With the first source linked in the article being Breitbart, I'd take the rest of the content with a pinch of salt.
Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#22It's naive to imagine Yeltsin's mind was really changed by a spontaneous visit. He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like? The premiere of a superpower just randomly decided to visit a grocery store? No. Yeltsin was contemplating reforms and changes and wanted to collect a political tool he could later user if needed. He knew exactly how this visit would go, and it was intended so he could use it…
Assuming that leaders are always informed and thinking ahead isn't particularly wise.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#23In the same way the assassination of Ferdinand started WW1, that is to say, both would have likely happened anyways.
Yes, the relative abundance produced by capitalism would have overcome the USSR/Russia even absent Yeltsin's visit. Everywhere communism has been tried, it's failed, and the most assertive efforts have led to the death of tens of millions.
If USSR escaped unscathed from WW2 and America had instead been nearly destroyed we'd probably be hearing the exact opposite.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#24I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…
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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#25It's naive to imagine Yeltsin's mind was really changed by a spontaneous visit. He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like? The premiere of a superpower just randomly decided to visit a grocery store? No. Yeltsin was contemplating reforms and changes and wanted to collect a political tool he could later user if needed. He knew exactly how this visit would go, and it was intended so he could use it…
Assuming that leaders are always informed and thinking ahead isn't particularly wise.
In Soviet Communist states visits, public displays and greetings were so tightly choreographed and planned that there is a very slim chance that anything like this is coincidental. When Nikita Khrushchev visited Mao in '59 the protocol was specified down to the handshake with the intent on the Chinese side to signify the low status of the relation given the Soviet-Sino split.
Symbolism and performance was everything in Soviet politics, and even in Soviet life. American presidents might casually go and walk into some store on camera but this is not how Communist poltiicians thought.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#26It's naive to imagine Yeltsin's mind was really changed by a spontaneous visit. He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like? The premiere of a superpower just randomly decided to visit a grocery store? No. Yeltsin was contemplating reforms and changes and wanted to collect a political tool he could later user if needed. He knew exactly how this visit would go, and it was intended so he could use it…
>>The premiere of a superpower
I think this attribute far too much intelligence to those in power. Like the people that claim Trump was doing 5D chess =.
I generally believe all governments are lead by functional idiots and the human race survives in spite of their efforts to destroy us.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#27It's naive to imagine Yeltsin's mind was really changed by a spontaneous visit. He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like? The premiere of a superpower just randomly decided to visit a grocery store? No. Yeltsin was contemplating reforms and changes and wanted to collect a political tool he could later user if needed. He knew exactly how this visit would go, and it was intended so he could use it…
It can be both. You can know intellectually that the Americans have a higher standard of living than Russians, and still be surprised by what that really means, at a practical level, for ordinary people.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#28I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…
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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#29It's naive to imagine Yeltsin's mind was really changed by a spontaneous visit. He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like? The premiere of a superpower just randomly decided to visit a grocery store? No. Yeltsin was contemplating reforms and changes and wanted to collect a political tool he could later user if needed. He knew exactly how this visit would go, and it was intended so he could use it…
>”He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like?”
Take this all with a grain of salt because this is just what I remember from reading stories online of people who used to live in the USSR, but the average person realized the West had more material prosperity but they were under the impression the upper class folks were the only ones with real access to it. They believed the common worker still had to deal with limited selection and shortages, much like they did.
Additionally, with whatever glimpses they saw of western consumerism they were told that the abundance was intentionally staged, like a Potemkin village. This was not uncommon for the USSR to do when dignitaries or journalists came to visit. So it made sense that the West would do this too.
I have to imagine that as a Soviet citizen and dignitary he assumed everything he saw on his trip was staged or choreographed in some way. They intentionally made an unplanned stop to try and confront this. Perhaps he and his entourage already knew he was going to find a well stocked supermarket, but I can’t help but think cognitive dissonance kept him from really accepting it until he saw it firsthand.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#30It's naive to imagine Yeltsin's mind was really changed by a spontaneous visit. He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like? The premiere of a superpower just randomly decided to visit a grocery store? No. Yeltsin was contemplating reforms and changes and wanted to collect a political tool he could later user if needed. He knew exactly how this visit would go, and it was intended so he could use it…
Maybe not. Khrushchev was apparently dazzled by corn, or as it was known then "sausage on a stalk".