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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#121

Post by kenned3 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #33
flavius29663 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it ended for 150 or so million people in Eastern Europe, that were freed from Russia.

Aren't their countries still filled with Soviet era (or even more recent?) environmental hazards, like ubiquitous asbestos and who knows what else? When i took Russian, we watched a Soviet propaganda film : it bragged about asbestos exports as a sign of Soviet strength, and i think the teachers (one native Russian speaker) perhaps showed it to emphasize what a disaster had already been created (this was shortly pre 2…

Many countries are still stranded with "cold war" environmental problems.

The US has many "superfunds" dedicated to cleaning up "cold war radioactivity" issues.

A bit more info on the Quebec asbestos issues. Canada didnt stop exporting it until 2012.

" Canada led world production of asbestos before the country’s two largest mines (both in Quebec) halted operations in 2012. The closure marked the suspension of the country’s asbestos production for the first time in 130 years. "

Exporting this wasn't unique to the Soviets.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#122

Post by woodruffw »

avmich wrote: post #92
woodruffw wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you responding to the right comment? That's sort of unrelated to the GP's remark (that Ronald Reagan can be credited with ending the Cold War). (It's also hard to assert that generally: Russia is by many metrics worse off than it was under the USSR, while most of the rest of Central and Eastern Europe is better off.)

> Are you responding to the right comment? I was adding to your comment, perhaps too tangentially - the GP remark may suggest that USA benefited more than USSR. > It's also hard to assert that generally: Russia is by many metrics worse off than it was under the USSR Economical, cultural, political environment were greatly improved as the direct consequences of the end of the Cold War, up until ~2010, so I'm not sure…

My bad! I understand now.

> What metrics do you choose?

I was thinking of life expectancy and the generally high overall mortality rate in Russia, some of which is attributable to rising alcoholism. But it looks like their life expectancy has also improved somewhat over the last decade, so I can't claim that unequivocally.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#123

Post by munk-a »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106
lapcat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m skeptical of the idea that you can impose Democracy. We didn't need to impose democracy. Russia had democracy for a time. The Marshall Plan was about economic investment. The transition from communism to capitalism was a very rough one for the Soviet people, and that's a big part of why democracy failed.

> Marshall Plan was about economic investment. The transition from communism to capitalism was a very rough one for the Soviet people, and that's a big part of why democracy failed. It was also about stabilising a war-torn continent’s economy. To keep them from going communist.

And it would've made a lot of sense to re-apply it here since Russia has clearly gone in a strongly authoritarian direction and is invading its neighbors. It's a pretty clear example of a destabilizing actor in the region.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#124

Post by avmich »

romwell wrote: post #87
avmich wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to argue that it's USSR people, not Western, who benefited most from the end of the Cold War.

Some did, some didn't, the way it happened. The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. 30 years later, we can see how the people who were in charge of the USSR are the reason if fell apart: because they are still running Russia, an…

> The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge.

We may almost always wish things were better than they actually were. For example, USA went through a minor recession at the end of the Cold War - was it necessary? In case of USSR things could be much worse - some argue we pass now through the violent ending of that Cold War, in a form of actual "hot" war, partially because some Soviet people didn't reflect enough on the events of XX century.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#125

Post by seanw444 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #43
laserbrain wrote: post #37

»A Soviet man is waiting in line to purchase vodka from a liquor store, but due to restrictions imposed by Gorbachev, the line is very long. The man loses his composure and screams, ›I can’t take this waiting in line anymore, I HATE Gorbachev, I am going to the Kremlin right now, and I am going to kill him!‹ After 40 minutes the man returns and elbows his way back to his place in line. The crowd begin to ask if he ha…

This is not a joke. I was in Russia during the Gorby era (and early Yeltsin) and people indeed hated Gorby for his attempt to crack-down on drunkenness by limiting the purchase of vodka.

Man, what people will do for alcohol.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#126

Post by discodave »

wnevets wrote: post #73
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…

> The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. Some how people manage to blame everything on the United States.

If you wanna act like a superpower, then you're going to get judged like a superpower.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#128

Post by jrochkind1 »

duxup wrote: post #55
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…

The locals in power have to want to do it too. As soon as enough don’t want it, it is over. I’m skeptical of the idea that you can impose Democracy.

> As soon as enough don’t want it, it is over.

Which worries me about the USA, it's pretty hit or miss at the moment.

But there are also things that can affect who wants it, or what people think "it" is, or how they think you should get there. What people want is not an independent variable unaffected by anything else.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#129

Post by sereja »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34
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…

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.

Interestingly, the disdain for democracy in both Russia and China is strongly motivated by "we've already tried giving people freedom and it didn't work".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_cr...

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#130

Post by mercy_dude »

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…

Or May be that was the US master plan all along. I mean when has US ever had a marshal plan? Anyone who has followed US foreign policies after war, there are multiple examples come to sight where they just straight up help the country go into deep chaos so much so that the local people hope they were better off with pre war dictatorship. Look at Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan.

I don’t know why anyone would call US ally anymore or even count on them.

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