Posted on 05/04/2007 8:48:35 PM PDT by james500
Russia's Parliament has voted to restore the communist-era hammer and sickle to the official flag of the Russian Army.
It is expect President Vladimir Putin will ratify the move in time for next week's commemorations marking the end of World War II in Europe.
If so, Russians will again have the Soviet version of the victory banner for next week's Victory in Europe parade in Moscow.
For many Russians, especially the elderly, its symbolism is immense.
The red banner, together with the hammer, sickle and a white star, was the one raised on the Reichstag roof on May 1, 1945.
Millions of people all over the world know that photograph, but in Russia its significance is much deeper, with the Soviet victory over fascism in World War II remaining something seen in almost religious terms.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
The Berlin Wall came down largely due to two events: 1) Hungary removed border restrictions with Austria, and East German tourists began travelling to Austria via Hungary; and 2) returning from Austria, East Germans began demonstrating against Honecker, who was replaced by Krenz.
I don’t think most of those East Germans heard Reagan’s speech.
Don’t you know, it wasn’t Russians, they had nothing to do with the Soviet Union, they were only its innocent victims. Europe was liberated by Georgians, Ukrainians and Balts.
That is the total Soviet population, and may be underestimated, based on archival research.
The number of Ukrainians killed is 10 million, plus another 2.5 million taken as slave labour, most of whom died in Germany.
About 600,000 died in the Baltics.
1 in 4 Belarussians were killed by the Germans - around 3.5 million.
About 6 million Russians died.
The balance are from the remaining Soviet republics.
Watch for a new party (maybe not labeled Communist) and a new politburo with Putin as the head. When he steps down as president he’ll still hold all the power as head of the new politburo (or whatever they call it) and the president will just be a figurehead.
Czar Vladimir the first.
I am glad that the Eastern Europeans disagree with you.
"He is the one who allowed the breakup of the Soviet Union. May God rest his soul," said Bogdan Chireac, a foreign affairs analyst for the Romanian newspaper Adevarul.
"Mr. Reagan, along with Pope John Paul II, was one of the architects who dismantled communism in eastern Europe and stopped the expansion of the Soviet Union," said Ivo Samson, an analyst with the Slovak Foreign Policy Association.
"For us, Reagan was important because we knew he was really anticommunist, emotionally anticommunist," said Zdenek Kosina, 65, a Czech. "For us, he was a symbol of the United States' genuine determination to bring communism to an end."
Laurentiu Ivan, 35, a customs officer in the Romanian capital, struggled to describe Reagan's legacy and then said: "It is due to him that we are free."
Do you believe a member of the nomenklatura, closely tied with Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, and the policies of so called “glasnost’” and “perestroika” is going to admit the USSR collapsed because people no longer were willing to live like animals or accept these contrived polices?
The KGB analytic department was tracking the decline of the Soviet economy for decades. I lived in the USSR (the spouse of a Soviet citizen) for part of the Reagan administration and for the year before the collapse. This is also in accordance with analyses of COMECON stats by Western specialists, though frankly, they underestimated the problem, which was revealed completely after the collapse of the USSR.
Incidentally, Gerasimov is on trial for money laundering and theft of state property.
I guess she had nothing to do with it either?
No, she didn’t.
So called “glasnost’” and “perestroika” were planned before Reagan or Thatcher even took office.
Gorbachev was handpicked by Andropov to succeed him (Andropov died too early to have consolidated his forces to appoint Gorbachev).
You can google until the cows come home. I have a graduate degree in Soviet studies. I lived in the USSR during parts of those times, the spouse of a Soviet citizen. I learned how to read Soviet papers to discern the truth. I have family members who spent time in Soviet gulags. My FIL was a dissident, jailed for over 15 years. One thing I know well, learned from a spouse who was taught well by my FIL, is how communists think.
The external world had little influence on Soviet mentality, other than to buttress the view that “we are about to be attacked”. There were far more pressing domestic issues to deal with which drove Soviet policy than anything emanating from the West.
Oh please. Why not post Sinyavsky and Daniel, too?
When I was in grad school, I claimed they were KGB agents. Having lived in the USSR, I said something was just too “neat” about their trials. My prof, reputedly a CIA agent, disagreed vehemently.
Fast forward to the early 1990’s. The archives are released. Surprise surprise. The Sinyavsky and Daniel trial was a KGB designed action.
Want to google some quotes about Sharansky’s role as a hut captain?
Oh, so Reagan caused the collapse of the world oil market. HAHAHA.
Solidarnosc would not have come off the ground had Pope John Paul II not endorsed it by telling Poles they had nothing to fear. It was after John Paul’s visit that millions joined Solidarnosc.
Cash had no impact on Solidarnosc’s success. Poland was an impetus because, unlike other parts of the USSR, once Solidarnosc was formed, workers united with the intelligentsia. That had never happened anywhere else in the Soviet bloc. Ever. Soviet dissidents were largely failed communists. Only a couple (Bukovsky, for one) were not trying to be “better communists”. They held the working class in contempt. And that is why such a movement was never formed in the USSR. The first person in the USSR to “speak” normally to the working man was Yeltsin.
As for the rest, nobody knew what was “vital” to the Soviet economy. This is a nice theory, but you know what? All those analytics in the CIA and military intelligence were taken completely by surprise by the collapse of the USSR.
What, exactly, does that tell you about American intelligence operations? I can’t blame them - totalitarian states are virtually impossible to infiltrate.
that should read “unlike other parts of the Eastern bloc”, not the USSR.
Very ugly things, it seemed. The study concluded that while a cut in oil prices would boost U.S. economic welfare, the same cut would have a "devastating effect on the Soviet economy," in the words of one former Reagan adviser. In fact, Reagan National Security Adviser Bill Clark told Schweizer that "Ronald Reagan was fully aware that energy exports represented the centerpiece of Moscow's hard-currency earnings." The energy-export industry was working at full capacity. A drop in price, and the Russians were badly lamed.
Soon U.S. officials were huddling in Geneva with the Saudi oil adviser, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani. Following the meeting, the United States announced it was cutting its oil imports from 220,000 barrels per day to 145,000 barrels. In late February, the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, met with senior U.S. officials, including Casey and Weinberger, according to former Reagan officials who were involved.
Abruptly, the Saudis boosted production of oil, resulting in lower world prices. By August 1985, Saudi production jumped from 2 billion barrels a day to 9 billion. Since Saudi Arabia was the swing producer in OPEC, which used its production levels to control the market price of crude, the effect was instantaneous. In Russia, the effect was calamitous...
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