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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#651

Post by flohofwoe »

ItsTooMuch wrote: post #643
euroderf wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to pick a fight, but I feel it's important then to note that it was not Reagan who "won" the Cold War. It was Gorbachev, who had the political courage (and idealism) to take the leap.

I thought it was Reagan who forced Gorbachev and the Soviet Union into this position by arms racing them to death. I bet you Gorbachev would try to keep the empire if it wasn't for the economical collapse. He sent tanks to the Baltics. He cheered for the annexation of Crimea. His empire might've been more democratic than the USSR used to be, but still an empire. Also, he was a communist and tried to keep it, but the…

Gorbatchev could still have sent the tanks to suppress the peaceful protests like his predecessors did in the 50's and 60's (or China did at this very point in history, and this is exactly what would have happened under a different Soviet leader). Even if this was the only thing Gorbatchev did right in his entire life, it was this one decision that deserves to be his legacy.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#652

Post by photochemsyn »

publicola1990 wrote: post #528

Say what you will, he seemed a politician very keen on world peace, beyond mere lip service. He understood the lacunae of the Soviet system and genuinely set about to reform them. But ultimately it was Ethno-national interests in Ukraine, Baltics and Central Asian republics along with the rise of opportunist power-grabbers like Yeltsin that did him and Soviet Union in. And perhaps his own reluctance to follow the Chi…

As a historical overview, I like Kevin Spacey introducing the Scorpions for "Winds of Change" (Gorbachev's 80th birthday party):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huQL5SHpFJ0

Now we're right back in the Cold War, tensions right up around Able Archer level, ready to torch much of the world on another misunderstanding. No, you won't hear about it on social media but I bet all the nuclear submarine commanders have been doing extra drills lately, what?

As far as economics, what did Russia ever have that China didn't? An absence, that's what China had. An absences of lucrative fossil fuel reserves to sell to Western countries, isn't that the Russian resource curse model? What if Europe stops buying Russian gas? But China never had any gas to sell, just rice. Now, what, we'll all be buying Chinese silicon instead? Why didn't Russia develop modern tech, while China did?

Putin would have got on just fine with Wall Street, like Mohammed Bin Bone Saw Sultan did, but he didn't sign up for petrodollar recycling, so war. Not much more to it than that, really. Same with Qadafy, Sadam, etc. Old dying empires are so ugly on their way down aren't they?

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#654

Post by ItsTooMuch »

flohofwoe wrote: post #651
ItsTooMuch wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was Reagan who forced Gorbachev and the Soviet Union into this position by arms racing them to death. I bet you Gorbachev would try to keep the empire if it wasn't for the economical collapse. He sent tanks to the Baltics. He cheered for the annexation of Crimea. His empire might've been more democratic than the USSR used to be, but still an empire. Also, he was a communist and tried to keep it, but the…

Gorbatchev could still have sent the tanks to suppress the peaceful protests like his predecessors did in the 50's and 60's (or China did at this very point in history, and this is exactly what would have happened under a different Soviet leader). Even if this was the only thing Gorbatchev did right in his entire life, it was this one decision that deserves to be his legacy.

No, he couldn't - there wasn't enough anything to do an operation like that, thanks to the economic pressure of the previous arms race. People were rebelling. Also, people remembered that they weren't exactly welcome in 1968. At this point the satellite states had much stronger economies than the USSR and could've effectively protected themselves (and there were very serious plans to do so).

Look at Ukraine today - they are using so much Western technology, relying on so much Western money - and yet they can't get 500 km past Ukraine border. They wouldn't reach their own border if they had only their own resources.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#655

Post by vintermann »

88840-8855 wrote: post #489
epolanski wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Today they are rich and poweful, but have pretty much abandoned any pretense at worrying about capital exploitation of labour. It's a nationalist, corporatist, authoritarian state, ironically closer to Chiang Kai-shek's ideal state than Mao's, let alone Marx's.

That was not the outcome he wanted. People often paper over that he was a true believer in Marxism-Leninism, unlike his predecessors.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#656

Post by qwytw »

Nanana909 wrote: post #499
hestefisk wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Countries like Poland and Hungary have huge social issues and struggle with corruption. A lot of political research points to the recent rise in fascist nationalism in these two countries as caused by being thrown from one political ideology to another (e.g. “communism” to ironfisted neoliberalism / Washington Consensus). It’s pretty evident none of them worked. If anything the country that was LEAST worse o…

> It’s pretty evident none of them worked. How is that evident, though? It’s actually pretty clear that the quality of life has drastically improved in most of these countries. Of *course* you can always find some group who is suffering. But there is no way I would want to live in 1980s Poland, Estonia, etc vs 2020. For example: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?location... The continued existence o…

It has improved significantly in the last 20 years. But the 90’s were as bad if not worse than in Russia in most places. And Russia was on an upwards trend until the 2010’s as well, e.g. if we look at average income levels the Baltic states only overtook Russia around ~2014.

And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single country besides them did much worse than Russia (unless like it they had a large amount of natural resources)

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#657

Post by flohofwoe »

ItsTooMuch wrote: post #654
flohofwoe wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gorbatchev could still have sent the tanks to suppress the peaceful protests like his predecessors did in the 50's and 60's (or China did at this very point in history, and this is exactly what would have happened under a different Soviet leader). Even if this was the only thing Gorbatchev did right in his entire life, it was this one decision that deserves to be his legacy.

No, he couldn't - there wasn't enough anything to do an operation like that, thanks to the economic pressure of the previous arms race. People were rebelling. Also, people remembered that they weren't exactly welcome in 1968. At this point the satellite states had much stronger economies than the USSR and could've effectively protected themselves (and there were very serious plans to do so). Look at Ukraine today - t…

I don't know how it was in the rest of Eastern Europe, but for instance the East German government was much more 'conservative' than Gorbatchev and heavily opposed to perestroika/glasnost. If Gorbatchev wouldn't have left Honecker hanging dry, Honecker would have welcomed the Soviet tanks against his own people.

You don't need to be able to compete with the US military technology to kill unarmed protesters. T-54s will do just fine.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#658

Post by ironcurtain »

jakuboboza wrote: post #620
eloy wrote: post #20

RIP Gorbachev, one of the few genuinely good people in politics. After he retired from politics, he was featured in several advertisements: - In 1994 for Apple Computer: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/07/The-first-advertisem... - In 1998 for Pizza Hut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial - In 2000 for the ÖBB, the Austrian railways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLscz8kEg6c - In 2007…

Good ? What about sending tanks against Lithuanians and you know...killing people. How good is this ? 700+ injured and 14 dead doesnt sound like something "genuinely good person" does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)

No post body was provided.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#659

Post by ItsTooMuch »

flohofwoe wrote: post #657
ItsTooMuch wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he couldn't - there wasn't enough anything to do an operation like that, thanks to the economic pressure of the previous arms race. People were rebelling. Also, people remembered that they weren't exactly welcome in 1968. At this point the satellite states had much stronger economies than the USSR and could've effectively protected themselves (and there were very serious plans to do so). Look at Ukraine today - t…

I don't know how it was in the rest of Eastern Europe, but for instance the East German government was much more 'conservative' than Gorbatchev and heavily opposed to perestroika/glasnost. If Gorbatchev wouldn't have left Honecker hanging dry, Honecker would have welcomed the Soviet tanks against his own people. You don't need to be able to compete with the US military technology to kill unarmed protesters. T-54s wil…

The thing is, the tanks would have to get there. Getting a tank 1000 km past at least 3 unfriendly borders is an enormous logistics issue, and a major resource drain - resources that simply did not exist, not even talking about the human resources.

And you're discounting the strength of millions of super-angry people too much. They would destroy the few tanks with rocks (or molotovs, as illustrated in Ukraine) if they had to.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#660

Post by [deleted] »

wawjgreen wrote: post #497

good riddance. he was an uneducated idiot, who is indirectly responsible for the millions that were killed in Afghanistan, in 1992. In 1989, when he pulled the red army out of Afghanistan--he also cut all aid to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. the then-president of DRA went to Moscow to persuade Garbageoff to not to do so, predicting that the terrorist zealots would overrun his government leading to chaos in…

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