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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#341

Post by jtjbdhsjjdnd »

koheripbal wrote: post #322
jtjbdhsjjdnd wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the West he was a hero, for the Russians he was a disaster https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Russia/Death_rate/ . I don't blame Gorbachev for this. Just as in the case of Nikolai II Russian totalitarian state and lack of checks and balances washed out an inept person to rule the country.

The communist system is responsible for that, not Gorbachev. Centralized gov't controlled economies create corruption which results in ultimate economic collapse.

I partially wanted to express it with "totalitarian state and lack of checks and balances". However, I slightly disagree. Being an authoritarian ruler, Gorbachev had lots of power. It is proven by the fact that his reforms were radical and unsuccessful, and many of the problems that the Soviet union faced during its demise were exacerbated by them. Of course, the Soviet Union was to suffer some losses but they could have been milder. But may be you are 100% correct. I don't feel knowledgeable enough on the topic of late Soviet union to argue.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#342

Post by qaq »

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…

Yey it's always US fault. Russian people obviously have no agency

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#343

Post by sudosysgen »

wnevets wrote: post #294
sudosysgen wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US meddled, and it did a lot. The OP is saying the US meddled wrong and could have meddled beneficially. If the US had decided not to meddle in the USSRs affairs, the world would have gone quite differently.

> The OP is saying the US meddled wrong and could have meddled beneficially. How are you getting that from the Original Post? The Original Post only mentions what the US didn't do, not what it did do.

That's because of the shared historical context of the US having meddled, isn't it?

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#344

Post by makeitdouble »

vkou wrote: post #325
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. Given the utter unmitigated disaster of the Russian economy in the 90s, I'd daresay that it certainly had the ability to influence it away from the hard swing towards strongman authoritarianism that followed. The Washington Consensus was a disaster, and strongly soured the count…

The US had a very consistent pattern of going for the Oil during that period, and the results are pretty clear. I'm not sure more US influence in Russia would have gone the way people hope.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#345

Post by confidantlake »

jollybean wrote: post #318
DubiousPusher wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Resou…

Completely agree. Why would have Russia agreed to a Marshall plan? It makes little sense.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#346

Post by sigzero »

jollybean wrote: post #318
DubiousPusher wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Resou…

Correct. It's an "apples to oranges" comparison.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#347

Post by cezart »

einpoklum wrote: post #329
bhupy wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti... A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market econ…

Tell that to people in Belarus or Ukraine (not talking about the situation since 2014), Kazakhstan etc. Not sure about the situation in the others. A post talking about "GDP per capita" rather than what people's lives are like is kind of a joke.

You can add Moldova to the list. Yes, now the people have well wealthier lifestyles than during he soviet period, and overall the direction seems optimist. But going from a postcard republic of sorts, to literally the poorest country in Europe, the transition has heavily bruised many people's faiths.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#348

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ajross wrote: post #226
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the "shock therapy" approach that Russia took in the Yeltsin years was, in many ways, prescribed by the West, and ended up being a complete disaster for both your average Russian person, and for capitalism and democracy as a whole, because most people just learned to associate these things with the kleptocracy that occurred in the 90s.

> [Western-driven reconstruction was] complete disaster for both your average Russian person I think that's overstating the case. In fact the "average Russian person" was living in destitute poverty through most of the cold war, and none of that meaningfully changed with the advent of a market economy. Except that Russians of the 2000's could get eat better food and watch (much) better TV. It's absolutely true that m…

This is baloney. I was in Russia for a half year around 95-96. The standard of living was much deteriorated from Soviet times, especially for people on fixed incomes (basically almost everyone over the age of 50), and nobody hesitated telling me that.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#349

Post by patentatt »

ptero wrote: post #304
simonh wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought most of the major assets got bought by connected oligarchs, sometimes by literally putting goons at the doors of the auction room to beat up anyone that tried to get in to bid against them. If the oils fields were actually owned by European companies, we’d be buying Russian oil from ourselves, not from Russia.

That was one way. Another was not paying salaries for months ("company has no money" was a common case) until employees sell their "vauchers" to those who wanted to buy.

I've heard variations of this story a lot. Common people and workers received a share of the company they work for, but times were so dire most people sold them to those with money for a pittance. So foreseeable, why was it allowed to happen?
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