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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#481

Post by robotbikes »

For anyone interested in getting a vague sense of what it might have been like to be Mikhail Gorbachev there is a pretty low-fi simulator game called Crisis in the Kremlin on Steam.

I played through it and it requires juggling the various factions in Soviet Russia. I ended up getting couped by the military but just reading the various prompts and choosing where to put resources gave me a better understanding of the dilemmas anyone in power in the USSR might have been going through.

I can't attest to whatever bias might have been embedded in the game mechanics but it was interesting. Actually I only played the 2017 re-make. I didn't realize there was an original game from 1991. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_the_Kremlin

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#482

Post by nradov »

lumost wrote: post #447
paganel wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

One aspect that I never hear about in the collapse of the soviet union. To what extent did opening the markets to quickly break soviet industry? While by the 1990s Soviet industry was notoriously in-efficient compared to western counterparts - it still existed and functioned. Opening the flood gates seemed to result in everyone rapidly selling equipment for scrap and killed any existing supply chains. Would the resul…

That's kind of a moot question because a slower transition was never even an option. The USSR was rapidly collapsing into anarchy. Especially in the outer areas, the security forces stopped obeying orders. In a lot of factories, workers simply left and looters hauled away everything of value. Industry ceased to function in a matter of months.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#483

Post by ClumsyPilot »

jollybean wrote: post #471
somat wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, the question is, what was the difference between the occupation of japan and germany and the occupation of afganistan, iraq or vietnam. The lesson of the latter is that all it takes is 20 years of low level combat until the occupying country gets tired and leaves. the lesson of the former is that defeated countries can become your greatest allies. As to what leads a nation to choose one path or the othe…

Japan and Germany were extremely well organized and coherent states before the war. They had both civic and long established cultural basis to rebuild to. 'Afghanistan' is barely a state, it never really was a nation. It's a 'border' around a chaotic gaggle of tribes living in the past. They'll ebb and flow given different kinds of leadership, most of which won't have anything to do with anything happening outside ur…

> Nigeria and Indonesia are not at all like Germany

South Korea has recieved as much ecobomic aid as all of Africa combined in the 20 years after its formation.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#484

Post by throwaway_4ever »

jaza wrote: post #252
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.

When the topic of Palo Alto came up, ex-Soviets seemed to think that's where Gorbachev lived.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#485

Post by throwaway_4ever »

DFHippie wrote: post #305
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.

> What would be your opinion of US president, if he goes to to retire in Russia? Did Gorbachev retire outside Russia? I wasn't aware of this. He died in Moscow. The last time I heard about him before this was when he attended an RT event in Moscow (which was also attended by Jill Stein and Michael Flynn). Where outside Russia did he retire? Why did he leave this place to die in a Russian hospital? Your comment leads…

When the topic of Palo Alto came up, ex-Soviets seemed to think that's where Gorbachev lived.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#487

Post by credit_guy »

Rest in peace Sir. Because of you hundreds of millions of people are living a better life. A pity that Putin came shortly after and is in the active process of destroying a country (or two). But you couldn't control that. You did more than most people in the world to move humankind towards a better place.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#488

Post by kshacker »

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

Fundamentally decent man ... don't want to jinx it but reminded me of Jimmy Carter. Separated by 5-10 years in their peak power, with similar difference in their age. Both well regarded by their followers but eventually significantly irrelevant (except symbolism) once out of power.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#489

Post by 88840-8855 »

epolanski wrote: post #287
Nokinside wrote: post #98

He was able to get into politburo very young because he was a good administrator and he had powerful patrons. But he became the leader of the USSR just because there was nobody else. Politburo was so old that everybody ahead of him, or more power hungry than him was in hospice or otherwise not fully functioning. Then he started finally some of the common sense reforms needed. His intention was never to drop communism…

> common sense reforms Politically and in terms of press freedom, maybe. Economically it was a disaster that ruined an already stagnating growth and turned it into recession.

Fully disagree.

Economic reforms were trash, the Chinese did them better. Political reforms broke the system. The Chinese avoided doing them and look at them today.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#490

Post by kranke155 »

bhupy wrote: post #288
paganel wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

Nonsense. A lot of things sound nice in paper but - all the human data I’ve seen (enormous amounts of anecdotes and counter histories) the entire post soviet transition was recklessly managed by Master of the Universe / Friedman types who created one of the great economic catastrophes in human history.

One day the real history of those times will be written, but this is not it. Economism is faith based, not a science.

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