Writes Anne Applebaum, in "Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion/Almost nobody has ever had such a profound impact on an era, while understanding so little about it" (The Atlantic).
३१ ऑगस्ट, २०२२
"But once glasnost became official policy, once Soviet citizens could talk about whatever they wanted to talk about, factory efficiency was not their first choice of topic."
"Nor did they want to rescue the sinking ship of socialism. Instead, there was an explosion of debate and discussion about the past, about the history of mass arrests and mass murders, about the Gulag and Soviet political prisons. Historical accounts, memoirs and diaries that had been hidden in desk drawers, raced off the printing presses and became best sellers. Newspapers printed stories of sleaze and mismanagement in the economy, politics, culture, and everything else. Calls for the creation of a different kind of society, a more democratic society, a more law-abiding society, began immediately.... Contrary to the retrospective Putinist historiography now prevalent in Russia, the glasnost era was a creative, exciting, hopeful time for millions of people, even millions of Russians. Gorbachev seemed bewildered, and no wonder. Having lived much of his life at the top of the Soviet nomenklatura, he never understood the depth of cynicism in his own country or the depth of anger in the occupied Soviet satellite states, most of whose inhabitants rejected even the reformed communism of his youth: They didn’t want the Prague Spring; they wanted to join Western Europe...."
Writes Anne Applebaum, in "Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion/Almost nobody has ever had such a profound impact on an era, while understanding so little about it" (The Atlantic).
Writes Anne Applebaum, in "Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion/Almost nobody has ever had such a profound impact on an era, while understanding so little about it" (The Atlantic).
Tags:
Anne Applebaum,
communism,
free speech,
Gorbachev,
Putin,
Russia
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"What he set in motion"? He just happened to be the guy in charge when world events overtook the USSR, led by Reagan and Waleska. Gorby was more observer than actor. Not surprised the dumb Applebaum is flogging the commie line instead. DNC media sucks.
By the way what came first? Polish strikers? "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!"? Glasnost? Do they even know?
Gorbachev ended the Cold War by losing it.
Much like Biden ended the Afghan war.
Yet somehow history will celebrate them. It is good to have accomplices write the history.
Well, China certainly learned the lesson.
Writes Anne Applebaum, in "Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion/Almost nobody has ever had such a profound impact on an era, while understanding so little about it" (The Atlantic).
===========
cue in FJB and Ukraine
Can you imagine if we in America were able to tell the truth about what is coming down the pike?? Enjoy the downfall they have coming for us all....https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/california-urges-avoiding-charging-electric-cars-ward-off-blackouts-heatwave-state-loses-solar-power-sun-goes/
Well, China certainly learned the lesson.
Reagan set this in motion. Gorbacev was forced to it.
Just like our media is being forced into covering the corruption and failure of the current Biden regime.
They are trying to censor the truth just like the Soviet Union did. But Trump is there just like Reagan, and the statists/communists are reacting to Trump he way they reacted to Reagan.
The obvious parallels between the corrupt Soviet regime and the Corrupt Biden regime are obvious.
The Biden Regime and it's supporters are enemies of freedom and truth.
"Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion"
He didn't set anything in motion.
Nobody else realized what he set in motion--not really.
Yes, we won the Cold War, but then--Who Lost Russia?
Honest question, actually: was Vlad preventable?
I had a chance to meet him in 2006 at a WMD proliferation conference (of all places). Seemed like a nice guy. Too nice. I can't help but feel there was some lingering disappointment or shame over the CCCP's implosion...his reputation in his home country has never recovered no matter what people say his impact was.
A woman walks into a food store. "Do you have any meat?"
"No, we don't."
"What about milk?"
"We only deal with meat. Across the street there's a store where they have no milk."
"Gorbachev ended the Cold War like Robert E Lee ended the Civil War."
I did a quick scan...didn't see the names 'Reagan' or 'Thatcher' anywhere...
Not mine, but plagiarized with admiration: Gorbachev ended the Cold War the same way Bobby Lee and Jeff Davis ended the Civil War.
They didn’t want the Prague Spring; they wanted to join Western Europe....
The history of the last thirty years shows that clearly wasn't true at all. Or at least, Russians may have wanted the benefits of Western civilization, but they weren't willing to take on the responsibilities.
Sebastian- I believe that Vlad was preventable. In an attempt to help Russia transition to a free enterprise economy we sent two classes of people;
1) Experts from Harvard et al who had never run a business in their lives and who hated the free enterprise system
2) Hucksters who knew the free enterprise system only too well and who taught the Russians how to maximize graft
The best and the brightest strike once again.
Nixon and Kissinger put it in motion by splitting off the Chi Coms from the Soviets. Trilateral diplomacy. Reagan fucked it up by arming Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
I really enjoyed Applebaum's book on the Central/Eastern European countries as they became Communist after WW II. She went to a lot of trouble to talk to survivors and go through archives, to establish many local differences between countries and even parts of countries. The Commies weren't so stupid as to make everything "the same," especially when they headed West.
Now I think Applebaum exaggerates the extent to which the "good" people in Europe all want to join NATO, Putin joins Trump as the Devil incarnate, etc.
One story about the fall of the Soviet regime emphasizes Reagan, Thatcher, and the Pope. A somewhat different story emphasizes Gorbachev, Welesa, and Havel. Somehow the Helsinki Accords, signed by President Ford in 1975 in the face of intense criticism, while showing for the first time that the West recognized borders imposed by the Soviets, also opened up dialogues about human rights in all countries, including the Soviet Union. This became part of the demand for change. I haven't seen the movie based on the life of Andrei Sakharov, but reading all this makes me want to. He designed nukes for the Soviets, he did hard or real physics, he publicly opposed nuclear proliferation, became a human-rights advocate, etc.
Applebaum is right, but lately everything that she says is a little suspect, given her swallowing today's regime propaganda whole. I don't think there's much debate or discussion or denial about how "creative" and "exciting" the Gorbachev years might have been for Russia. It's more that Russians don't really want "creative" and "exciting" right now, and certainly not what Western journalists would understand those words to mean.
As for "hopeful," haven't we all been there? It hurts to remember early hopes that were never realized. People don't want to go through that again. Applebaum sees the cynicism in Gorbachev's Russia, but doesn't understand that Russians (and others) have the same cynicism about her own vision of what the world should be. Her enthusiasm for a borderless world with much excitement for borderless journalists isn't widely shared outside her own circle.
Only a bureaucrat would think people would want to prop up the state instead of be interested in how it affected them as individuals.
He just died and she presumes to think he never realized what he did? GTFO
No fan of the Soviet Union here, but Applebaum is a war monger of the first degree. We created Putin with our own sleazy propping up of easily corruptable Yeltsin.
"Having lived much of his life at the top of the Soviet nomenklatura, he never understood the depth of cynicism in his own country..."
Sidwell Friends School,
Yale,
London School of Economics.
Someone should give the lady a fucking mirror.
To the Globalists and the Deep State, I'm afraid glasnost is a cautionary tale.
"Contrary to the retrospective Putinist historiography now prevalent in Russia, the glasnost era was a creative, exciting, hopeful time for millions of people, even millions of Russians. Gorbachev seemed bewildered, and no wonder. Having lived much of his life at the top of the Soviet nomenklatura, he never understood the depth of cynicism in his own country or the depth of anger in the occupied Soviet satellite states, most of whose inhabitants rejected even the reformed communism of his youth: They didn’t want the Prague Spring; they wanted to join Western Europe...."
Herein is yet another danger inherent to socialism: isolation of the new 1% from the concerns of the underclass. My guess is that it was also true of most of the plain folk in Mother Russia, too.
Lance said...
[They didn’t want the Prague Spring; they wanted to join Western Europe....]
"The history of the last thirty years shows that clearly wasn't true at all. Or at least, Russians may have wanted the benefits of Western civilization, but they weren't willing to take on the responsibilities."
This. Russians who had come to rely on whatever the State deigned to hand them, meager and unreliable as it was, weren't accustomed to take ownership of their new freedoms, much less what it would take to preserve them.
@Rabel
I noticed that phase and thought about exactly the same thing
Arming the Afghan rebels started under Carter. It was bipartisan.
Exactly Rabel!! We need to start passing out mirrors.
Yeah Carter sent Enfield rifles to the Afghans with the budget of under a million dollars. Ronald Reagan sent stinger missiles to the tune of 600 million per year.
https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/russia-and-ukraine-came-to-peace
Don’t get your hopes up by the title.
Not mine, but plagiarized with admiration: Gorbachev ended the Cold War the same way Bobby Lee and Jeff Davis ended the Civil War.
Exactly. The best that can be said about Gorbachev is that he kept the suffering and violence when the USSR began to crumble to a minimum. That's no small thing.
However the Cold War was ended by Reagan, Thatcher, JPII, and Walesa.
Yeah Carter sent Enfield rifles to the Afghans with the budget of under a million dollars. Ronald Reagan sent stinger missiles to the tune of 600 million per year.
In other words, Carter opted for symbolism over effectiveness, and Reagan didn't.
LOL
Howard sharing his "historical" "insights".
This should be hilarious.
Howard: "Nixon and Kissinger put it in motion by splitting off the Chi Coms from the Soviets. Trilateral diplomacy. Reagan fucked it up by arming Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban."
LOL
Team Dem is currently racing to give the Mad Mullahs of Tehran nuclear weapons...and plenty of extra cash so they can buy even more "stuff" from Putin and the ChiComs.
All are purchasers and part owners of the Biden clan.
And the Taliban is sitting pretty with enough weapons from Biden to supply an entire army along with...what else, lots of extra cash!
Hey Howard, do you think maybe you dems could cool it for a bit with the piles and pallets of cash for your islamic supremacist close allies?
'Ronald Reagan sent stinger missiles to the tune of 600 million per year.'
You give a fuck about spending taxpayer money?
Pull the other one...
Smart lady, repeating almost everything I've said about Gorbachev.
Last night I saw a Russian Pizza Hut commercial made in the 90s(?) that ends with him being applauded by all the happy shiny diners, even the crusty reactionary.
Good times.
Gorby was a fool. That is fortunate for us and the Russian people. The Soviet Union was on a war economy since it's inception and that could not be kept up indefinitely. He had three real choices: 1-continue as is and let the Soviet Union face economic failure over time. 2- accept reality that the Soviet economy could not keep up with the West and scale down the military spending drastically and divert the spending to the civilian economy and give Communism was last chance to "work" by reaching a level of relatively comfortable poverty with actual slow but real increase in the standard of living. 3- go the Chinese route to largely privatize the economy with strict political control by the politburo. The one thing Gorby should not have done if he was really into preserving the Soviet Union was doing what he did.
Russian has never been a truly democratic country and has always been a corrupt system, from the Tsars to the Communists to Putin. There was no way to prevent the outright banditry of the state enterprises by former Soviet officials and we should have never gotten involved in the transition other than eliminating a significant number of WMD's along with not being unnecessarily provocative in the early 90's. Putin or someone like Putin would have arisen in any of the scenarios as that is the Russian way.
Read Oleg Atbashian. Both books. It's more horrifying than you can imagine. And he's about my age.
I agree Drago. The left wing of the Davos billionaires attitude towards Iran is problematic. Although on the bright side it's probably going to get netanyahu reelected.
Now we have given Russia the "shock therapy" of learning to live without the US dollar; forced them to learn it. Forced a shotgun marriage of Russia and China, and have driven India and Iran into their arms.
Sounds JUST like America today. The Republicans are becoming political prisoners because of a stolen election, and the barbarians ARE in the WH.
Like Lurker21, I think you need to take the perspective of her writing into account. She's not wrong that Gorbachev appears to have been taken by surprise by the unintended (by him) consequences of his changes. I was reading another quote of his, maybe at Powerline, about how he decided that he needed to gather a committee of experts to work on the problem of supplying women pantyhose(!) in a country that was capable of launching satellites and space stations.
Powerline's Steve Hayward posted some clips of the Russian transcripts of Reagan Gorbachev talking at the Reykjavik summit (more complete transcripts than are available from the US State Department) that show Gorbachev was either a completely cynical actor just mouthing his lines or, more likely given how he thought he could fix panty hose shortages, a true believer who could not conceive that an alternate method of social, political, and economic organization existed and might be preferred to Communism.
A former Army intelligence analyst of 20+ years explained the problem of Russia to me back in the 1990s. He said that the KGB was an amazing institution, as it was self-propagating in design and function, and would spread without end in controlling and corrupting other people, institutions, governments, and countries. And the leadership of the KGB, he insisted, were some of the most capable people in Russia. Yes, "capable," rather than "educated" or "elite." There is a difference there that is important.
So when the USSR fell apart, the KGB leadership continued their institutional self-propagation, only changing the small detail that now they served themselves, not the USSR. From this we got former KGB oligarchs who appropriated entire industrial sectors of the old USSR to themselves, and Putin, who took the entire country. Think of Russia as a criminal mob with competent leadership, and nobody to stop them.
"Think of Russia as a criminal mob with competent leadership, and nobody to stop them."
But their problems are all the West's fault! I mean, they were utterly helpless before Jeffery Sachs and other Western experts, who rampaged through the lands exploiting their innocence and good faith.
Right? Right?
The issue of Western economic expertise is one of my hobby-horses. The cheap and conventional wisdom is that the Russians sought out Western advice--sensible enough to do--and that they then followed that advice, slavishly as it were. If scholarship has proven that Russia's economic woes are due to bad advice rather than to Russian ethnic-national character and history, I haven't seen it.
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