Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 971 posts

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#251

Post by practice9 »

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…

What the US (and Europe) should have done was to take away the nukes from Russia, and let Ukraine have their nukes after the fall of USSR. Russia definitely has more history of imperialism than Ukraine (which has none of that)

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#252

Post by jaza »

SlavikCA wrote: post #70

As the Russian, I'm of the opinion that Gorbachev is traitor. I hate communism, so it's good that he helped us to get rid of that. But why getting rid of communism had to include letting Americans to take reign in many government agencies of Russia? What would be your opinion of US president, if he goes to to retire in Russia? I'm reading some Russian news site, and almost universally Gorbachev is hated by Russians.

Are you suggesting that Gorbachev went to retire in the US? He travelled extensively to the US and elsewhere, but as far as I know he only ever lived in Russia.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#253

Post by scrlk »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #154
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

They were minted in late 80s and 90s with the help and active involvement of the West. There were so many stories... Working at McKinsey in Moscow in 90s made you instantly into a multi-millionaire. US was sending planes full of dollars to Almaty. Chechen avisos were a CIA plot... and so on and so forth.

I'm interested in reading these stories, are there any particular links you can suggest?

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#254

Post by 8note »

ghostwriter wrote: post #240
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic republic, which is what everyone means when we say democracy.

Hardly everyone, but left zoomers who are unable to understand the key founding papers and who refuse descriptive comments of the founders on the matter most certainly do. [1]: "While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitutio…

The founders aren't very relevant anymore. Their system was bad, and the current one is better, though it keeps some of the old flaws they introduced as compromises for the time

Based on your quote, they didn't understand that representative democracy is still democracy? The internet lessons the need for representatives, since we don't need to travel to talk to each other anymore.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#255

Post by vt85 »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#256

Post by MichaelCollins »

johnchristopher wrote: post #245
baxtr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once heard someone say that any country needs two attempts until democracy works out properly. Maybe it’s the same here.

What would the US's second attempt be in its history ?

The Articles of Confederation were a failure, so we tried a second time, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the result of which was the Constitution under which the American government has been operating since.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention_(Uni...

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#257

Post by eternalban »

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. This was a huge mistake

This notion is based on ignoring historic facts. Germany (and Japan) in WWII were fully vanquished foes whose entire socio-political system was redrawn by the victors. Marshall plan executed in an environment of near total control over Germany. US simply was not in a position to do a Marshall Plan for ex-Soviet Union.

> The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s.

This is another nice sounding but entirely wrongheaded thought. Do you really think an outside force can come and force a nation with its historic trajectory and 'make them democratic'? Democracy, or whatever goes by that name in the West today, has its roots in Magna Carta! That's 1215 [yes, I watched Better Call Saul]. Read up on history of England, and how much bloodshed it took to go from there to a parliamentary system, with (important to note) its entire elite class on board with the political arrangement -- it was after all what they wanted after having their Glorious Revolution.

The idea that a bunch of Americans can waltz into Moscow and St. Petersburg and turn Russia in a "democratic nation" by some means of time compression squeezing in centuries of organic development into a couple of decades is frankly laughable.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#258

Post by elchin »

hunglee2 wrote: post #15

Hard to know the man behind the image, but Gorbachev seemed like a fundamentally decent man, who was perhaps over his head at a moment no one could be reasonably be expected to prepare for. Still, with him at the helm of the sinking ship, chaos and conflict was at least avoided, or at least deferred, and for that we should be thankful. RIP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_January

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#259

Post by pastacacioepepe »

negus wrote: post #115
insane_dreamer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a joke. I was in Russia during the Gorby era (and early Yeltsin) and people indeed hated Gorby for his attempt to crack-down on drunkenness by limiting the purchase of vodka.

Have you heard about a single moment in time when people liked the leader of their country?

FDR after he gave up to the requests of the communists and created the largest welfare program in US history?

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#260

Post by ghostwriter »

8note wrote: post #254
ghostwriter wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly everyone, but left zoomers who are unable to understand the key founding papers and who refuse descriptive comments of the founders on the matter most certainly do. [1]: "While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitutio…

The founders aren't very relevant anymore. Their system was bad, and the current one is better, though it keeps some of the old flaws they introduced as compromises for the time Based on your quote, they didn't understand that representative democracy is still democracy? The internet lessons the need for representatives, since we don't need to travel to talk to each other anymore.

> The founders aren't very relevant anymore. Their system was bad, and the current one is better, though it keeps some of the old flaws they introduced as compromises for the time

The US embassy thinks otherwise: https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen...

Post reply on HN