811–820 of 971 posts
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.
Um, no. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)
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>Current Russian laws mean little to define Russia de facto. There is a huge difference between real totalitarian state and present day Russia. In present day, there are less than 100 people have been imprisoned for "political" reasons (for violating foreign agent law or for violating army fakes law). It's widely discussed and criticised in Russian national media. In 1937 alone something like 700000 people were execu…
You don't need genocide to be considered totalitarian.
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.
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But the dissolution of soviet union is not over yet. You can see this nowhere as clearly as in russias attack on Ukraine[0] where imperialistic russians that dream of restoring the glory and borders of soviet union[1] are waging their genocidal war. Meanwhile they are using hunger[2] and energy as their weapons against the rest of the world[3]. If the russians are not stopped in Ukraine, then there is no reason to be…
> there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't rinse and repeat in.. Alaska No reason? I can think of 1365 reasons, if Wikipedia is up to date.
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The people who "won" the cold war are those Eastern countries that had been occupied by Russia for 45 years and fought for their freedom in Prague, Budapest and especially in Gdańsk.
Such freedom, to get pillaged by western companies. We are now in massive debt, most public services are privatised and collapsing, the young can't afford rents, wages are constantly dropping relative to expenses. It was the profit extractors that won the cold war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_debt_of_the_Socialist_...
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The people who "won" the cold war are those Eastern countries that had been occupied by Russia for 45 years and fought for their freedom in Prague, Budapest and especially in Gdańsk.
Russia has also won the cold war, as it was, too, liberated from cumminst tyranny and quaity of life and freedom have raised significantly as a consequence. Sadly, this consequence took time to take place, which made the causal relationship not obvious for many Russians, and a lot of what Russia has won over this liberation has been gradually lost since Putin came into power.
This isn't even close to true.
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From everything I've read about him, he was a true liberal and egalitarian. How does someone like that rise up the ranks of an authoritarian USSR in the first place? Did he hide his beliefs and present as just a competent bureaucrat until he got to the top?
If I remember correctly (and please correct me if I’m wrong) his ascent was influenced by his predecessor Andropov, which was one of the original revolutionaries but like Gorby he had a more liberal approach. Andropov’s health was really bad and Gorby being his right arm ended up as chairman of the union.
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But the dissolution of soviet union is not over yet. You can see this nowhere as clearly as in russias attack on Ukraine[0] where imperialistic russians that dream of restoring the glory and borders of soviet union[1] are waging their genocidal war. Meanwhile they are using hunger[2] and energy as their weapons against the rest of the world[3]. If the russians are not stopped in Ukraine, then there is no reason to be…
From your link [1]. He [Putin] became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming. This is also Putin and it is not singular. If you listen to hi…
Especially with history in mind it is quite clear that Russia would take any right that former competitors took themselves. Having lost the cold war or not is secondary it seems. Of course any argument will be used to the largest opportunistic degree. Putin may have believed that invasions now always need to be sanctioned and there was a time where it probably looked like that.
That Putin wants to rebuild past empires is something he openly espouses himself now. Although I do believe this is directed towards the domestic population. I also think Russia did believe that the US tried to topple government in Ukraine and saw a need to react.
I was taught that Ronald Reagan ended the cold war and gave us the longest lasting economic boom.
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But that’s on Yeltsin, not on Gorbachev. What’s on Gorbachev is that all the Eastern European countries got to be free. I was born there. Life now is many times better than it was during Communism.
The majority of people who actually lived there before the fall of the soviet union disagree, actually.
But they forget the empty shelves on stores, the food rationing, the need to bribe the doctors and everyone in the health system, the almost impossibility to move from one city to another (huh, from one country to another you ask? forget about it). The permanent fear of saying the wrong thing. The long lines to buy bread or milk. The hoops you needed to go through to get a color TV set. Do you like reading books? Do you like watching movies? Too bad; you could watch the local productions, or Soviet movies, but not the hundreds of movies that Hollywood produced each year, or read any of the thousands (or tens of thousands) of books published in the West each year. Driving cars? I hope you enjoyed Trabant or Yugo or Lada. Tropical fruit like oranges or bananas? At Christmas time, but not every year. Actually, Christmas was not celebrated, so it was at the New Year time.