How the US blew their chance to get Russia as an ally.

[binTravkin]

Back in the eighties, however ridiculous it might sound, the population of the USSR was one of the most pro-American.

Reality check:

Has there been any single time in Russias/Soviet history when people had any say over where Russia should go?


Yeah, that's a rhetorical question.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't know if privatization vs nationalization matters much in Russia. All the proceeds will go to the rich anyway.

Exactly. Corruption has always been the Russian Economic problem. From the Tsars to the Communist to the Democrats to the New Totalitarianism. The country will never be the economic power that it could be until it cures that problem.

[onodera]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi He's got good ideas. He'd be a strong leader of Russia.

One of his ideas is, in essence, that there was a time when Russia ruled the whole Eurasia, that Genghis was a Russian, but this has been suppressed by a huge conspiracy of European historians. Well, it's not exactly his own idea, but he supports is.
I don't want a conspiracy theorist ruling my country.
I also took a look at his party's Russian website. It hasn't been updated since May 07 and I couldn't find their political program on it. His English website is more up-to-date, but still doesn't feature anything that looks like a summary of Kasparov's ideas, except "we don't like it here". What I could understand was that he values Western support more than Russian support, so his main idea probably is "look, we're an oppressed democratic opposition, please send us your grants".

Again, I'm not saying that Putin is a perfect leader of Russia (and I do not deny that Medvedev is still under his thumb), but he's better than Yeltsin, he's better than Gorbachev, he's better than Chernenko, he's better than Brezhnev, he's better than Khrushchev. He's a worse ruler than Stalin, though. And under Stalin we turned from a backward agrarian country into a world superpower.

[snoopy369]

He's definitely worse in body count

[dannubis]

OK you should have put the Stalin part first. Then I knew I could stop reading there

[onodera]

I’ll format this using chevrons, if you don’t mind. It’s a chore to multiquote.
>A thought provoking post. But there appear to be a couple of inaccuracies in it.
Probably. I do not claim to be 100% accurate.

>>Back in the eighties, however ridiculous it might sound, the population of the USSR was one of the most pro-American. The USA were a symbol of better life, not because of their two-party system or their free market, but because of their consumer goods. No, we didn't choose freedom, we chose jeans, cola and bubble gum. This, and we stopped executing senior party leaders, which allowed a spineless idiot to get to the top. Yeah, the one with a birthmark.
>>Anyway, back in 1991, people were expecting the USSR to turn into the USA.
>IIRC, in 1991 it was the old style Commies (or should I say Stalinists?) that deposed Gorbachev, crushing the hope for a reasonable transition of the CCCP to something new while still retaining some of the old. IMO it was Gorbachev who probably best understood the hopeless situation the Union found itself in, while he also understood that the US (or to a larger extend: the West) were more interested in peaceful co-existence with- then annihilation of the Soviet Union.
He drove the country to food rationing and let nationalist rulers take power in the republics. Well, maybe the wheel of history was turning and he just happened to be there, but his policies didn’t help either. You can’t mix planned economy with hozraschet.
>Gorbachev's rise to power was possibly driven by his understanding of what you describe as the Soviet citizens' desire for consumer goods, or what should be better described as his understanding that the economic policies of the Communist Party of the CCCP Where horribly outdated and could not compete to the West.
I think any politician’s rise to power is driven by his or her lust for power. And yes, we were exhausted by the military competition.

>It's interesting that you speak of the Soviet populace desires in the 80's (from which Gorbachev's rise to power in 1986 IIRC stemmed), but then jump to the 90's that were governed by Yelstin after the failed coup d'etat.
1989-1993 is a one big WTF period of Russian history. I still cannot comprehend it completely.

>>Actually, they were expecting it to turn into the USSR with jeans, cola and bubble gum, but were greatly disillusioned, as a lot of things that were taken for granted suddenly disappeared:
>>- free education, from kindergartens to post-grad;
>>- free medicine, including dentistry, yes;
>>- free housing;
>>- inexpensive food;
>>- their life savings;
>>- sense of security.
>>This meant the USSR turned not into the USA of the people's dreams, but into the USA of Soviet propaganda.
>Hmmm... So perhaps the coup was successful after all...
The second one was.

>>And this was the best chance for the US to gain a new friend, to forge a juggernaut of an alliance.
>>What was needed was a new Marshall plan.
>But why would they? The leader who appeared to be one that could strike a deal with (Gorbachev) was deposed by reactionary forces, and an uncertain leader whose allegiance was unclear (Yeltsin) filled the void. His drunken behaviour certainly didn't spark much confidence.
You might be right, the USA probably expected Russia to fragment further (which it nearly did).

>>The States could've used parts of their now superflous military budget to help Russia adapt its economy to the global market. The population would be grateful, and the later mutual profit would be immense.
>Would it?
It’d still be better than a low-key confrontation.

>>What was done instead? Well, a "shock therapy" was recommended to be used in Russia, and there was also a lot of "Commies taking it in the ass " in the land of the brave. This wasn't what the people expected. At all.
>Yet they had voted for Yeltsin. Granted, they hadn't much choice.
I don’t consider the 1993 coup an election.

>>Around 1994 the support for the US started to wane quite noticeably.
>Yet they voted for Yeltsin again.
Actually, Zyuganov won. Even with large-scale electoral fraud, Yeltsin barely managed to scrape up enough votes to win in the second rounf.

>>It took a big hit when our economy defaulted in 1998 and hit rock bottom when NATO bombed our historical ally, Serbia, in 1999.
>Historical ally? Yugoslavia was the first dent in the Soviet bloc when Tito chose to be non-aligned.
Dating back to the Imperial times. Do you remember how the WWI started?

>>Even now, if you held a referendum, "America, **** yeah" would lose big time to "America, **** it". And this is the biggest difference between now and the Cold War. Back then, the States were seen as a generally positive force and even when they were doing their best to alienate the Union they weren't alienating the Soviet people, and now they're seen as an aggressive world policeman and any action against Russia doesn't help their image in the eyes of an average Russian.
>It's ridiculous to say that during the Cold War the US (or West in general) was seen as a positive force by the Soviets or the Soviet bloc. It may have been true in the 80's (I will take your word for it) in the CCCP, and I will certainly believe it's true for much of the populace in the satellite-states of the Warsaw-pact for a longer time than that, but it had been a recent phenomenon in for sure.
It was true in the 70’s as well. I can’t say that about the 60’s, as they were the hottest part of the Cold War.

>In any case, it seems that for the Russians it would have been best if they had adopted the Marshall plan when it was proposed to them first: in the aftermath of WWII.
Yeah. JS would’ve cheated the US out of their money. But back then the Red Flower was still blooming, and accepting it would mean accepting your second place, which would stop the spreading of the red idea.

[onodera]

Originally posted by dannubis
OK you should have put the Stalin part first. Then I knew I could stop reading there

Oh, come on. He might not be a communist, but you can't deny how much he did for Russia.

[DanS]

He was a butcher on a mass scale.

[BeBMan]

If he had just done as much for Russians

[Saras]

Originally posted by onodera

Oh, come on. He might not be a communist, but you can't deny how much he did for Russia.

heavy industry > millions killed?

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by onodera
And under Stalin we turned from a backward agrarian country into a world superpower.

Any noob can use a food surplus to whip out a bunch of factories

[dannubis]

Originally posted by onodera

Oh, come on. He might not be a communist, but you can't deny how much he did for Russia.

It isn't the "communist" part of his personality that I find revolting...

[SlowwHand]

I guess President Putin knows he can't go to Disneyland? Ask Khrushchev's family about Disneyland banishment; and at least he got rid of Stalin's ideas, as he could. I say Putin because he's holding the puppet's strings.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by DanS
The countries that embraced the sharpest turns from communism are now the most successful economically. See, e.g., the Czech Republic and Poland.

I attribute it to geography in at least equally large measure.

[Dinner]

Re: Re: How the US blew their chance to get Russia as an ally.

Originally posted by Myrddin

Overall IMHO:
-the shock therapy was applied too slowly, as senior people did not want the collapse of the major industrial units
-Yeltsin and the oligarchs were too ready to put their personal goals above the good of the country
-when things appeared to be getting better reforms stalled
-Russians do not like being told what to do by outsiders so a larger plan would not have helped

That's basically it. They only half ass did reforms and even then the reforms weren't designed to really strengthen the country instead they were designed to enrich Yeltsin and a few well connected people. Just look how Yeltsin's family made out like bandits.

Once the economy stopped going through the post Soviet implosion reforms stopped thus insuring Russia lagged far behind every other old Eastern block state except Belarus which didn't bother doing any reforms and so has one of the lowest standards of living in Europe. Now Russia is going to be facing some serious capital flight issues which are going to dramatically increase capital borrowing costs because Putin is trying to make his own private fiefdom driving out foreigners and even Russian businessmen who don't support his iron grip on power.

Given the amount of election fraud, how the political system has been rigged, and how the media has been brought under defacto Kremlin control it is hard to call Russia a democracy these days. It's pretty much a pseudo dictatorship which goes through periodic farse elections much like Egypt.