Anyone interesting in learning more about Gorbachev's life, I recommend watching Werner Herzog's Meeting Gorbachev.
Mikhail Gorbachev has died
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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#52The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…
I think the big difference is the oligarchs. The USSR had already been transitioned to a resource state, and there was no actual rebuilding that needed to happen. The Marshall plan was almost easy because you could tally up all the broken bridges and say “itll cost us $X to fix”. What’s the equivalent for post USSR? What ended up happening was oligarchs swooped in to take over from the central planners, and it’s not clear how the US could have helped steer it differently short of going to war with Russia’s upper class.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#53The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…
Democracy does not imply friend of or aligned with the West.
Russia has historically been an imperial power and seeks to further its own power and perceived interests, and they certainly refuse to be under foreign/Western/American domination.
A democratic government could mean less reckless actions but it wouldn't necessarily mean friendlier actions.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#54The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…
No post body was provided.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#55The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…
The locals in power have to want to do it too. As soon as enough don’t want it, it is over.
I’m skeptical of the idea that you can impose Democracy.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#56I was taught that Ronald Reagan ended the cold war and gave us the longest lasting economic boom.
He did. It's just that leftists in the US won't accept that and pretend that the Cold War just "ended" one day, because of the goodwill of the Russians, not because the US policy forced them into bankruptcy.
> not because the US policy forced them into bankruptcy
what?!
It was pretty much the USSR policies that forced them into bankrupcy.... as it did in every other socialist state.
source: am from another former socialist country, that also doesn't exist anymore.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#57The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…
I think this talk shows that it's probably a bit more complicated than that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw
Unless you happen to understand Finnish, subtitles are mandatory (and very accurate AFAICT). There is a link to a dubbed version in the comments if that is preferred.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#58Note that in Russian doctrine as tought in universities, the Cold War never ended.
This seems like needless pedantry at least for a conversation outside of school. The USSR (with whom the Cold War was being fought) was dissolved and Germany was reunified. For all intents and purposes it did end, just a new conflict (now with Russia) began.
Andrei Piontkovskiy, in addition to two known World Wars, considers the Cold War as the World War III and the current war in Eastern Europe as the World War IV. His parallels are that WWII was fought by Germany dissatisfied by the results of WWI, and WWIV is fought by Russia dissatisfied by the results of WWIII.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
it ended for 150 or so million people in Eastern Europe, that were freed from Russia.
Aren't their countries still filled with Soviet era (or even more recent?) environmental hazards, like ubiquitous asbestos and who knows what else? When i took Russian, we watched a Soviet propaganda film : it bragged about asbestos exports as a sign of Soviet strength, and i think the teachers (one native Russian speaker) perhaps showed it to emphasize what a disaster had already been created (this was shortly pre 2…
Quebec was also bragging about their asbestos export not too long ago either. This isn’t really something unique to
Soviet Union.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died
#60He might be a decent human, but he's woefully bad at his job.
He might be able to salvage the Soviet Union into something else, but instead most of it turned into multiple heaps of dumpster fire, which after burning and destroying, was then commandeered by thugs, mafia and oligarchs.