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From any realistic humanitarian perspective, the fall of the Soviet Union was a horrific crisis that resulted in untold amounts of human suffering and poverty.
by jchook 2y ago
From any realistic humanitarian perspective, the fall of the Soviet Union was a horrific crisis that resulted in untold amounts of human suffering and poverty. Russia spiraled into a terrible mess, celebrated by the West.
Perhaps worth noting, shortly after the fall around 1991, Yeltsin hijacked the Russian government and prevented Communists from retaking power. The pattern of events immediately after the fall (and their strong support from the West) raises an eyebrow about how exactly the "collapse" was precipitated.
Yeltsin used self-anointed emergency powers to abolish the Constitutional Court and dissolve parliament. When the people protested, he ordered a military attack on parliament, killing hundreds and jailing hundreds of protesters.
Yeltsin seized control of all broadcast media, banned opposition publications, and permanently outlawed 15 political parties. He ordered assassinations of his political opponents, parliamentary deputies, and journalists.
Yeltsin illegally dissolved the Russian constitution and replaced it with one that gave himself nearly absolute power over policy.
By 1996, he was losing badly in his bid for re-election. A communist candidate was far in the lead.
During re-election, his administration was bankrolled to the tune of $10B by the IMF and World Bank. Even so, he was still trailing the communist candidate by a long shot. So, he threatened civil war, making it clear he would not relinquish power. About half of the country thought there would be a civil war if the communists won. Ultimately, he rigged the vote count, as reported by ABC news in the US.
When he won re-election, Bill Clinton famously lauded the event, saying Russia has "turned its back on tyranny".
- hparadiz 2y agoDon't conflate economic mismanagement with the collapse of an evil empire. For me and my entire family the collapse was a gift that allowed us to finally leave. Staying in character even at the border by stealing what little we had in cash to punish us for leaving. The Soviet Union stole my grandparents and great grandparent's entire life's potential. Forcing them into a life time of servitude to barely scrape by for a shitty Soviet apartment and a shitty car that you needed to wait 10 years to get. It is bafflingly amusing that one would point at any illegality of anything a successor of a Soviet premier does when the reality was that they had absolute power to do whatever they want as is Russian tradition.
- jchook 2y ago[flagged]
- wat10000 2y agoThe fall of the USSR was hugely beneficial to the occupied states in Eastern Europe, as well as several of the member republics. It does not seem to have gone well for Russia, though. That’s probably how it goes when an oppressive empire falls. The core will suffer while the oppressed periphery gets a chance to flourish.
- jchook 2y agoGoogle the perspective of the people-- polls. It's not "hugely beneficial" as you claim. NATO bombed the shit out Yugoslavia shortly after, one part of the world that remained communist. Virtually every remaining communist country was bombed into oblivion or subject to suffocating sanctions.
- wat10000 2y agoYugoslavia was not one of the occupied states. Tito famously liberated the country before the Red Army and told Stalin to go fuck himself. I have no idea what you’re talking about with bombing or sanctions. What formerly occupied Eastern European country suffered this? For that matter, what formerly occupied Eastern European country isn’t wildly better off today than they were in 1989?
- jchook 2y agoFolks want to downvote the facts...
- hparadiz 2y agoYou try to cherry-pick facts to prove that somehow, someway that communism is superior to capitalism. This ignores a century of evidence showing communism has only lead to mass death, mass misery, and poverty in the form of systematic theft and wealth transfer to an elite that the system is somehow meant to prevent. It ignores human nature and the reality that this system enforces economic slavery with little to show for it. The people of that generation were failed by economic mismanagement, both before, and after the fall of the USSR. Instead of the China model of allowing capitalism a slow ramp up while keeping certain things nationalized they instead decided to simply destroy their existing institutions. That is not a failure of capitalism. That is a failure of Russia and of the Russian people and their communist system which instilled a national tradition of corruption the likes of which no western nation has ever seen. No poll is going to change the economic success of China and of Eastern Europe in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain. A downvote with a textual rebuke is the most polite we can be on this topic. Your entire career path as it stands now is a product of western capitalist nations working together for common purpose and for the betterment of mankind. If you had any sense you would be on your hands and knees thanking providence for the luck you had being born in a time and place where you are able to pick and choose your own destiny instead of being shoehorned into a blue collar 8 to 6 factory job refining crude oil for the soviet state or being sent to a front line like those poor North Korean soldiers.
- otwall 2y agoAny time I hear this sort of argument I just have to roll my eyes and point at a map of the Baltics