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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#331

Post by JumpCrisscross »

munk-a wrote: post #123
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marshall Plan was about economic investment. The transition from communism to capitalism was a very rough one for the Soviet people, and that's a big part of why democracy failed. It was also about stabilising a war-torn continent’s economy. To keep them from going communist.

And it would've made a lot of sense to re-apply it here since Russia has clearly gone in a strongly authoritarian direction and is invading its neighbors. It's a pretty clear example of a destabilizing actor in the region.

> it would've made a lot of sense to re-apply it here

Absolutely agree with you. Long-term, I think the stable state for Russia is a deconstruction of the old empire and a global commitment to Marshall Plan the resulting republics into modernity.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#332

Post by gizmo »

scrlk wrote: post #253
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You'll have an absolute blast reading Red Notice by Browder. It's about a hedge fund guy that ends up in Russia during the privatization period, quickly realizes the country is getting looted and wants a big slice for himself. It's a true-ish story, written like a spy novel, with many fascinating details about this unique period in history.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#333

Post by hotpotamus »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #299
hotpotamus wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'" -Ronald Reagan Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it, but it seems like many people believed him anyway.

> Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it I think you surely know it too, Reagan was all too eager to use government power and his supporters were happy to see him do it.

Reagan was sufficiently before my time that I have very limited opinions on what he actually wanted, though I would certainly tend to agree with that. I have no idea what modern Republicans actually want or believe. Obviously their elite class wants power above all, but the rank and file never seem to get much other than grievance.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#334

Post by vkou »

ghostwriter wrote: post #174
hnhg wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn’t impose democracy on many parts of the USA if it were suddenly removed, let’s face it.

that's good, as the US is a constitutional republic

You're in the small, but vocal minority of people who incorrectly believe that direct democracy is the only form of democracy that exists, or that the term 'constitutional republic' says literally anything about how a country is governed.

The US is a respresentative democracy that is also a constitutional republic.

Denmark is a representative democracy that is also a constitutional monarchy.

Canada is a representative democracy that is also an unconstitutional monarchy.

Russia is a kind-of-if-you-squint-but-not-really-representative oligarchy-slash-autocracy that is also a constitutional republic.

Whether or not a country has a constitution, or is a republic has almost no bearing on how it is actually governed.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#335

Post by calvinmorrison »

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…

> Yes, I've started to become more and more bitter as the years have gone by.

I feel this. It's not much fun being a end of Millennial. Maybe other generations felt this getting passed over but in general my friends who are older than me by a few years have fared a lot worse than those who are a few years younger than me. Some punk song summed it up

    Where we'll sell you dreams then make you work for free
    They handed us an economy thats destined us for poverty
    Then have the nerve to call us soft and lazy for complaining
    Cause they're from a generation where you could be what you wanted to be
   But baby I'm a 90's kid

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#336

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

> with the help and active involvement of the West

Yes, many ascendants had contact with the West. It’s how they played the game so well at the start of shock therapy. In most cases, they hired the right consultants who helped them do things like hoover up shares from people who didn’t know better to build a controlling stake. But to get to that point, they’d already accumulated assets.

The West enabled the rise of Russia’s oligarchs. But it didn’t mint them.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#337

Post by trasz »

thriftwy wrote: post #136
avmich wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

China produced a lot of things, but Russian market is worthless. Chinese companies left the Russian market same way western ones did.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#338

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

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…

> Just as an example, check what Spain did in 2017 when Catalonia tried to declare independence after a popular vote. If Catalonians decided to resist, there is no doubt that the Spanish state would have used violence to suppress them.

I was there. They used violence anyway.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-41459692

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#339

Post by bigcat12345678 »

agumonkey wrote: post #310
MichaelCollins wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The U.S. put its thumb heavily on the scale More than a thumb. The Constitution of Japan was written by Americans. America stomped on the scale, and that time it seems to have worked.

isn't it cultural ? japanese seems to be ok struggling under american control and keep reaching higher. People say US money made Japan thrive but so many time throwing money at a large problem fails.. I think the population was just more mentally compatible. Or maybe the post soviet Russia was dealt a bad hand. Hard to know (just like here, you can find infinite streams of contradictory arguments)

> isn't it cultural ?

On the one hand, in the scale of brutality, every nation in history is at least 1 level below the Imperial Japan in WWII.

On the other hand, after the decisive show of force, beaconed by the nuclear bomb, Japan realized that brutality is going to cause the doom of that nation. So they naturally bowed down. After that brutality is no longer necessary, like a beaten dog that would not really need a leash.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#340

Post by inferiorhuman »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #277
Maursault wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans have long said any government is bad. They want Big Business to be unrestrained, unregulated, pure democracy, at the expense of individual civil rights. I can't tell the difference between Republicans and anarchists, other than the sad fact that nearly all Republicans vote adversely to their personal economic interests to stifle economic opportunity, in order to keep the very richest the very richest, for…

> Republicans have long said any government is bad. Most republicans are not anarcho-libertarians. Asserting that any government is bad is fringe even among libertarians, and most republicans aren't even libertarians.

"I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." – Grover Norquist
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