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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#131

Post by codyb »

Apocryphon wrote: post #88
hotpotamus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. They made a convincing argument with their performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I doubt Russia would have been much different.

That was a very different situation, those were states that were militarily invaded and then occupied by American forces, who were involved in reconstructing countries devastated by war.

Yea, and most young democracies are very vulnerable. You can look at the Arab Spring for examples of failed democracies, and the early United States (it took us 20 years to get off the Articles of Confederation and work on the Constitution we use today).

Myanmar's another one. India's been restricting its people's rights lately.

Democracy takes a while to establish as a stable system and often fails.

Alexander the Great was granting (non-representative) democracies to cities in Asia Minor 2400 years ago, I wonder what he'd think of Erdogan.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#133

Post by blockwriter »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93
thehappypm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the big difference is the oligarchs The oligarchs were minted in the late 80s and 90s. They weren’t a preëxisting power structure. Putin came to power with their and the FSB’s help. (He was also popular for not being incompetent.)

Wasn't the preexisting power structure the Soviet military? I thought that that Soviet generals stationed near large and valuable resources simply decided that these large and valuable resources had become their private property. Organized crimes and powerful politicians filled in the gaps.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#134

Post by eps »

lapcat wrote: post #22

The 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…

It's naive to think that a Western-style democracy could've been instilled in Russia just through some extra effort.

The fact that it works elsewhere doesn't mean it's a suitable model for other countries. Especially when there's a lot of prior baggage of being ruled by a single person, be it a tzar or a head of Politburo.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#136

Post by thriftwy »

avmich wrote: post #103
thriftwy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's smaller all right. But it is also much more robust. Late USSR was the kind of society where most everything was in short supply and which has even failed to feed itself. Yes, it had a lot of hardware and people. All of that was for no good, given the awful system in place.

I'd point out that USSR was much more self-reliant than Russia - you couldn't really put sanctions on Eastern block of countries, they produced everything, with certain things so good they are still competitive. Yes, market economy does greatly improve Russia's agility, but special services can't stop ruin most of what they can touch, so even market economy has limited net benefits now - while at the time of USSR the…

You can't be self-reliant when you are bankrupt and all basic neccesities are in short supply.

USSR was defunct. Its communist party was also defunct.

Russia is lucky to have China which produces enormous assortment of items as well as trade surplus.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#139

Post by zdragnar »

mercy_dude wrote: post #130
lapcat wrote: post #22

The 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…

Or May be that was the US master plan all along. I mean when has US ever had a marshal plan? Anyone who has followed US foreign policies after war, there are multiple examples come to sight where they just straight up help the country go into deep chaos so much so that the local people hope they were better off with pre war dictatorship. Look at Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan. I don’t know why anyone would call US a…

> I mean when has US ever had a marshal plan?

That's kind of a silly question, as the answer is in the name.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#140

Post by lapcat »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #120
lapcat wrote: post #22

The 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…

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II Well, kinda https://www.thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russ...

And people like Larry Summers are still around giving economic "advice", failing upward.
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