R.I.P Gorbachev - the greatest leader of the second half of the 20th Century

LazyLemonLucas · Aug 31, 2022

A man who had great ambitions for his country, some might say even too idealist... I can't forget his patriotism and his real love for the PEOPLE not the COUNTRY. However, they didn't feel the same way and wanted to break apart. That was through their given volition and I'm sure Gorbachev would've had expected that when he initiated glasnost.

LazyLemonLucas · Aug 31, 2022

deaf tuner said:
You suspect right.

Idk why (maybe it's too close in time, maybe because the "communism", maybe because Russia/URSS is a land power) we don't realize that Russia/URSS was an colonial Empire, in a lot of aspects very similar to the British Empire from two-three centuries ago.

It was inconsistent with their governing systems, as they moved across different forms of democracy, autocracy, and communism. But really there were a federal state, all in all.

deaf tuner · Aug 31, 2022

LazyLemonLucas said:
It was inconsistent with their governing systems, as they moved across different forms of democracy, autocracy, and communism. But really there were a federal state, all in all.

Unless I miss-read You, I disagree. It isn't either consistent, either inconsistent as imperialism and colonialism have nothing to do with governing systems. Just one example: France was an imperialist and colonialist power and as monarchy and as a republic.

URSS retained the Tzarist imperialist/colonialist heritage (or mindset, if You prefer) as RF resuscitated it soon after the dismantling of URSS.

LazyLemonLucas said:
However, they didn't feel the same way and wanted to break apart.

Agreed.

Olleus said:
The true idealist doesn't even get over the first hurdle, but few people truly get over the second, most only accept it as a bothersome necessity. Gorbachev was one of the few who did both, even from a position of power where he didn't have to.

A French diplomate in a radio interview on Gorbatchev : " Gorbatchev was putting peace before his position (function)"

Yury · Aug 31, 2022

starman said:
I'd be reluctant to characterize someone who dismantles the state he governs and throws in the towel as "great." Gorby felt there was no choice; the communist system had failed and was falling behind the west. True, but was there really no alternative to capitulation? Around the same time China was relatively poor and backward, yet while adopting capitalism it retained its government and gradually became rich and powerful.

there was a big difference between USSR and China at the time. USSR was a multinational empire and China was a nation-state. As an empire, USSR couldn't develop as China did. The smart people in the Soviet leadership, including Gorbachev, realized that, but there were not so many of them. The empire collapse took down the whole system and chaos ensued, unlike in China where Communists presided over orderly capitalist reforms.

Yury · Aug 31, 2022

deaf tuner said:
You suspect right.

Idk why (maybe it's too close in time, maybe because the "communism", maybe because Russia/URSS is a land power) we don't realize that Russia/URSS was an colonial Empire, in a lot of aspects very similar to the British Empire from two-three centuries ago.

I would rather say that USSR, as Russia before, was more similar to Roman Empire. Britts allowed more autonomy to their colonies (except in Africa), and all they wanted was to control their trade.

Yury · Aug 31, 2022

AlpinLuke said:
Probably it was about Communism.

Socialism and Communism, by definition, don't give importance to nationality and a Socialist union of republics was obviously a system where all the inhabitants were "mates" [and workers].
At least this was the ideological perspective ...

Maybe by definition but not in practice. Ethnic Russians dominated the central government, security services, economy, and army. In ethnic regions locals were put in charge, at least formally, for the price of total loyalty to Moscow.

robto · Aug 31, 2022

Olleus said:
Whether hindsight tells us (and we'll only know in a few decades) whether Gorbachev did the right things, you've got to admire his convictions. Someone in a position of real power who is willing to put the welfare of the average person on the street above his own desire for glory, who prioritises real freedoms above abstract imperial status-chasing, is rare indeed. He was great in precisely the way the despots of that thread were not. That's not to say that he wasn't without his flaws, and that de-soviet-ification couldn't have been done better, but he was remarkable nonetheless.

It's all of that, but he just ended up failing. His policies triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was something he surely didn't want.

robto · Aug 31, 2022

Yury said:
there was a big difference between USSR and China at the time. USSR was a multinational empire and China was a nation-state. As an empire, USSR couldn't develop as China did. The smart people in the Soviet leadership, including Gorbachev, realized that, but there were not so many of them. The empire collapse took down the whole system and chaos ensued, unlike in China where Communists presided over orderly capitalist reforms.

China is not, and was not a nation-state.

robto · Aug 31, 2022

deaf tuner said:
Are You sure he threw in the towel?

Ate You sure he capitulated ?

The collapse of the USSR was a capitulating event.

Yury · Aug 31, 2022

robto said:
It's all of that, but he just ended up failing. His policies triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was something he surely didn't want.

Gorbachev wasn't a visionary but a tinkerer. He understood that the system isn't working and tried to fix it in a bold way. It is possible that he envisioned USSR as a commonwealth connected economically and culturally, but not politically. This model was tried after him but it didn't work.

Yury · Aug 31, 2022

robto said:
China is not, and was not a nation-state.

I disagree with that. China has a large Han majority (92% of the mainland's population)

AlpinLuke · Aug 31, 2022

Yury said:
Maybe by definition but not in practice. Ethnic Russians dominated the central government, security services, economy, and army. In ethnic regions locals were put in charge, at least formally, for the price of total loyalty to Moscow.

In my questionable opinion, historically you are right. Even if we consider the "class matter", in reality the member of the Communist Party were members of a superior social class. This has been in common with substantially all one party dictatorship [leftist or rightist]. I could mention the Fascist regime as a comparison.

Obviously Fascists weren't Socialist [but "Social"!]. They suggested a third way based of "corporations" [not what they intend in English, but organizations of workers and businessmen of the same economic sector], but at the end if you were a member of the Fascist Party you were member of the elite social class in Italy.

AlpinLuke · Aug 31, 2022

Yury said:
Gorbachev wasn't a visionary but a tinkerer. He understood that the system isn't working and tried to fix it in a bold way. It is possible that he envisioned USSR as a commonwealth connected economically and culturally, but not politically. This model was tried after him but it didn't work.

About this, you make me think to his education.
"Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв" [I like to copy and past his Russian name here] studied right and agrarian economy.
He joined the Communist Party while he was at the beginning of his career as a student, but anyway he got two degrees.
This could suggest that when he was young he was more a researcher than a politician. And actually he has been "overtaken" in the party by others.
I even can imagine that the Party's establishment left him lead the country because he was the expendable one.

But this is just a supposition.

Yury · Aug 31, 2022

AlpinLuke said:
In my questionable opinion, historically you are right. Even if we consider the "class matter", in reality the member of the Communist Party were members of a superior social class. This has been in common with substantially all one party dictatorship [leftist or rightist]. I could mention the Fascist regime as a comparison.

Obviously Fascists weren't Socialist [but "Social"!]. They suggested a third way based of "corporations" [not what they intend in English, but organizations of workers and businessmen of the same economic sector], but at the end if you were a member of the Fascist Party you were member of the elite social class in Italy.

In late history all totalitarian regimes (socialist or fascist) had to adopt some elements of fascism, ethnic domination in particular. That didn't depend on the leaders' ethnicity. Georgian Stalin called himself "truly Russian" and Croat Tito (so he had a Serbian mother) relied on Serbs.

robto · Aug 31, 2022

Yury said:
I disagree with that. China has a large Han majority (92% of the mainland's population)

And the category of Han has little meaning in real life and the cultural reality of China. The cultural and linguistic differences between a Cantonese speaker from Guangdong and a Mandarin speaker from Heilongjiang, are just as big as the difference between a Sicilian and a French-speaking Belgian, and way bigger than the difference between an ethnic Russian, and an ethnic Ukrainian.
And that's without even counting the non-Han minorities who occupy vast swats of China's territory.

AlpinLuke · Aug 31, 2022

robto said:
And the category of Han has little meaning in real life and the cultural reality of China. The cultural and linguistic differences between a Cantonese speaker from Guangdong and a Mandarin speaker from Heilongjiang, are just as big as the difference between a Sicilian and a French-speaking Belgian, and way bigger than the difference between an ethnic Russian, and an ethnic Ukrainian.
And that's without even counting the non-Han minorities who occupy vast swats of China's territory.

About this, my experience with Chinese firms tells that you're right.
But it's just my experience, of course.

The main problem is that "Han" is like to say "Roman" in the imperial age, when the Roman Empire conceded the citizenship to all the free men living on its territory ...
... so "Han" indicates the descendants of who lived in the Han empire, not exactly an ethnic group.

deaf tuner · Aug 31, 2022

robto said:
The collapse of the USSR was a capitulating event.

I'm not sure what would be a "capitulating event".

Besides that, I was talking about the collapse of the URSS but challenging the opinion that the collapse of URSS should be imputed to Gorbatchev. It's false.

robto · Aug 31, 2022

deaf tuner said:
I'm not sure what would be a "capitulating event".

It capitulated to the western-style form of government and economy. The West-centered US "empire" won the Cold War.

deaf tuner said:
Besides that, I was talking about the collapse of the URSS but challenging the opinion that the collapse of URSS should be imputed to Gorbatchev. It's false.

The USSR was on the slow road to collapse by the time Brejnev died. Gorbachev wanted to give it a new life but ended up causing a fatal heart attack. He failed.

RandomRodent · Aug 31, 2022

robto said:
It capitulated to the western-style form of government and economy. The West-centered US "empire" won the Cold War.

The USSR was on the slow road to collapse by the time Brejnev died. Gorbachev wanted to give it a new life but ended up causing a fatal heart attack. He failed.

I would disagree. It was the August Coup plotters who gave the USSR its mortal heart attack. Whether Gorbachev commanded the authority to hold the USSR together without the coup will always be an open question but the putsch radically undermined his authority while at the same time leaving him standing as the sole person with a legitimate right to government in the Soviet system. With his authority gone the USSR swiftly collapsed but that was the immediate fault of the ..... traitors not Gorbachev.

deaf tuner · Aug 31, 2022

robto said:
It's all of that, but he just ended up failing. His policies triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was something he surely didn't want.

Yes, he failed. But are You sure about "His policies triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union"? I mean, it's like saying the Tanzimat triggered the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

His reforms came just too late. He tried "a last chance" remedy. And as it's real life, usually it doesn't work, inspire what Hollywood movies try to convince us.

robto said:
Gorbachev wanted to give it a new life but ended up causing a fatal heart attack. He failed.

Honestly, I find it odd how other factors (as Yeltsin, for example) are totally ignored.

__________
Anecdotal, on the early '80s in the commie east (worth what it's worth) and the "atmosphere". A joke:

"How did Lenin died?"
"He was assassinated"

"And how Kennedy died?"
"He was assassinated too"

"You see it's possible?"

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R.I.P Gorbachev - the greatest leader of the second half of the 20th Century

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