Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 971 posts

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#411

Post by starik36 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #369
bhupy wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeltsin is very much to blame. Russia would have transitioned much better if Gorbachev had been the head of the post-USSR Russia instead of Yeltsin. That said, the former Soviet Republics that transitioned well are those that were smaller, already edging their way towards a market economy before the USSR collapse, and received substantial help from (and eventually joined) the EU (Baltics, Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep.,…

> much better if Gorbachev had been the head of the post-USSR Russia

Gorbachev wanted to keep USSR intact. He didn't want a post-USSR Russia. He initiated referendums to that end. But USSR was already on the train to dissolution and nothing was going to stop it.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#412

Post by trasz »

avmich wrote: post #271
xg15 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think "Cold War II" for the current situation is more fitting. I think if there is any useful distinction between "hot" and "cold" world wars then it's most likely whether super powers are in direct military conflict with each other or whether military confrontation is "only" through proxy wars. Note that the original cold war wasn't very "cold" for much of the world either - the only thing that didn't happen…

In the today's war in Ukraine one country - Russia - fights directly, not from proxies, and the other side - mostly USA, but also other Western countries - supply weapons, volunteers, intelligence services, training. It is comparable with Vietnam war, right, but not already with Afghan war of 1980-s, or small conflicts around the world. The scale of war is also quite large, the level of directly fighting forces is mu…

The other side is Ukraine, not USA. USA is merely providing support.

Generally speaking, proxy wars happen between superpowers. In this conflict there is only one, and it’s supporting Ukraine.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#413

Post by lostmsu »

elchin wrote: post #258
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

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

Reading the description of the events, it sounds like they intervened militarily after this event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom , which sort of makes sense.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#414

Post by justsomehnguy »

marcinzm wrote: post #404
bhupy wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was in Poland in the late 90s and there were fairly large economic issues with a lack of job projects for many people. This in turn resulted in fairly high rates of crime as it was one of the more guaranteed ways to make a living if you were young. Many other people left the country to make money which in the long turn led to some of the Brexit issues. I literally didn't meet a single person, including myself, who…

> Four point locks and steel doors were the norm for apartments and houses (and that didn't always help).

Because whose who installed them of course now knew where are someone with something worth protecting with a steel doors.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#415

Post by lapcat »

eternalban wrote: post #257
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…

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake This notion is based on ignoring historic facts. Germany (and Japan) in WWII were fully vanquished foes whose entire socio-political system was redrawn by the victors. Marshall plan executed in an environment of near total control over Germany. US simply was not in a position to do a Marshall Plan for ex-Sovie…

> This notion is based on ignoring historic facts.

No, it's not. Please refrain from this kind of personal comment.

I wasn't suggesting that the US meddle in Russia's political system. Russia was already moving to democracy by itself. The point was to provide economic aid to support that existing, fledgling, fragile democracy. What happened, unfortunately, is that many Russians suffered heavily economically during the transition, and they started to look back with some fondness to the "good old days", because they were worse off financially than before. That's where the western world could have helped.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#416

Post by [deleted] »

gus_massa wrote: post #82
Quekid5 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this talk shows that it's probably a bit more complicated than that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw Unless you happen to understand Finnish, subtitles are mandatory (and very accurate AFAICT). There is a link to a dubbed version in the comments if that is preferred.

[Remove the two spaces before the link to make it clicky.]

[deleted]

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#417

Post by pm90 »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #379
karaterobot wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestion about learning about the occupation. To be clear: my statement wasn't that the U.S. did nothing, but that there is no amount they could have done which would force Japan to succeed against their will, or their own ability. There are many examples of the U.S. putting its thumb on the scale, so to speak, in countries where there was not a subsequent, successful democratic transition. The diffe…

I see what you mean. I guess we'll never know. Because there was a remaking of Japanese society after the war in a democratic image. That just doesn't even appear as though it was attempted in post Soviet Russia. I don't kmow the origins of why America departed from its usual course of propping up the traditional land owning and wealthy bourgeoisie classes in it' s occupation of Japan. I know FDR personally held very…

The US never invaded Russia, so they didn’t have the kind of power they had over post WW2 Japan.

Anyways even with that kind of power, the prevailing economic ideology at the time the Soviet Union fell was of extreme neoliberalism, so I doubt it would have helped anyway.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#418

Post by lapcat »

baybal2 wrote: post #285
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…

Russian citizen here, and one with self-honesty to talk about 199X without self-pity, unlike many of my compatriots here. > 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. Total bullshit. The West did put in nearly as much money as part of GDP in aid to early 199X Russia. US aid was pouring from…

> The West did put in nearly as much money as part of GDP in aid to early 199X Russia.

Do you have a citation for that?

"The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $115 billion in 2021) in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#419

Post by skissane »

type0 wrote: post #311
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who were demonstrating for democratic reforms. You seem to comment to better inform readers, yet your comment distorts the truth. Even the article you linked talks about Lithuania declaring independence from the USSR, not asking for democratic reforms. Despite what your article says, if you read the story on Wikipedia, Lithuania did in fact unilaterally declare independence from the USSR in March 1990. Just as an e…

Spain isn't a union state

Why should the type of state be decisive?

The Bolsheviks wrote a constitution providing for a "union state". I doubt the framers of the Soviet Constitution actually meant what they said – it was essentially propaganda to present the Soviet Union as some kind of "voluntary association", despite the reality that there was nothing voluntary about it. While it was a federation on paper, its substance was much closer to that of a unitary state.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the seceding union republics used their constitutional status to justify their secession as legitimate - they took the constitution's pretence literally. But, imagine in an alternative timeline, the Soviet constitution had been written without this pretence–would that have stopped the Baltic states from seceding? I really doubt it. Would it have made any difference to the legitimacy of their secession? Only on meaningless paper.

Even with the Soviet Constitution we actually had – why did the Union as a whole break-up, but not the RSFSR? That question is better answered in terms of real world power structures, than legal formalities. Chechnya fought for independence, and if Moscow had been weaker, they could have won. Even now, some would say that Ramzan Kadyrov rules Chechnya as his own quasi-independent fiefdom, and is just biding his time for the right moment to officially claim independence (maybe, if Putin were to suddenly die without a clear successor). If Chechnya were to successfully secede, that could inspire other parts of Russia to seek to emulate its example.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#420

Post by pishpash »

avmich wrote: post #222
Beltalowda wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't impose democracy, but if democracy and associated ideas such as the free market spectacularly fails the people – as it did in the 90s – then that certainly doesn't help. We probably could have done a thing or two to make it fail less . Would that have made a meaningful difference? Hard to say for sure, but it would have been worth to try.

For young democracies - like Russia in 1992 - it's possible to get captured by populists, who, instead of solving tough problems and laying out the groundwork for the subsequent development, promise some doubtful, in retrospect at least, things, point fingers towards convenient scapegoats etc. In this sense Russia was unlucky. Yes, people didn't know much, and were led to believe etc... so the guilt is spread of cour…

Not have direct democracy in the early stages? The evidence is pretty clear. The US itself did not start with direct democracy.
Post reply on HN