Gorbachev

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Serb

I wish Soviet Union existed as a single country, preferably with more market economy and more freedoms. Reforms were necsessary, but not the way how Gorby done.

OK, but how do you maintain the empire if the unwilling are given more freedom?

[Lancer]

"Soviet economy was faring badly at the period, but the market reforms of Gorbachov really killed it. If there was someone else instead of him the same would probably have happened. It wasn't only him who lost faith in socialism, it was the entire Soviet elite."

They needed to cut back on their military and the corruption of the elite. Give a little back to the workers so they had a reason to work. Then, I think they could have soldiered on in their happy May Day fashion indefinately. All those red banners and the trucks with scuds mounted, jets flying over trailing colorful smoke, what fun! They had enough of the world that they could have gotten along without the rest of it. If they kept their people ignorant of the progress of the west and highlighted the west's social depravity they could have bolstered the fading nationalism that got them as far as they did.

Eventually with the rise of the arab terrorist states they could have milked them for cash flow in exchange for weapons...even more than they were doing.

But, Gorbachev screwed all that up.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
China has tried to escape from the situtation by converting from a Soviet-economy to a neo-feudalistic economy. If it ever switched over to a free-market economy and becomes a land of opportunity, whoa nellie!

That's what I'm waiting for. I'm going to sneak in on a crate on one of those many Chinese shipping boats on the US west coast.

[Zkribbler]

If China ever wises up and pays its working class enough so they can become a consumer class, then you won't need to sneak into the U.S. They'll be a fortune to be had in China.

[Lancer]

The Chinese super rich will soak up billions and buy US real estate from the Japanese .

[Zkribbler]

Probably so. That's why I said they have a neo-feudalistic economy. But rather than having lords and ladies, they have comrades and comrades, sucking up all the nation's wealth and leaving the poor working slubs with subsistance wages.

[Lancer]

...and no girlfriends.

I heard that three out of four Chinese born in the last 20 years have been male.

China: poor guys at a sausage fest.

[DaShi]

China imports women.

[Lancer]

imports

[Hueij]

Gorbachov is the guy that prevented me from witnessing the greatest fireworks in the history of mankind

Make that a

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Lancer
...and no girlfriends.

I heard that three out of four Chinese born in the last 20 years have been male.

I think that rations a little high...but not by much. The one-child-per-family law has resulted in a lot of voluntary abortions, forced abortions and infanticide...usually of little girls, since they can't carry on the family name.

There's that only Chinese says:

When you're raising a boy, you're raising a son.
But when you're raising a girl, you're raising a wife for someone else.

[Lancer]

"But when you're raising a girl, you're raising a wife for someone else."

Or perhaps for 3 other people.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Gorby inherited a sinking economic ship. He didn't have a whole lot of options.

That´s what I think, too.
Due to the costs of its large military (and largely military centered industry) and due to its rigid structures the soviet union was facing lots of economical problems.

If there hadn´t been gorbachev with his glasnost and perestroika IMHO chances would have been high, that perhaps the SU had tried to invade the EU countries (as we know today the plans were in the drawers and involved countering the Hi Tech weapons of the west with masses of tanks, planes and soldiers).

(or there had to be economic reformations as very probably the SU wouldn´t have been able to keep the military spendings it had during the beginning of the 80s for 20 more years)

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I've talked to a lot of US and EU guys who were old Soviet hands back in the day, and they all pretty much agree on one thing: by the end of the Brezhnev era the Soviet Union had clearly begun a long, irreversible decline toward some sort of death. Gorbachev's singular achiecvement was to make sure that death was as peaceful and comfortable as possible; to make sure that the Soviet world ended not with a bang but with a whimper.

Gorbachev.

[Mr. Harley]

I've been villified for this statement before - it was not Reagan, but Gorbachev, who inflicted the coup de gras on the Soviet Union. The Generals offered to put down the demonstrations, and as Tienamen Square showed - when you completely control the military and the police, violence, i.e. tanks and bullets, WILL prevail.

Before you talk about the economics forcing the Soviet Union to implode, look at North Korea. If you are willing to have your people pay the price (look at my sig) then you can stay in power as long as you control the military and the police. Note that this implies the populace is not armed.

Gorbachev remembered Stalin, and what he had done to the people of the Soviet Union. I have not studied it, but given his age he almost had to have family members murdered or shipped to Gulags during the Stalin period. The terror spread a horrendously broad net. Gorbachev's refusal to stay in power with his feet bathed in the blood of his fellow Russians is the proximate cause the Soviet Union fell.

Like Zkribbler, I will have to take a rain check on Germanos comment about the Generals being the other side of the equation that caused the catastrophic failure of the Soviet State. However, even if he is correct - which makes sense from some other things I have read - if Gorby had been willing to slaughter the protestors and send the tanks into the Warsaw Pact states that were experiencing similiar disturbances - we woud still have a Soviet Union. Period.

If after putting down the revolutionaries they could have held on for another ten-fifteen years, the oil markets would have bailed them out. Plus they would have been much more agressive in selling arms in the Middle East, and things would even be more interesting. I much prefer how things have turned out - not being a resident of Russia. The average Russian would have been much better off, because by the time Putin finishes cracking down I suspect Putin's Russia will be less free than Gorbachev's Soviet Union would have been.