Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet leader, dies

So many great takes on Twitter right now.

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:D
 
meduza.io

Did Gorbachev want to destroy the USSR? Could the Soviet Union still exist today? Might Putinism end in reforms? Questions about Perestroika that you’re too embarrassed to ask, 35 years later — Meduza

On April 23, 1985, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held a plenary session that is now considered the start of Perestroika. These transformations were associated directly with Mikhail Gorbachev, the party’s popular new general secretary. But why did Perestroika...
meduza.io meduza.io

Did Gorbachev want to break up the USSR?​

If Gorbachev wanted anything, it was to preserve socialism and the Soviet Union. After 1990, he was in fact the president of the USSR and he wanted to remain in this role. He resisted the separatism of the Soviet republics and he waged a war against Boris Yeltsin, who was interested in Russia’s soverignization. Gorbachev launched the Novo-Ogaryovo Process, trying to save the Union even without the departing Baltic states. August 20, 1991, was supposed to mark the culmination of these efforts: the signing of a new Union Treaty. These plans were abruptly derailed on August 19, however, by an attempted coup d'état. The August Coup certified the USSR’s death a few months before the Belavezha Accords and, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag was finally lowered from above the Kremlin.

Gorbachev wanted to give more freedom, but he scarcely imagined that the weakening of the Marxist-Leninist and administrative reins would start smashing down one barrier after another: censorship obstacles collapsed, the country began devouring books that hadn’t been read in decades of Soviet rule, and there was an emergence of new informal organizations, movements, and clubs. The process of political emancipation became an avalanche. And Gorbachev could but sprint out ahead of the ice, trying to save face.

The USSR could only exist, as they used to say, “on a solid Marxist-Leninist foundation.” Without this glue, only the shards of the empire remained. What’s more, everything might have collapsed much sooner, were it not for Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Gorbachev’s Glasnost and attempts to give enterprises, legalized individual entrepreneurs, and cooperatives the chance to earn money helped delay the moment of political and economic collapse.

The Soviet Union was also doomed because democratization awoke national movements in the USSR’s national republics. With the introduction of “republican economic accounting,” for example, the Baltic nations essentially became self-sufficient. The recognition of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, moreover, accelerated the Baltic countries’ effective separation from the USSR — a process that was primarily emotional and psychological. The Caucasus — a region home to strong and passionate national movements that sank into ethnic wars — was also drifting away. The Soviet Union couldn’t manage another fight in the trenches, and it was clearly impossible to preserve the USSR without Ukraine.

By the end of his reign, Gorbachev was left with just Russia and the Central Asian republics. What kind of USSR was that? Even Russia had departed on its own sovereign voyage, which satisfied not just the democrats but also their ideological adversaries, the Russian national-patriots, who now mourn the loss of their “Great Power.” People today like to forget this, as well.
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Some people should actually take off the Western blinkers before hailing him as a great man for breaking up the Soviet Union, by this logic we should hail Hitler for peacefully ending WW2 by killing himself

And his thoughts on Crimea - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crimea-gorbachev-idUSKCN0YH1UD
:rolleyes:
 
Minusorange said:
meduza.io

Did Gorbachev want to destroy the USSR? Could the Soviet Union still exist today? Might Putinism end in reforms? Questions about Perestroika that you’re too embarrassed to ask, 35 years later — Meduza

On April 23, 1985, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held a plenary session that is now considered the start of Perestroika. These transformations were associated directly with Mikhail Gorbachev, the party’s popular new general secretary. But why did Perestroika...
meduza.io meduza.io

Some people should actually take off the Western blinkers before hailing him as a great man for breaking up the Soviet Union, by this logic we should hail Hitler for peacefully ending WW2 by killing himself

And his thoughts on Crimea - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crimea-gorbachev-idUSKCN0YH1UD
:rolleyes:
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I think the point most people are making is that it was a peaceful end to the USSR rather than descending into violence and further repression. It could have resulted in massive bloodshed but didn't. Of course the leader of the Soviet Union would prefer for the union to continue.
 
SDK^ said:
I saw this picture - such a great photo, capturing the optimism. Sadly a lot has gone from that image now.

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Hades said:
Not only capturing the optimism of the time but so poignant with the twin towers in the background and the "twin towers" of Gorbachev and Reagan in the foreground. Only Bush Senior left now.
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Those iconic towers are really something. You saw them in most films, Reeves Superman, Tobey's Spider-Man, Trading Places, Die Hard 3, Friends. If I remember correctly, wasn't Working Girl 1988 in those towers? A time that was relatively normal up to that point. Then the world changed.
 
Hades said:
I think the point most people are making is that it was a peaceful end to the USSR rather than descending into violence and further repression. It could have resulted in massive bloodshed but didn't. Of course the leader of the Soviet Union would prefer for the union to continue.
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Yes, that was probably his greatest achievement- a fairly bloodless dissolution of the USSR.

That the USSR was broken into fairly stable states without great bloodshed is astonishing, really.
 
His main achievement was allowing dissent. Unsurprisingly given the state of the USSR, there was a lot of it. From reading his biography I got the impression that he meant well but never did anything significant to fix the country's economy. Although much better than most of the Soviet politicians (which isn't saying much), he was very much a product of the system which might have hurt his ability to bring real reform. Maybe the USSR was just too big and too broken to be fixed, in which case the way that it ended under Gorbachev's rule might well have been the best outcome, as others have suggested. RIP.
 
Minusorange said:
meduza.io

Did Gorbachev want to destroy the USSR? Could the Soviet Union still exist today? Might Putinism end in reforms? Questions about Perestroika that you’re too embarrassed to ask, 35 years later — Meduza

On April 23, 1985, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held a plenary session that is now considered the start of Perestroika. These transformations were associated directly with Mikhail Gorbachev, the party’s popular new general secretary. But why did Perestroika...
meduza.io meduza.io

Some people should actually take off the Western blinkers before hailing him as a great man for breaking up the Soviet Union, by this logic we should hail Hitler for peacefully ending WW2 by killing himself

And his thoughts on Crimea - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crimea-gorbachev-idUSKCN0YH1UD
:rolleyes:
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It's true that Gorbachev didn't want to break up the USSR. He tried to maintain it for as long as possible, even to the extent of punishing satellite states that pushed for independence (e.g. Lithuania, which suffered an economic blockade and a military incursion).

Yet when the tide turned and he saw there was no stopping dissolution, he bowed to the inevitable. Loss of life was relatively small, and the breakup relatively smooth (at least, by Russian standards).

Imagine if Putin had been in charge. The violence would have been catastrophic.
 
Sankari said:
It's true that Gorbachev didn't want to break up the USSR. He tried to maintain it for as long as possible, even to the extent of punishing satellite states that pushed for independence (e.g. Lithuania, which suffered an economic blockade and a military incursion).

Yet when the tide turned and he saw there was no stopping dissolution, he bowed to the inevitable. Loss of life was relatively small, and the breakup relatively smooth (at least, by Russian standards).

Imagine if Putin had been in charge. The violence would have been catastrophic.
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Or Stalin
 
Sankari said:
It's true that Gorbachev didn't want to break up the USSR. He tried to maintain it for as long as possible, even to the extent of punishing satellite states that pushed for independence (e.g. Lithuania, which suffered an economic blockade and a military incursion).

Yet when the tide turned and he saw there was no stopping dissolution, he bowed to the inevitable. Loss of life was relatively small, and the breakup relatively smooth (at least, by Russian standards).

Imagine if Putin had been in charge. The violence would have been catastrophic.
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So you're saying his achievement is he wasn't Putin or Stalin, so he should be congratulated, what a ****** way of thinking
 
Minusorange said:
So you're saying his achievement is he wasn't Putin or Stalin, so he should be congratulated, what a ****** way of thinking
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I think you have a wrong picture no one here give him applause and kisses his ... But guy was more politician then sadistic ruler like Stalin or Putin. Good things happen for us when hi was in power I know I was born in Poland and I saw thing's.
 
Gregvivi0401 said:
I think you have a wrong picture no one here give him applause and kisses his ... But guy was more politician then sadistic ruler like Stalin or Putin. Good things happen for us when hi was in power I know I was born in Poland and I saw thing's.
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Hades said:
In 1980's cold war USSR, to reach the top and not be like Putin or Stalin is a big achievement.
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Except he kind of was like them and had his hand forced into the good things that happened under his reign in the same way Nazi Germany and Japan were both forced to surrender because they knew they were defeated


Just like he tried cover up Chernobyl but the disaster was so big he was forced not to, he doesn't deserve any credit
 
Minusorange said:
Except he kind of was like them and had his hand forced into the good things that happened under his reign in the same way Nazi Germany and Japan were both forced to surrender because they knew they were defeated

Just like he tried cover up Chernobyl but the disaster was so big he was forced not to, he doesn't deserve any credit
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Yes you're right. Gorbachev is exactly like Stalin who deliberately killed 6 million people. Silly me.
 
Minusorange said:
Except he kind of was like them and had his hand forced into the good things that happened under his reign in the same way Nazi Germany and Japan were both forced to surrender because they knew they were defeated


Just like he tried cover up Chernobyl but the disaster was so big he was forced not to, he doesn't deserve any credit
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From my point of view any of them doesn't deserve any credit Stalin had WW2 and Katyn massacre Putin has Ukraine now but I am glad he was under power when Poland exit Soviet block if this will be Stalin of Putin I would be possible a Russian now.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
 
Minusorange said:
So you're saying his achievement is he wasn't Putin or Stalin, so he should be congratulated, what a ****** way of thinking
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No, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying his achievements were the end of the Cold War, the end of the Iron Curtain, the end of the USSR, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a socio-economic overhaul of Russia, with surprisingly little conflict despite the huge potential for a bloodbath, notwithstanding the fact that he grossly mishandled a bunch of stuff along the way (particularly Chernobyl and his brutal crackdown in Lithuania). Like it or not, these are valid and credible achievements.

Gorbachev is to be congratulated not for not being Stalin, but for being Gorbachev. And I speak as one of the most anti-Russian people on this forum.
 
Hades said:
Yes you're right. Gorbachev is exactly like Stalin who deliberately killed 6 million people. Silly me.
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Stalin was better though, he won WW2 single handedly

Sankari said:
Gorbachev is to be congratulated not for not being Stalin, but for being Gorbachev. And I speak as one of the most anti-Russian people on this forum.
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Lithiuanians hate him
Tajiks hate him
Most under his rule hate him
I think I'll value the opinion of those who actually lived under his rule than those with blinkered vision

And just for a lol

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