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Mikhail Gorbachev has died
- chernevik 4y agoHistorically it's very unusual for someone with so much power to allow his regime to collapse so peacefully. And it's remarkable that Soviet politics, some of the most brutal and self-serving in history, would find such a figure at its head. God bless him and keep him.
- maratbn 4y agoIndeed, what he did by stepping down peacefully was highly unusual for a politician in his circumstances. It was like a miracle. And now we're seeing a more typical behavior from the successor of his successor. It is too bad that in his later years he kinda regretted it, and kept saying "I should have kept going until the end". Perhaps it is natural to regret past decisions wondering if an alternative decision might have led to a better outcome. Hope that before he died he realized that had he pursued that alternative path he'd end up like Putin. In summary -- Mr. Gorbachev was one of the most decent politicians and upstanding people in general that ever lived.
- brnt 4y agoNote that in Russian doctrine as tought in universities, the Cold War never ended.
- 9999px 4y ago
- chitowneats 4y agoI laughed so loud at this my wife yelled at me from across the house, "What's so funny?!"
- romwell 4y agoThere's no way that comment wasn't sarcasm, right?
- mminer237 4y agoLooking at his comment history, no, he looks to 100% believe poor, innocent Russia is fighting a defensive war in which it has been easily rolling over Ukraine.
- 9999px 4y agoWhy has Ukraine rarely lost power, water or internet? Why isn't Russia destroying civilian infrastructure en masse? Because it's not a war in the same way the US went to war with Iraq, for example (one of the first things the US did was target civilian infrastructure). You're just a clueless American without the basic background knowledge to see this situation for what it is: a preemptive defensive strike against an ever-expanding, finance-capital-backed NATO.
- _kbh_ 4y ago> Why has Ukraine rarely lost power, water or internet? Why isn't Russia destroying civilian infrastructure en masse? Because it's not a war in the same way the US went to war with Iraq, for example (one of the first things the US did was target civilian infrastructure). They have lost all off these things throughout the war at different times. > You're just a clueless American without the basic background knowledge to see this situation for what it is: a preemptive defensive strike against an ever-expanding, finance-capital-backed NATO. Yes Russia has to commit genocide again Ukraine, Russia absolutely must rape, torture and murder civilians because of NATO. Russias action lie solely on Russia, Russia is the entity that decided to invade.
- d0mine 4y agoIt is not a sarcasm: thanks to a well intentioned but too trusting politician, NATO moved to East and Russia has to fight for survival against vastly superior opponent. If you are interested, we could look at the map, compare some numbers (weapons, population, media control, the number of countries bombs, etc)
- theonething 4y agoSeems accurate to me. It never completely ended.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y agoThis seems like needless pedantry at least for a conversation outside of school. The USSR (with whom the Cold War was being fought) was dissolved and Germany was reunified. For all intents and purposes it did end, just a new conflict (now with Russia) began.
- brnt 4y agoSeeing as the Cold War was a framework for conflicts, not a conflict in itself, I find it extremely illuminating to consider the view of the opposing party. Not a technicality in the slightest.
- avmich 4y agoAndrei Piontkovskiy, in addition to two known World Wars, considers the Cold War as the World War III and the current war in Eastern Europe as the World War IV. His parallels are that WWII was fought by Germany dissatisfied by the results of WWI, and WWIV is fought by Russia dissatisfied by the results of WWIII.
- bishnu 4y agoThis analogy doesn't hold for "WWIII" though, right? By this analogy, I would call the current crisis "Cold War II".
- avmich 4y agoWorld wars involve many countries, and Cold War definitely qualify. Today's war is a pretty active, quite large "hot" war, which also involves many countries - even though most fight by proxy.
- xg15 4y agoI 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 was direct millitary confrontation between the US and USSR. Nevertheless there were lots of local conflicts and proxy wars where each bloc was backing a faction.
- vkou 4y agoBased on my count of how many hair-trigger alert nuclear weapons are pointed from east to west, and vice versa, I'd say that the Cold War only ended in name.
- avgcorrection 4y agoRussia–US relations have been pretty cold for most of these decades so why not.
- bediger4000 4y agoI was taught that Ronald Reagan ended the cold war and gave us the longest lasting economic boom.
- flavius29663 4y agoHe did. It's just that leftists in the US won't accept that and pretend that the Cold War just "ended" one day, because of the goodwill of the Russians, not because the US policy forced them into bankruptcy.
- the-smug-one 4y agoDang, good move to force a whole country into bankruptcy.
- zmgsabst 4y agoSeems to be working for China, as well.
- bediger4000 4y agoShould I have been taught Ronald Reagan did that as well?
- kenned3 4y agoI suggest you look at the external debt of China vs other nations, you may be surprised with what you find.
- _-david-_ 4y agoThe US did the opposite with China. Instead of trying to bankrupt China, the US opened up trade in hopes of creating a liberal democracy in China.
- CRConrad 4y agoYeah, and it seems to be working for China -- not on. The US opened up trade with China, and since then China has managed to have the West dismantle its industrial base. It's working great for China! (Except hopefully the rest of the world is finally waking up to what's going on).
- swyx 4y agoRIP. I did my college essay on Gorbachev. Still think the Cold War was the greatest urgent threat to humanity and welcome any moves to end it, failures and all
- thriftwy 4y agoI guess it feels so good when you get all the benefits and somebody else foots the failures. Well, 2022 is a year of boomerang.
- RichardCNormos 4y agoParaphrasing President Reagan: The Moscow police are notoriously strict when it comes to speeding. One day, Gorbachev and his driver are going to a meeting, and they are running late. Gorbachev admonishes the driver to go faster, but his driver refuses. Finally, Gorbachev says, "Fine! Pull over! I will drive." Gorbachev starts speeding through the streets of Moscow with his driver in the back seat. They are pulled over by the police. The first officer gets out of the car and walks to Gorbachev's car. They talk for a moment, then the officer returns, as white as a sheet. "Well? Was it someone important?" says the second officer. The first officer replies, "Important?! You have no idea! Gorbachev is his driver!"
- misiti3780 4y agothat is pretty funny.
- alexott 4y agoThere was an earlier anecdote about Brezhnev on this topic…
- 0003 4y agoThe first driver was a KGB agent named Putin
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- quickthrower2 4y agoHeard this joke before, but in Ireland (for some reason?) and the Pope is the driver.
- mongol 4y agoRonald Reagan jokes on Youtube are more worthwhile than most what Netflix has to offer.
- hunglee2 4y agoHard 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
- timmg 4y ago> but Gorbachev seemed like a fundamentally decent man I caught this movie at the Tribeca Film festival: https://tribecafilm.com/festival/archive/meeting-gorbachev-2019 https://tribecafilm.com/festival/archive/meeting-gorbachev-2... It was very sympathetic toward him. And I don't think it is a "great" film in any sense. But I did feel like I got a taste for who he was. And I also felt he was a fundamentally decent person.
- elchin 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_January https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_January
- lostmsu 4y agoReading the description of the events, it sounds like they intervened militarily after this event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom , which sort of makes sense.
- elchin 4y agoIt "sort of makes sense" as much as the invasion of Ukraine does.
- joachim4 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)
- 4y ago
- avmich 4y agoRest in peace, Mikhail Sergeevich. You were an old school enough to perhaps not understand fully what you did to the people of former USSR, but even misunderstood it certainly was once-in-an-era kind of great.
- eloy 4y agoRIP Gorbachev, one of the few genuinely good people in politics. After he retired from politics, he was featured in several advertisements: - In 1994 for Apple Computer: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/07/The-first-advertisement-to-feature-Mikhail-Gorbachev-will-also/1663781502400/ https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/07/The-first-advertisem... - In 1998 for Pizza Hut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial - In 2000 for the ÖBB, the Austrian railways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLscz8kEg6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLscz8kEg6c - In 2007 for Louis Vuitton: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/business/media/05vuitton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/business/media/05vuitton....
- djvdq 4y agoGorbachev good? You think sending tanks to Lithuania to kill people is what good person does? Or hiding everything about Chernobyl and not telling people what happened is also good person best move?
- mortenjorck 4y agoPersonally, I try to avoid characterizing anyone in politics as a "genuinely good person" or otherwise. I don't think it's a useful framing. As humans, we gravitate toward personalities, identities, and stories, and these all matter for the people we keep close to us. In the public sphere, however, actions and legacy are what matter, for better or worse. For a major historical figure like Gorbachev, there is bound to be both better and worse, and to me the most valuable analysis is of those actions and legacy rather than personal character.
- _8j50 4y agoI think sincerity is a better measure. As leaders go, he is one of the lasts of his kind. He was 14 when the war ended. “Our generation is the generation of wartime children,” he said. “It has burned us, leaving its mark both on our characters and on our view of the world.” -- Quote from the WAPO article on this.
- jtjbdhsjjdnd 4y ago
- lapcat 4y agoThe 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 Union to glasnost and perestroika. Of course Yeltsin was a big part of the problem too.
- avmich 4y agoWas the absence of Marshall plan happened because of the West or because of Russia's decision? > Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. Russia today is a faint ghost of the former USSR. The events in Eastern Europe show that to an extent.
- thriftwy 4y agoIt's smaller all right. But it is also much more robust. Late USSR was the kind of society where most everything was in short supply and which has even failed to feed itself. Yes, it had a lot of hardware and people. All of that was for no good, given the awful system in place.
- avmich 4y agoI'd point out that USSR was much more self-reliant than Russia - you couldn't really put sanctions on Eastern block of countries, they produced everything, with certain things so good they are still competitive. Yes, market economy does greatly improve Russia's agility, but special services can't stop ruin most of what they can touch, so even market economy has limited net benefits now - while at the time of USSR they had a good counterbalance in the form of the Communist Party.
- thriftwy 4y agoYou can't be self-reliant when you are bankrupt and all basic neccesities are in short supply. USSR was defunct. Its communist party was also defunct. Russia is lucky to have China which produces enormous assortment of items as well as trade surplus.
- kenned3 4y ago
- coalbin 4y agoI meet your skepticism with a video of him telling the joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh6q9gNCIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh6q9gNCIQ
- kenned3 4y agoThanks for a link to a site labeled "free propaganda". It really rang true here, it is propaganda, and it is free? Do read the comments on youtube.
- ipnon 4y agoLet me tell you why I think this is an inappropriate comment: The point of it seems not to be collaboratively extending the line of thought proposed by the original post or the parent comment, but to make the parent commenter feel some kind of personal shame or stupidity. Good commenting is more like a team sport than a martial art.
- avgcorrection 4y agoPropagandistic anecdotes deserve a little bit of ridicule. But just a little bit.
- kenned3 4y agoSo like telling "jokes" at Russia's expense by a man of questionable ethics? what is the point of his joke, if not to mock another country? The OP posted a quote, and i posted one too?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> "jokes" at Russia's expense I'm not seeing it. That joke could just as easily be told for any other national leader and it would still work.
- steve76 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- laserbrain 4y ago»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 has succeeded in killing Gorbachev. ›No, I got to the Kremlin all right, but the line to kill Gorbachev was even longer than here!‹«
- insane_dreamer 4y agoThis 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.
- negus 4y agoHave you heard about a single moment in time when people liked the leader of their country?
- LeftHandPath 4y agoUsually the most beloved are also the most hated.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI'm having a real hard time thinking of a leader who wasn't liked by at least some of the people, and it's surely impossible to find any leader liked by literally all people in their country. So clearly it's all shades of gray. The worst leaders in history, the Hitlers and Stalins, have enjoyed substantial if not majority popular support in their time. Biden and Trump both have millions of Americans who like them. Even Caligula was popular with the general Roman population, if only because he lowered taxes and threw money around. Maybe Ceausescu was close to universally hated, but everybody was afraid to say anything until the preference cascade occurred? But probably even he had genuine supporters.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoMaybe not a popular opinion, I think that had Gorby been able to succeed in his reforms rather than be squeezed from both sides, Russia would have been better off in the long run both economically and politically. Instead, it swung from autocratic communism one day to near total collapse ("free market" anarchy) the next during which those with connections and saw the opportunity gobbled up all the resources eventually leading to a oligarchical authoritarianism.
- the_third_wave 4y agoIs seems clear that Russia did not fare well in its move from corrupt authoritarian Communism (a tautology if ever there was one) to the kleptocracy which replaced it - often by the hands of the same people. It is just as clear that eastern Europe did fare well by the fall of the Soviet empire. If Gorbachev had succeeded in dissolving the Soviet Union without having Russia descend into the chaos which followed things might have been better but I find it hard to see how something like that could have been orchestrated. It more or less worked in Eastern Germany due to the efforts (financially and socially) of Western Germany. The way this was handled in Russia was scandalous and led the country from one failed economic system into another failing one with the oligarchs and their cronies taking the place of the Party. Which country could have been the 'Germany' for Russia? Who could have dissolved the inefficient state conglomerates like Treuhandanstalt [1] did in Eastern Germany, who would have covered the financial losses? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treuhandanstalt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treuhandanstalt
- arwhatever 4y agoWerner Herzog’s interview/documentary with him just a couple of years ago was very interesting, and I recommend watching.
- LetThereBeLight 4y agoAnyone interesting in learning more about Gorbachev's life, I recommend watching Werner Herzog's Meeting Gorbachev.
- mongol 4y agoIt was interesting but not as good as I expected given that Herzog is quite brilliant. I think he got less of Gorbachev's time than he expected when he started.
- Aperocky 4y agoHe might be a decent human, but he's woefully bad at his job. He might be able to salvage the Soviet Union into something else, but instead most of it turned into multiple heaps of dumpster fire, which after burning and destroying, was then commandeered by thugs, mafia and oligarchs.
- timmg 4y ago> He might be able to salvage the Soviet Union into something else, but instead most of it turned into multiple heaps of dumpster fire... Wasn't he essentially removed from power by Yeltsin -- who did so by breaking up the Soviet Union? My history isn't that great. But my understanding is that Yeltsin was the president of Russia, while Gorbachev was leader of the Soviet Union. By breaking up the union, Yeltsin put Gorby out of a job and essentially became the leader. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
- twelve40 4y agoYes, this is accurate. But underneath these formalities, just as the parent mentioned, was a weak, gullible and incompetent man who lost control of the country and caused a lot of real pain (90s were hell on earth). He is widely despised by his own people now, despite all the official bs.
- desindol 4y agoSometimes you have to work in the constraints of your time as he did. You'll learn that when you get older.
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- makeitdouble 4y ago> You'll learn that when you get older. That saying needs to die, or you need to point out exactly how Aperocky will learn and at what approximate age. Otherwise you're just saying "I only have my personal experience to judge from, with no solid argument, but I'll project that into you with utter confidence and no room for disagreement" I mean, are you even sure you're older than Aperocky ?
- idlewords 4y agoGorbachev secured his place in history by what he didn't do. While never endorsing the end of the eastern bloc, he made it clear beginning in the late 1980's that unlike his predecessors, he would not oppose democratic reforms in Eastern Europe by force. To general astonishment, he kept this promise, and with the regrettable exception of Lithuania this commitment to not repeating the crimes of his predecessors is Gorbachev's greatest legacy. In 1988 you would have been hard pressed to find anyone who could imagine the mostly peaceful collapse of the Eastern Bloc, but Gorbachev had the moral courage to accept this once unimaginable consequence of his policy and to see it through.
- hackerlight 4y agoFrom everything I've read about him, he was a true liberal and egalitarian. How does someone like that rise up the ranks of an authoritarian USSR in the first place? Did he hide his beliefs and present as just a competent bureaucrat until he got to the top?
- michaelwww 4y agoThe way I remember as a far off observer was the Soviet Union went through a few very old and ineffective leaders after Brezhnev died, while their war in Afghanistan drained resources so they couldn't possibly keep up with Reagan's Star Wars initiative. Gorbachev was a young, vital fresh face with new ideas that they had to go with to try to reform and survive.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoIt was a gerontocracy, with old dryed husks dying on the throne pre gorbachev. It was also mostly resource exporting back then, econimically dependent on the west. The oil prices during the gulf war killed them.
- vintermann 4y agoWe call it a gerontocracy, but all those guys were considerably younger than the current and previous US presidents, at 79 and 76 respectively.
- varjag 4y agoPeople are complicated beings. He was a part decent man, part criminal and part coward.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoAren’t we all?
- alrs 4y agoGorba, the Chief. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNoBstt8uYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNoBstt8uYM
- drumhead 4y agoHe really changed the world. Ended the cold war, an incredibly important figure in 20th Century history. One of the few decent people in Russian politics.
- SlavikCA 4y agoAs the Russian, I'm of the opinion that Gorbachev is traitor. I hate communism, so it's good that he helped us to get rid of that. But why getting rid of communism had to include letting Americans to take reign in many government agencies of Russia? What would be your opinion of US president, if he goes to to retire in Russia? I'm reading some Russian news site, and almost universally Gorbachev is hated by Russians.
- alliao 4y agowhat are his chances living to this ripe old age if he had stayed? i don't think he had a spectacular life in the US either, just became a normal bloke
- xg15 4y agoI still think the gp's question is relevant: > What would be your opinion of US president, if he goes to to retire in Russia?
- giantrobot 4y ago> But why getting rid of communism had to include letting Americans to take reign in many government agencies of Russia? Wow. Such a claim. I'm sure you have mountains of examples of this happening just one time.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rossmohax 4y agoHarvard Boys: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russia/ https://www.thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russ...
- giantrobot 4y agoHow is that the US "running" Russian government agencies?
- paulpauper 4y agoLike Bill clinton, he helped define 90s geopolitics. It's remarkable how he faded away like he did. Nelson Mandela, Yassir Arafat , Ariel Sharon..that whole era.
- sph 4y agoThey were too moderate for the modern age. Centrism has gone out of fashion.
- kshacker 4y agoIt goes in cycles. We go to extremes and then swing back and sometimes in unison across continents. We will go back to some centrists although whether it takes 10 years or 50 is hard to say.
- hot_gril 4y agoIn the US, Obama seemed pretty centrist to me. Joe Biden less so, but still the most centrist of the front-running candidates this cycle.
- morelisp 4y agoNoted centrist Nelson Mandela?
- refurb 4y agoYou think Yassir Arafat or Ariel Sharon were regarded as "centrist"? Absolutely not.
- _8j50 4y agoThis is what I meant about being one of the lasts of his kind in a different comment. These leaders lead! They had character that inspired people. They were not merely the least evil choice or the only choice, they were the choice men and women devoted their lives to.
- Der_Einzige 4y agoIf only Trump had faded away like them...
- trymas 4y ago
- loeg 4y agoProbably the most relevant sentence from that article: > The role of Mikhail Gorbachev in the January events remains disputed.
- stefan_ 4y agoWhat is "disputed"? It says right there, under Commanders and leaders: Mikhail Gorbachev. Such is the nature of the deal; power for responsibility.
- mantas 4y agoThere's no paper with Gorbachev's signature. Which is pretty usual to Soviets - leave no paper trace was modus operandi since the establishment of USSR.
- mantas 4y agoThe last missing puzzle piece is pretty clear when looking at the full picture. Maybe now that he is gone, nobody will prevent from stating it officially. It's pretty clear that he was aware and gave orders. There're testimonies that next time Alfa unit asked for written orders. Guess when Alfa unit was given unwritten orders and who could give them such orders? If they acted without orders, why no heads roll back then?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI wonder how all of this played into Alfa's decision not to kill protestors in service of the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt.
- mantas 4y agoIf I remember correctly, that was the case, according to some high officials at the time. Alfa asked for written orders but they were refused. Regarding Lithuania's January events, other units did refuse to operate even back then. IIRC Pskov airborne unit was given unwritten order to fly to Vilnius, but the commander refused.
- spapas82 4y agoMy late grandfather was a really good and kind man. He never argued or blamed people. The only person that I remember that my grandfather had really negative feelings for was Gorbachev. I never learned why.
- _ptiv 4y agoWas he Lithuanian by any chance? Gorbachev killed protestors there, arguably the biggest stain on his otherwise surprisingly decent record. Or did he sympathise with communism? Gorbachev arguably accelerated it's decline.
- spapas82 4y agoHe was Greek and yes, he was with the communist party in his youth. So probably that's why...
- SirOibaf 4y agoMr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCO9BYCGNeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCO9BYCGNeY
- Nokinside 4y agoHe was able to get into politburo very young because he was a good administrator and he had powerful patrons. But he became the leader of the USSR just because there was nobody else. Politburo was so old that everybody ahead of him, or more power hungry than him was in hospice or otherwise not fully functioning. Then he started finally some of the common sense reforms needed. His intention was never to drop communism or let the soviet block to disintegrate, but things got out of hand. His greatest act was let it happen even when it was against everything he had worked for.
- epolanski 4y ago> common sense reforms Politically and in terms of press freedom, maybe. Economically it was a disaster that ruined an already stagnating growth and turned it into recession.
- 88840-8855 4y agoFully disagree. Economic reforms were trash, the Chinese did them better. Political reforms broke the system. The Chinese avoided doing them and look at them today.
- vintermann 4y agoToday they are rich and poweful, but have pretty much abandoned any pretense at worrying about capital exploitation of labour. It's a nationalist, corporatist, authoritarian state, ironically closer to Chiang Kai-shek's ideal state than Mao's, let alone Marx's. That was not the outcome he wanted. People often paper over that he was a true believer in Marxism-Leninism, unlike his predecessors.
- lenkite 4y agoThe Chinese have successfully uplifted most of their citizenry out of poverty while their neighbour India - despite a head-start - is yet to manage the same. Looks like the corporate nationalist approach works well at overcoming the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
- photochemsyn 4y ago"Arsenals of Folly" By Richard Rhodes is one of the best records of the Gorbachev era with respect to negotiations over arms reductions with Reagan (which resulted in a highly fractured US administration, with opponents (Cheney etc.) fighting advocates (Shultz etc.) over what policy Reagan should support), the immense effect of the Chernobyl disaster on the Soviet Union (something many nuclear energy proponents still try to downplay), and a few other aspects of Gorbachev's years in power in the USSR. The culmination of Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika was the Fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the more memorable historical moments of the 20th century and one which gave a lot of hope to young people who grew up under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. If you watched "The Day After Tomorrow" on American television in the 1980s, you might know the feeling. However, in retrospect that was a high point in terms of hopes for peace and prosperity. The Soviet Union went rapidly from communist authoritarian to oligarch kleptocracy during the Yeltsin era, and NATO wasn't disbanded like the Warsaw Pact was but instead started bombing Europe (Yugoslavia), and the steady downhill progression has continued ever since. Putin threw out or jailed the oligarchs Washington preferred by 2005 or so, and since then it's been a steady return to full on Cold War proxy wars and gas and oil pipeline control conflicts (Georgia, Syria, Azerbaijan, Ukraine) stretching from the Middle East to Northern Europe. It's ridiculous that after all those peace efforts in the late 1980s, we're back to early 1980s levels of nuclear tension. As far as who to blame, there's plenty to go around - oil corporations wanting more profits, arms dealers wanting more wars, authoritarians wanting more power, empires wanting more control of resources, etc.
- nradov 4y agoI won't attempt to defend NATO interventions in other countries, but disbanding it like the Warsaw Pact was never a real option so long as Russia continued to maintain a significant military capability including nuclear weapons. The Warsaw Pact was never a real thing to begin with. It was a total fiction, not a voluntary alliance of (somewhat) equal sovereign states like NATO. All of the other Warsaw Pact members were under military occupation by the USSR and had zero real decision making authority. Any attempt to go their own way was immediately, violently crushed. So dissolving the Warsaw Pact when the USSR disintegrated meant nothing. And before someone tries to draw a false equivalence between the USSR's role in the Warsaw Pact and the USA's role in NATO, those were hardly the same. NATO members were free to leave at any time without fear of a US invasion. France actually did withdraw from the NATO command structure for a while and nothing happened to them.
- keepquestioning 4y ago
- postit 4y agoAm I the only one surprised he was still alive?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- helge9210 4y agoThere is a saying in Russian that can be translated as "That one died. This one will follow".
- nradov 4y agoFor those unfamiliar with what happened in Lithuania, in 1991 Gorbachev used military force to kill 14 Lithuanian civilians who were demonstrating for democratic reforms. https://www.rferl.org/a/lithuania-soviet-crackdown-1991-kremlin-rewriting-history/31043914.html https://www.rferl.org/a/lithuania-soviet-crackdown-1991-krem...
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago> 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 example, check what Spain did in 2017 when Catalonia tried to declare independence after a popular vote. If Catalonians decided to resist, there is no doubt that the Spanish state would have used violence to suppress them. Try to imagine what the USA would do if any of its states tried to declare independence.
- idlewords 4y agoThe parent comment is correct, Lithuanians were demonstrating for the right to self-determination. The Baltic States were forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940; the comparison to Catalonia or US states is specious. Over two million people participated in peaceful protests in 1989 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way), the Soviet decision to suppress this movement by force is a black mark on Gorbachev's legacy.
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago> The parent comment is correct I'm sorry but it's not, and I already stated why with reason. They were not asking for "democratic reforms", but for independence. Call it self-determination if it makes you feel better. Debate my comparisons, fair enough, I just tried to put things in perspective.
- bloak 4y agoI thought the Mandela Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_Effect) was a myth ... but now I experience it myself. I can so clearly remember reading Gorbachev's obituary a few years ago ... Did anyone else have a similar reaction? (Perhaps I read an article about him on his 90th birthday and assumed it was an obituary?)
- sattoshi 4y agoThis is because his death was misreported in the media a few times. I’m giving it a day before trusting this report of his death.
- computator 4y agoI wanted to find out how the media could mess up a simple factual story on whether or not a famous person had died. It proved to be quite difficult to google for "Gorbachev death/died/dead misreported/erroneous/false" and lots of other variations; I kept getting hits on current news. But I finally found a report from 2013 here: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/false-story-about-gorbachev-death-unleashes-wave-of-hate-a-915670.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/false-story-about... The state-run news agency RIA Novosti in Moscow that published the erroneous story for just 5 minutes blamed it on hackers. But the false news spread widely from there.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bigmattystyles 4y agoI hate that my first thought was 'On the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive which is by some reports going well for Ukraine?'. Seems highly convenient as a distraction. I have no evidence for my thought and am dismissing it. The world has made me reflexively conspiracy prone, I don't believe in most conspiracies but it sucks to think about them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- legerdemain 4y agoThe Reuters article describes Gorbachev as "the last Soviet president." This is technically correct, but misleading. Gorbachev was also the first and the only person to hold that office. Heads of the Soviet Union held the office of the general secretary of the party.
- sbaiddn 4y agoI thought there was a non general secretary head of state before Stalin made the secretary the top post. I can recall what it was called though
- xwdv 4y agoNot gonna lie but similar to Henry Kissinger I thought he was long dead.
- UberFly 4y agoThis entire thread instantly devolved into political football humping. The problems within the new post-USSR Russia couldn't have been fixed by the US or the West. The roots of what Russia would become were already deeply set as the USSR collapsed. The main actors there just changed names and continued business as usual.
- olegious 4y agoThat's where I think you're wrong. The West had a chance to to alter history in 1991, instead Russia was treated like a loser (much like Germany was at the end of WWI and we know how that turned out). To quote a review of a biography of Gorbachev by The Economist from a few years ago: "Even when Mr Gorbachev accepted the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany and ultimately its membership of NATO, Mr Bush would play to Mr Gorbachev’s weakness for wanting to be lionised, but felt no obligation to help Russia financially or accommodate him politically. “To hell with that! We prevailed. They didn’t. We can’t let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat,” he said to Helmut Kohl, Germany’s chancellor. This triumphalism was misplaced and would later backfire on America. Mr Taubman argues that those in power in the West lacked the vision and will to extend a Marshall-type plan to Mr Gorbachev’s Soviet Union (and later to Yeltsin’s Russia). Those who had it were no longer in power. In 1991 Mrs Thatcher appealed to Mr Bush: “We’ve got to help Mikhail…Just a few years back, Ron and I would have given the world to get what has already happened here.” If the West did not come to Mr Gorbachev’s aid, she argued, “history will not forgive us.”" [1] [1] https://archive.ph/oufgU https://archive.ph/oufgU
- grishka 4y agoTIL he was still alive to this day. I somehow always assumed he died long ago.
- throwaway67743 4y agoPretty sad but not unexpected, perhaps he just lost the will to live after seeing all the good he did destroyed, or perhaps old age just got him - either way, RIP, a good man. But also don't forget Khrushchev, whom much of his legacy was built on. Edit: downvoted by ignorant americans, imagine that!
- hilbert42 4y agoSuch sad news but not unexpected. Recently, I saw the hour-long documentary of Werner Herzog interviewing Mikhail Gorbachev and it was not only riveting television but also one of the saddest and most upsetting I've seen in a long while. I'm not going to go into details as I don't think I could convey the tone and atmosphere of the conversation and do it justice. All I can say is that if you haven't seen it then you should make an effort to do so. YouTube doesn't have the full video but there are a few short excerpts from it of a minute or two in length.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- unity1001 4y agoWell intentioned man who made the mistake of trusting who he should not have trusted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidious_Albion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidious_Albion
- bumblebritches5 4y ago
- kingkawn 4y agoA bitter Russian 90’s joke: “Everything the Communists said about themselves was a lie. But everything they said about the capitalists was true.”
- morpheos137 4y agoThis thread is full of arguments by analogy. I suggest that is a reductionist fallacy.
- robotbikes 4y agoFor anyone interested in getting a vague sense of what it might have been like to be Mikhail Gorbachev there is a pretty low-fi simulator game called Crisis in the Kremlin on Steam. I played through it and it requires juggling the various factions in Soviet Russia. I ended up getting couped by the military but just reading the various prompts and choosing where to put resources gave me a better understanding of the dilemmas anyone in power in the USSR might have been going through. I can't attest to whatever bias might have been embedded in the game mechanics but it was interesting. Actually I only played the 2017 re-make. I didn't realize there was an original game from 1991. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_the_Kremlin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_the_Kremlin
- credit_guy 4y agoRest in peace Sir. Because of you hundreds of millions of people are living a better life. A pity that Putin came shortly after and is in the active process of destroying a country (or two). But you couldn't control that. You did more than most people in the world to move humankind towards a better place.
- shashurup 4y agoI'm really astonished. In what kind of echo chamber do you live in? Have you been in Russia in 90's? It was not only an economical disaster, more than ten years we lived in a constant bombardment by the media of "revelations" about our lives before, kinda non stop shit storm (we even believed this was the press freedom as the west sees it). In the hindsight it seems like it was impossible to devastate a country to such an extent even intentianally. Getting out of this shit strongly correlated with Putin.
- credit_guy 4y agoBut that’s on Yeltsin, not on Gorbachev. What’s on Gorbachev is that all the Eastern European countries got to be free. I was born there. Life now is many times better than it was during Communism.
- bearmode 4y agoThe majority of people who actually lived there before the fall of the soviet union disagree, actually.
- credit_guy 4y agoIt's because problems today are a bit more pressing than problems 40 years ago. And also people who lived in those times were much younger back then, and so generally much healthier and stronger. They are weaker now, and maybe more stressed, and with more health problems. And they subconsciously think that their health decline is due to the change from Communism to Capitalism. But they forget the empty shelves on stores, the food rationing, the need to bribe the doctors and everyone in the health system, the almost impossibility to move from one city to another (huh, from one country to another you ask? forget about it). The permanent fear of saying the wrong thing. The long lines to buy bread or milk. The hoops you needed to go through to get a color TV set. Do you like reading books? Do you like watching movies? Too bad; you could watch the local productions, or Soviet movies, but not the hundreds of movies that Hollywood produced each year, or read any of the thousands (or tens of thousands) of books published in the West each year. Driving cars? I hope you enjoyed Trabant or Yugo or Lada. Tropical fruit like oranges or bananas? At Christmas time, but not every year. Actually, Christmas was not celebrated, so it was at the New Year time.
- mellowagain 4y agoI remember in high school our teacher showing us enthusiastically a documentary about Gorbachev. It was unbelievable how he managed to end the iron curtain and come closer to the west at a time at which it was thought to be impossible. Trurely commendable. It is sad to see how Putin nullifies all of his effort and that he had to witness it now shortly before his death. May he rest in peace.
- maratbn 4y agoPutin is definitely trying to nullify Gorbachev's accomplishments, but I like to think that he'll actually end up strengthening them against his own will, in that the catastrophe he has created thru his anti-Gorbachev mentality will serve as a lesson of history for future generations and politicians. For example, racism was kinda considered "normal" before Hitler, but after Hitler, even people like Putin don't want to be deemed racist. Right now dictatorship is kinda considered "normal" too b/c so many countries still have dictators, but perhaps after Putin, no politician will want to be deemed a dictator.
- wawjgreen 4y agogood riddance. he was an uneducated idiot, who is indirectly responsible for the millions that were killed in Afghanistan, in 1992. In 1989, when he pulled the red army out of Afghanistan--he also cut all aid to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. the then-president of DRA went to Moscow to persuade Garbageoff to not to do so, predicting that the terrorist zealots would overrun his government leading to chaos in the region. Garbageoff dismissed him, and did not even go to the airport to receive him. In the ensuing two years, the DRA fought the terrorists to the last bullet, until food became scarce and defenses crumbled. The terrorists entered Kabul and began fighting each other (they were self-labeling themselves "Mujahedeen" then). In the carnage that followed, Kabul was destroyed, millions died and became refugees. I was an 11-yo boy who witnessed my neighbors getting torn to pieces by the rockets fired by the terrorists. I barely survived the rockets myself, and we fled and became refugees in Pakistan. May Garbageoff rot in hell.
- sbaiddn 4y agoYa, 20 years of war and a loss and the West still doesn't know the basics of Afghan history. We think we fared better than the Soviets did.
- _8j50 4y agoIt is easy for you to judge not having experienced the cruelty of the war and communisism and central-planning. He saw a problem and lead people to fix it.
- wawjgreen 4y agoit is easy for you to speak for me, not having experienced war and famine directly. Also, on that Russian score you are wrong: after what he did, the ex-USSR population suffered devastating poverty. And you have the cheek to defend him. Are you a troll?
- bllguo 4y agoWesterners benefited directly from the downfall of the USSR. Gorbachev prolonged the American liberal world order at the expense of his people, to the West that makes him a great hero
- _8j50 4y agoNow that is a name for the history books. Always thought his role in adapting his country to reality was understated.
- publicola1990 4y agoSay what you will, he seemed a politician very keen on world peace, beyond mere lip service. He understood the lacunae of the Soviet system and genuinely set about to reform them. But ultimately it was Ethno-national interests in Ukraine, Baltics and Central Asian republics along with the rise of opportunist power-grabbers like Yeltsin that did him and Soviet Union in. And perhaps his own reluctance to follow the Chinese model. He prefered to do political reforms before economic ones, while the Chinese prefered the economic reforms first and foremost. He ended the war in Afghanistan. He was more keen on Nuclear disarmament than Western leaders: Western leaders dragged their feet on that matter, and ultimately we didn't get no where near Nuclear disarmament. He ushered in reforms. See the Soviet films of the period to see a very different picture from cold war era Hollywood depictions.
- _8j50 4y agoThat was a very human mistake to prioritize politics (people) over essential root-causes (money). I am convinced that for most people, their development years (pre-adolescent) shape them, and for Mikhail, the experiences of his father and maternal grandfather as he witnessed as a child shaped him. He saw a cruel world made by people and tried to fix it, but for humans, the root cause is always superseded by basic needs.
- the_other 4y ago> That was a very human mistake to prioritize politics (people) over essential root-causes (money). I guarantee you that people existed before money, and that people create(d) money. People are the root cause.
- _8j50 4y agoBut you have to feed and shelter people properly before trying to change them.
- 0dayz 4y agoIn general I agree, but the key point is that that is only true until either those basic needs are meet or the promise was shown to be a lie.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoTrivia: He appears in Street Fighter II (Zangief's ending).
- _8j50 4y agoThis is a name I associate with an era and a great change. You have names like Julius ceasar, Henry VIII, Hitler (in a negative way), Stalin, Washington, Genghis Khan,Alexander and also Gorbachev. May future generations know your name good Sir.
- vbezhenar 4y ago
- wiseowise 4y agoWhy would he end up in hell?
- vbezhenar 4y agoBecause he is a traitor to his people. I know not a single person so universally hated by his own people but Gorbachev. He caused collapse of great country, sold it for dollars and cola. The fact that he’s praised by western people further solidifies it.
- notorandit 4y agoSo long, and thanks for all the freedom.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y agoDespite all the really shady stuff that went on under his leadership, I think it's a fair statement to say that Russia/Soviet Union was a more prosperous, happier and more ethical state under his leadership than it is currently.
- shashurup 4y agoWhat does make you think so? I have witnesed everything since Brezhnev. Under Gorbachev thing started to detiriorate quite fast and most people shifted their focus from being happy about the iron curtain removal to making ends meet. As a person who lived through all this I would say that the last 20 years were definitely the best from prosperity and happiness point of view (frankly, the latter not being realted to the regime at all)
- bearmode 4y agoBut that's just objectively false?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jjallen 4y agoHe seems like the least bad of the Soviet/Russian rulers and that's why he's revered. Compared with the rest he's a shining star because the others are/were so bad. At least he only sent tanks in to suppress peaceful protests and killed a few people in a handful of EE countries and not all of the Eastern Bloc.
- euroderf 4y agoGorby came to DC for a summit with Reagan in December 1987. When his motorcade stopped to meet folks on the street, he was absolutely mobbed. I remember the news coverage (WashPost et al.) expressing surprise and bafflement. I think the power structure in the US did not expect such an outpouring of obvious hunger from the man on the street for an end to all the Cold War madness. "More popular than Reagan ?!" Mikhail Gorbachev requiet in pacem.
- fadesibert 4y agoTrivial pedantry - but the phrase is more commonly _requiescat in pace_ pacem would be the accusative[0] vs the ablative[1] - the difference being him being peaceful in rest, vs his rest being peaceful. Nonetheless, I echo your sentiment. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_case [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablative_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablative_case
- euroderf 4y agoI stand corrected ! "Requiet in pacem" is what I usually see on teh interwebz, which proves absolutely nothing. FWIW I quit Latin in 10th grade.
- joshthecynic 4y ago
- bearmode 4y agoGreat news. Utterly terrible man. Ruined Russia.
- livinglist 4y agoHow many lives were ruined by Russia?
- tux37 4y agoi'm very sad, he was a great man, brought freedom to millions of people. hopefully his death will have a positive effect in russia.
- blackhaz 4y agoPiece of shit Gorbachev has openly supported the annexation of Crimea. He is one of the factors contributing to the current war.
- euroderf 4y agoGlasnost (гласность) and perestroika (перестройка) were two great ideas that the USA would benefit from too.
- avgcorrection 4y agoThis thread is effectively a eulogy to a Russian in the name of Cold War-inspired West >>> East ideology.
- adultSwim 4y agoGood riddance. The West heavily built him up, but that positive opinion is not universally shared by the peoples he oversaw.