4 ms·

It's easy to argue that it's USSR people, not Western, who benefited most from the end of the Cold War.

by avmich 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago
Are you responding to the right comment? That's sort of unrelated to the GP's remark (that Ronald Reagan can be credited with ending the Cold War). (It's also hard to assert that generally: Russia is by many metrics worse off than it was under the USSR, while most of the rest of Central and Eastern Europe is better off.)
- avmich 4y ago
  > Are you responding to the right comment? I was adding to your comment, perhaps too tangentially - the GP remark may suggest that USA benefited more than USSR. > It's also hard to assert that generally: Russia is by many metrics worse off than it was under the USSR Economical, cultural, political environment were greatly improved as the direct consequences of the end of the Cold War, up until ~2010, so I'm not sure why do you think the Russia is worse off. What metrics do you choose?
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    My bad! I understand now. > What metrics do you choose? I was thinking of life expectancy and the generally high overall mortality rate in Russia, some of which is attributable to rising alcoholism. But it looks like their life expectancy has also improved somewhat over the last decade, so I can't claim that unequivocally.
romwell 4y ago
Some did, some didn't, the way it happened. The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. 30 years later, we can see how the people who were in charge of the USSR are the reason if fell apart: because they are still running Russia, and are running it into the ground (Putin, Shoigu, Lavrov, etc are all USSR apparatchiks). Thieves and criminals, the whole lot of them. The USSR ate itself, because it didn't succeed in figuring out a way to refresh the power structures. And so that fish rotted starting from its head.
- avmich 4y ago
  > The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. We may almost always wish things were better than they actually were. For example, USA went through a minor recession at the end of the Cold War - was it necessary? In case of USSR things could be much worse - some argue we pass now through the violent ending of that Cold War, in a form of actual "hot" war, partially because some Soviet people didn't reflect enough on the events of XX century.
  - romwell 4y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20, sure, but the 90s were a time where a lot of people didn't have anything to eat, a time where everyone's life savings turned to dust overnight, a time where many people ended up homeless, a time where highly educated people became unemployed without warning (or couldn't get salaries for years on end) and were better off sweeping streets than working at science institutes... And that set a basis for Putin being revered in early 2000s for bringing in "stability". The war in Ukraine is an outgrowth of that.
    - avmich 4y ago
      > but the 90s were a time where a lot of people didn't have anything to eat, a time where True, it was a quite big transformation of lives for everybody - fortunately without a major civil war, though with many lesser wars in less centralized regions. Yet the result was an improvement on average, in Russia it started to feel in 1999, and even earlier in Baltic countries. Wouldn't be sure about Asian countries though.
      - romwell 4y ago
        Sure, but 8 years of turmoil without a "major" civil war (but two Chechen wars with massive destruction and causlties) is a very, very low bar.
- 4y ago

It's easy to argue that it's USSR people, not Western, who benefited most from the end of the Cold War.

by avmich 4y ago

It's easy to argue that it's USSR people, not Western, who benefited most from the end of the Cold War.

Are you responding to the right comment? That's sort of unrelated to the GP's remark (that Ronald Reagan can be credited with ending the Cold War). (It's also hard to assert that generally: Russia is by many metrics worse off than it was under the USSR, while most of the rest of Central and Eastern Europe is better off.)

avmich 4y ago
> Are you responding to the right comment? I was adding to your comment, perhaps too tangentially - the GP remark may suggest that USA benefited more than USSR. > It's also hard to assert that generally: Russia is by many metrics worse off than it was under the USSR Economical, cultural, political environment were greatly improved as the direct consequences of the end of the Cold War, up until ~2010, so I'm not sure why do you think the Russia is worse off. What metrics do you choose?
- woodruffw 4y ago
  My bad! I understand now. > What metrics do you choose? I was thinking of life expectancy and the generally high overall mortality rate in Russia, some of which is attributable to rising alcoholism. But it looks like their life expectancy has also improved somewhat over the last decade, so I can't claim that unequivocally.

romwell 4y ago

Some did, some didn't, the way it happened. The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. 30 years later, we can see how the people who were in charge of the USSR are the reason if fell apart: because they are still running Russia, and are running it into the ground (Putin, Shoigu, Lavrov, etc are all USSR apparatchiks). Thieves and criminals, the whole lot of them. The USSR ate itself, because it didn't succeed in figuring out a way to refresh the power structures. And so that fish rotted starting from its head.

avmich 4y ago
> The Cold War wasn't a good thing, but it didn't have to end with the dissolution of the USSR, and the dissolution of the USSR didn't have to end with a coup, followed by chaos, which nevertheless kept all the appartchiks in charge. We may almost always wish things were better than they actually were. For example, USA went through a minor recession at the end of the Cold War - was it necessary? In case of USSR things could be much worse - some argue we pass now through the violent ending of that Cold War, in a form of actual "hot" war, partially because some Soviet people didn't reflect enough on the events of XX century.
- romwell 4y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20, sure, but the 90s were a time where a lot of people didn't have anything to eat, a time where everyone's life savings turned to dust overnight, a time where many people ended up homeless, a time where highly educated people became unemployed without warning (or couldn't get salaries for years on end) and were better off sweeping streets than working at science institutes... And that set a basis for Putin being revered in early 2000s for bringing in "stability". The war in Ukraine is an outgrowth of that.
  - avmich 4y ago
    > but the 90s were a time where a lot of people didn't have anything to eat, a time where True, it was a quite big transformation of lives for everybody - fortunately without a major civil war, though with many lesser wars in less centralized regions. Yet the result was an improvement on average, in Russia it started to feel in 1999, and even earlier in Baltic countries. Wouldn't be sure about Asian countries though.
    - romwell 4y ago
      Sure, but 8 years of turmoil without a "major" civil war (but two Chechen wars with massive destruction and causlties) is a very, very low bar.
4y ago