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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#311

Post by type0 »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #207
nradov wrote: post #135

For those unfamiliar with what happened in Lithuania, in 1991 Gorbachev used military force to kill 14 Lithuanian civilians who were demonstrating for democratic reforms. https://www.rferl.org/a/lithuania-soviet-crackdown-1991-krem...

> who were demonstrating for democratic reforms. You seem to comment to better inform readers, yet your comment distorts the truth. Even the article you linked talks about Lithuania declaring independence from the USSR, not asking for democratic reforms. Despite what your article says, if you read the story on Wikipedia, Lithuania did in fact unilaterally declare independence from the USSR in March 1990. Just as an e…

Spain isn't a union state

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#312

Post by flavius29663 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #56
flavius29663 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you're not aware how much the USSR was spending on defense, espionage, space programs...By the end of the decade they ended up spending 14% of the GDP on military, trying to keep up with the US

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#313

Post by avmich »

epolanski wrote: post #264
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…

Actually US did a lot to help Yeltsin reelected, never stopped the expansion eastwards, attacked Serbia without UN approval, pushed for Kosovo referendum under Nato occupation, never stopped the military exercises and flights on russian border and tried its best to meddle in Russia's internal affairs and us economists were among those that most pushed Yeltsin for the shock transition towards a capitalist market which…

> I think US did enough divide and conquer and meddling to help bringing back an authoritarian government.

There is a phrase in Russia, :) "But in USA they lynch people". The idea is that in Russia it's often that discussion is interrupted by listing the ills of America, to avoid talking about Russia or for other reasons, so it's easy to justify pointing fingers to "the real evil".

I think you're wrong and your arguments are misplaced.

The phrase "never stopped the expansion eastwards" suggests that you don't see e.g. Slovenia as an interested party to join NATO, for whatever reason they chose, and instead see it as an evidence of guilt.

> Stalinist USSR and Nazi germany ... apply to that definition... even less Russia since it is a de jure democracy.

Current Russian laws mean little to define Russia de facto. Just like Hitler laws meant little at the time.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#314

Post by koheripbal »

lapcat wrote: post #220
karaterobot wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but if I'm not, I'm skeptical. Marshall plan notwithstanding, I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening. L…

> Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not. There's a lot of evidence that US kleptocrats collaborated to help turn Russia into a kleptocracy. Practically encouraged rather than discouraged that outcome.

You cite no evidence for this conspiratorial claim.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#315

Post by Dracophoenix »

saalweachter wrote: post #244
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who were demonstrating for democratic reforms. You seem to comment to better inform readers, yet your comment distorts the truth. Even the article you linked talks about Lithuania declaring independence from the USSR, not asking for democratic reforms. Despite what your article says, if you read the story on Wikipedia, Lithuania did in fact unilaterally declare independence from the USSR in March 1990. Just as an e…

Interestingly, South Carolina declared its independence December 20, 1860, and the US Civil War didn't begin until April 12, 1861, when the Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter. It's an intriguing historical question what would have happened if Fort Sumter hadn't been attacked. Would the Union have eventually made the first move? Would peaceful negotiations have eventually resulted in some stronger guarantee in the…

> It's an intriguing historical question what would have happened if Fort Sumter hadn't been attacked. Would the Union have eventually made the first move?

Going by what happened during the Nullification Crisis, the answer is likely a "Yes".

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#316

Post by avmich »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #97
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…

A "Marshall Plan" for Russia would have worked as well as the "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan has worked over the last 20 years. You can't impose your system on people who don't want it. Do you think Russia would have handed control over to Westerners? And without control it's just an endless money sink. The oligarchs would just have become a little richer.

Just to be certain, I'm sure the last 20 years put a long-lasting effect on Afghan people, won't be erased soon. We even see some effects in modern Iraq, where the period was shorter.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#317

Post by andrekandre »

ghostwriter wrote: post #281
pedrosorio wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hardly everyone, but left zoomers I am not a zoomer and I agree with the commenter you are replying to. Most of the "west" has a form of government that is a representative democracy (most of them as republics, but quite a few as constitutional monarchies as well), including the US. Most people would not waste their time nitpicking the usage of such a widely accepted term. https://web.archive.org/web/20200215230538…

> Most people would not waste their time nitpicking the usage of such a widely accepted term. For some reason the US embassy still finds it important enough to broadcast the difference to the rest of the world: https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen... Could you explain that?

i think you are being a bit pedantic, it says:

  While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic.
notice the wording "more accurately" and not "mischaracterized" etc

--

btw... whats the point in arguing the u.s isn't a democracy?

are you trying to say that people shouldn't be able to decide their leaders?

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#318

Post by jollybean »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #262
karaterobot wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but if I'm not, I'm skeptical. Marshall plan notwithstanding, I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening. L…

> I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening. I suggest you read more about the post war occupation of Japan. The U.S. put its thumb heavily on the scale forcing Japan to accept democratization throughout. Unusual for the U.S. this included pushing economic democracy by suppor…

The US military defeated Japan and was an occupying power.

The US had the power to dictate whatever terms.

Japan was on it's back.

Russia in 1992 was it's own entity. Still a nuclear power. Making it's own decisions.

Not only would Russia not have tolerated US intervention, I'm extremely doubtful there could have been such a thing on any terms.

As it stands, much of the money used by Oligarchs to buy up Natural Resources firms was from the US private banking system.

Russia is Russia, they are 100% responsible for their own problems, and those have been roiling through history for 100's of years.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#319

Post by decebalus1 »

paganel wrote: post #221
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 l There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agricultu…

Cut the crap, paganel (lasa vrajeala). You're completely off topic and just wrong. The transition to the market economy for Romania was indeed painful in the 90s but that's primarily because the exact same communist apparatus was still leading the country and they held the reins on Romania's western connections. However, in the long run, I don't think I'm the only person to say it was successful and you can have a decent life in modern day Romania. Way better life than in Russia. And your attempt to blame Washington for how Romania's transition to capitalism unfolded in the 90s is just wrong.

> got sold to Western companies

I'm shaking my head to when reading such obtuse propaganda on hacker news.

> Nobody had asked my parents, or us, who were mere kids and teenagers back then, if we were agreeing to the sacrifices that they were going to impose on us.

They did. Through numerous elections, in which Iliescu and his cronies managed to build a state within a state. But of course, that's also Washington's fault.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#320

Post by mannykannot »

karaterobot wrote: post #161
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…

Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but if I'm not, I'm skeptical. Marshall plan notwithstanding, I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening. L…

The Marshall plan was partly a plan to create allies capable of resisting further Soviet expansion, but also a response to how the Versailles treaty set the stage for resurgent German militarism.

The response to the fall of the USSR was neither, but I recall breathless reports in the US press of how Harvard MBAs were going to Russia to help it transition to a free market economy, and ruefully thinking it would be better if they aimed for emulating Western European economies.

And, outside of the former USSR, Europe had the most to gain if this could have been effected - as is now all too clear. Insofar as anything might have helped, this was not only the US's bag.

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