The war has already made folks tired, anything was appearing as a solution.
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While formally you are correct, here is final evaluation of intervention from Britannica:
"Direct intervention by Allied military forces was, however, on a very small scale, involving a total of perhaps 200,000 soldiers. The French in Ukraine were bewildered by the confused struggle between Russian Communists, Russian Whites, and Ukrainian nationalists, and they withdrew their forces during March and April 1919, having hardly fired a shot. The British in the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk areas did some fighting,
Re:Appropriate timing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really that simple. Russia is suffering from pretty much the same problem Germany did in the 1930s.
Russia until 1917 was ruled a despotic, autocratic regime. It's no exaggeration to say that the average Russian "peasant" was living in a situation that is not far from what is essentially slavery. The local aristocrats pretty much owned their subjects and could do whatever they please. Europe wasn't exactly the epitome of democracy in the 19th century either, aside of the parlamentarian monarchy of England and the mostly-kinda republic of France, there were a bunch of monarchies, most of them what was termed "enlightened absolutist" rules, most of them having some kind of democratic tendencies and some sort of participation of the population, but Russia remained an autocratic monarchy with zero popular participation.
The Russian revolution changed one autocratic rule for another one. Believe it or not, it was actually better for the average peasant because they were still not free in any sense we'd consider, but the people at least were no longer officially owned.
Russians never experienced a moment of freedom until the fall of the Iron Curtain. And the "freedom" they got then was pretty much anarchy. What followed the iron fist of the Soviets was mob rule. Not liberal freedom. The mafia pretty much ran the country. The police was pretty much ineffective for anything. You could be robbed in plain daylight and nobody gave half a fuck about it.
So Russia is back to autocracy, and the people actually like it. Because it's still better than what they got before. Not that it's good, don't get me wrong, and I have no doubt that Russians know that it's not "good". It's very much like Germany 1930. Germany, too, went from autocracy to militaristic autocracy to anarchy to kleptocracy.
It's no wonder that they would say that Hitler actually was the lesser evil. Like Putin is now.
Russia needs a reset. Just like Germany did back then. And a role model that shows them how it can be better. Unfortunately, the "free" world isn't exactly a really good role model right now either.
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You do know the difference between theory and practice, yes? The average Russian before the October Revolution could neither read nor write and didn't travel more than maybe a mile from their home town. You think that information that they ain't property anymore reached them? The local aristocrats weren't too happy about them no longer properly owning their serfs, there was plenty of attempts to simply ignore the abolishment of serfdom. They just went on with the show. Russia is big, the Czar far away.
I wou
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As for reading/writing... in 1911 they conducted a school census. 43% of Russian children aged between 8 and 11 were attending school. And by Russia I mean the whole Russian Empire including nomads of Central Asia, some them even hadn't a writing system for their language at that time. This is of course far fewer than say in France of that time but still many Russians could read and write.
My grandfather was born in a Russ
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I see your grandfather and raise you a grandmother.
Could we try to concentrate on what's important about the posting? If it allows you to sleep easier, say it's not serfdom but people still being effectively bound to their soil and toil and unable to improve their position. The outcome is the same.
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Again, theory and practice. Russia is a very, very traditional land, how many people actually left and tried to better their lot?
Cause of Death? (Score:2)
Anyone know the Reported Cause of Death.
On one hand, he was 91.
On the other hand. . .
Re:Cause of Death? (Score:5, Funny)
Wolves. He was delicious.
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Seems like a very Russian way to go. That or liver poisoning.
Re: Cause of Death? (Score:2)
I'm certainty not saying that I believe what I'm about to say, but it doesn't take a geniuses to figure out how the logic would work.
1) Trump is an asset of the Russian government
2) Gorbachev, who was no longer part of the Russian government, knows something that would get Trump arrested
3) Russian government doesn't want their asset arrested
4) Russian government kills Gorbachev
It really wasn't that difficult, but I suppose it's easier when you've at least got 2 brain cells to rub together.
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He had information that would lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.
You mean to the arrest of Donald Trump.
First he is a Russian asset, and now he's their enemy?!?
Really wish you TDS fucktards would decide which face you're going to speak out of before getting out of bed in the morning. You could give a psychologist motion sickness from a fucking couch.
He was a Useful Idiot.
Now that his supply of State Secrets is cut off, he's just a Liability.
I had no idea he was still alive (Score:3)
For whatever reason, I assumed he had died many years ago.
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You are probably thinking of Nelson Mandela. Who died in a South African prison [wikipedia.org].
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Might have been thinking of Boris Yeltsin?
goodbye (Score:5, Informative)
Goodbye old comrade. Wish you had dealt with the corruption.
Glad you didn't kill a bunch of people.
Re:goodbye (Score:4, Informative)
Well he did. He did in Chernobyl by having people stay there to show that it wasn't dangerous. He also did have the military shoot when people started to demonstrate during the fall of the USSR. He had opponents deported, in pure soviet tradition. Granted, he didn't kill many by Russian standards and it's difficult to know what was his decision and what was the KGB and the military decision that he could not act against.
Re:goodbye (Score:4, Informative)
He let the Berlin wall fall and those protests happen without shooting.
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Being born in East-Germany, I know that very well! I'm glad he didn't order the Russian troops stationed in GDR to open fire, for sure! But let's not make him the hero of democracy he never was. Gorbi wasn't a democrat, he was a bureaucrat overwhelmed with events happening at a speed he could not comprehend. Did he let everything happen with minimal killing because he was a pacifist or was it because he was too slow to order the massive killing? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that's i
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Did he let everything happen with minimal killing because he was a pacifist or was it because he was too slow to order the massive killing?
He didn't want to kill the people. That doesn't exactly make a person a pacifist, but he didn't want to mass slaughter civilians.
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The evacuation in Chernobyl should have started long before it even came to Gorbachev's attention. By the time he was briefed on the full extent of it, it was already too late.
What he was responsible for was overseeing the use of human beings to first avoid a huge nuclear explosion when the melting down reactors reached the water table, and secondly when he signed off on using "bio robots" to clear extremely dangerous debris and prepare the site for construction of a containment structure. To be fair to him
He certainly tried (Score:2)
> Goodbye old comrade. Wish you had dealt with the corruption.
He certainly tried to. He saw that it destroying the country. That's what Glasnost was all about. He saw very clearly that a huge central bureaucracy running every business and deciding every purchase in the whole country was of course a breeding ground for corruption. His challenge is that communism on a national scale, having the bureaucrats in charge of everything that touches money or the economy, REQUIRES an enormous, authoritarian govern
My own personal Gorbachev story (Score:2)
I had the good fortune to be in the room with Gorbachev in 2001. The phrasing he used at one point caught my attention.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gorbachev was trying to transition the country to a different form of economy and significantly reform the government. (Perestroika and Glasnost). While the country kept operating, of course. This can be compared to trying to start with an half-running old pickup and rebuild it as a hot rod *while it's driving down the road*.
Someone asked Gorbachev about h
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> Gorbachev didn't end the cold war, he lost it.
There are two ways to end a war; losing is one of them. :)
But seriously, Reagan made it an all-out economic competition. He mad about communism vs the American system of private ownership, where you and a couple buddies can open a sandwich shop and own your shop. Very focused on the economics, trying to out-produce them (which allows the US to outspend them). He turned it into communism vs "capitalism" battle.
Gorbachev ended it when he let gave up a failed
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Didn't the opening up of the Soviet Union bring about the steep rise in crony capitalism and corruption.
It started (or became much stronger) under Brezhnev. By 1980, anyone who had a chance to travel out of the USSR was stashing money in a western bank account. By 1990, despite massive oil revenues, the state bank accounts had been mostly emptied by corruption (the most likely theory is the KGB stole it, because they were in charge of foreign currency).
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Also, corruption wasn't huge under Stalin because noticeable corruption would get you killed.
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Come with the proofs. The economy of the country was collapsing about 80's. This is why Gorby had to act, once Brezhnev was gone. But not due to corruption yet, until the state begun to fall apart. Then it was for grabs, about 90's.
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Come with the proofs.
Which Russian chess player that was active in the west at that time didn't have a foreign account?
Everyone who could was stealing from the state. Not everyone could, of course, but the KGB could.
As for evidence that the KGB emptied out the accounts of the government, Karen Dawisha presents quite a bit of evidence [amazon.com]. I suspect you're not interested in evidence though, and you will respond angrily instead of trying to find out.
As for corruption, you could easily argue that it started in the Stalin era, except i
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Wait, did you just sent me to the book called "Putin's kleptocracy", when I ask for the proof of state corruption 20 years before he even comes to the scene?
And what minute chess players have to do with the corruption at the state level? Names, extents of deeds, please, or...
As to stealing from state - sure, this was common, but check out definition of a corruption.
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I knew it, you were just going to argue.
Russians don't know how to do win-win agreements,
and you can't resist arguing.
Believe it or not, a book called "Putin's kleptocracy" can and does provide evidence of state corruption 20 years before he came on the scene (although actually by 1990 Putin was heavily involved in politics. Putin was doing in St Petersburg roughly the same thing he was doing in Germany for the KGB: dealing with foreigners in commercial relationships.)
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Do not falsify. In 1990 putin ends service in KGB, starts as advisor to Sobchak, mayor of Leningrad/St.Petersburg. This is where that politician starts, not "heavily involved by".
Yes, I am asking for solid arguments, this is not shallow willingness to argue. But I will stop here, disappointed.
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Ended Cold War eh (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the West should have been more friendly to Gorbachev when he was in power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] hind site is 20/20
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How was keeping the Soviet Union afloat in the interest of the West? It peacefully breaking up was the absolute best-case scenario from the point of view of the West.
That said, I do agree the US should have done more to help Russia during the economic collapse of the 90s. It was still a massive nuclear armed state, and the cost of doing so little was that Putin was able to attain power and also convince the population that democracy/capitalism is overrated.
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If there is one lesson we should have learned by now, it's that failed states are never good for us. Doesn't matter how they fail, or if it's our fault or not.
Loans would have been stolen like everything else. (Score:2)
Why would anyone sane lend a kleptocracy money?
There was no reason to want an intact cultural enemy.
From somewhere deep in a sulfur smelling pit... (Score:2)
...of glowing redness a voice cries out, "Dammit, Pete! I said RUSSIAN PRESIDENT! Not SOVIET! I can't do a thing with this guy you sent down here!"
From above the clouds a voice clears its throat and mutters, "You have no idea what your getting yourself into when I send the other guy along..."
And God grins before going back to flicking neutrons from his thumbs like relativistic marbles...
Gorbachev was against NATO expansion (Score:2)
Re:Gorbachev was against NATO expansion (Score:4, Insightful)
NATO never would have expanded if Russians didn't keep threatening to attack its neighbors. Why do you think Turkey is part of NATO?
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What does Turkey have to do with NATO expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union? Turkey became a NATO member in 1952
Terrible example, but a good point.
Think more of the Nordic states. Finland is fiercely independent, but the invasion of Ukraine showed that the Russians were both aggressive and not as strong as they made out to be. For years Finland resisted the idea of joining NATO despite being culturally and economically close to the western powers, partially because of their independent streak and partially because they didn't want to upset Russia. With the Ukraine invasion, the Finns cant join NATO fast enough. T
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Turkey joined NATO because Russia threatened to invade them.
What does the fall of the Soviet Union have to do with it? Russia was the same before and after: they continued to threaten to invade their neighbors, as they have threatened and done for hundreds of years.
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Though to be fair, that would be anyone's preference.
Maybe. Americans don't want soldiers on the Canadian side of the border. Belgium doesn't seem to want soldiers on the French side of their border.
Russians want that kind of thing because they have trust issues.
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NATO never would have expanded if Russians didn't keep threatening to attack its neighbors. Why do you think Turkey is part of NATO?
Bullshit. Russia was as weak as a kitten for almost a decade after the Soviet Union fell.
NATO expanded because NATO is the European arm of the American Empire. And Empires want to expand, not shrink. In the words of Madeleine Albright, Clinton's SecState, "What's the point of having all these expensive weapons if we can't use them?" NATO was constantly finding new justifications to exist all throughout the 90's, missions that had not a damn thing to do with its purpose of defending against a nation that did
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Bullshit. Russia was as weak as a kitten for almost a decade after the Soviet Union fell.
Russian imperialism never died. Russia never stopped threatening its neighbors.
Again, answer the question: why did Turkey join NATO? If you don't know, you're ignorant.
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NATO never would have expanded if Russians didn't keep threatening to attack its neighbors. Why do you think Turkey is part of NATO?
Bullshit. Russia was as weak as a kitten for almost a decade after the Soviet Union fell.
A kitten with Nuclear arms... but the freed members of the USSR were even weaker due to decades of Russian exploitation so they had very good reason to feel afraid.
NATO expanded because NATO is the European arm of the American Empire. And Empires want to expand, not shrink. In the words of Madeleine Albright, Clinton's SecState, "What's the point of having all these expensive weapons if we can't use them?" NATO was constantly finding new justifications to exist all throughout the 90's, missions that had not a damn thing to do with its purpose of defending against a nation that didn't even exist anymore.
NATO expanded because everyone knew that Russia had a history of imperialism. And there would obviously be an element within Russia that would want to retake territories they controlled under the USSR.
The only way a country being a member of NATO hurts Russia is by taking away Russia's ability to intimidate that country with threats of war.
The Final Gorbasim (Score:2)
Media Darling Mikhail Gorbachev — the only likable Soviet leader in the entire history of the Soviet Union — induces his last Western media Gorbasim.
So long Mike. You weren't half the man necessary to get the kleptocrats and vodka swillers under control, and your nation is no better for your efforts. It takes more than feels to un-fuck a shithole like Russia.
I'll miss 'ole gorby (Score:2)
Since when does he get credit for ending the CW? (Score:2)
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He shouldn't. He was not trying to end it, he simply lost it as the inherent flaws of the Socialist system became unmanageable. If anyone deserves the credit, it would be his opponents in the West.
Yep. Ending the Soviet Union was the last thing he ever wanted to do. He wanted to repair and strengthen it, and he though liberalization was the way to do that. He found out that you can't transform a nation that was literally born with the idea that, in order to save the masses, you have to keep them in a constant state of terror:
""The state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want
Russia contains Russians (Score:2)
Unfortunately, Russia is just chock-full of Russians, and Russians have for many centuries gravitated to warlords and totalitarian rulers. It's in the DNA figuratively and literally, and Russia is currently merely reverting to type. Do not be fooled by a small contingent of intellectuals and Youtube creators -- take a look at your average Ivan.
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Good old Russian saying "Ð--ÐмÐÑ ÐмÑf ÑÑÐÐÐоÐÐÑоÐ" (may the earth feel like glass/steel wool for him). Ruined and sold out the most powerful country on earth.
I didn't realize this was another Trump thread
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Ruined and sold out the most powerful country on earth.
It wasn't ever the most powerful country on earth.
He also didn't ruin it. That was Yeltsin and Yanayev.
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Good old Russian saying "Ð--ÐмÐÑ ÐмÑf ÑÑÐÐÐоÐÐÑоÐ" (may the earth feel like glass/steel wool for him). Ruined and sold out the most powerful country on earth.
Home of Ladas and Stolichnaya!
Re:Russians ruined Russia (Score:2)
Russian culture opposed secular democracy since long before Communism, hence the Revolution.
Russia is a toxic construct forcibly assembled from victims who often object by fighting back. It accomplished nothing for its people who have always been expendable to their masters.