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Mikhail Gorbachev, Reformist Soviet Leader, Is Dead at 91
New York Times (via MSN.com) ^ | 30 August 2022 | Marilyn Berger

Posted on 08/30/2022 9:41:24 PM PDT by zeestephen

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose rise to power in the Soviet Union set in motion a series of revolutionary changes that transformed the map of Europe and ended the Cold War that had threatened the world with nuclear annihilation, has died in Moscow. [A classic New York Times eulogy. VERY long, but an excellent political history of the USSR from the 1930s to the late 1990s. No NYT pay wall. MSN.com publishes all of it.]

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: 1moretime; again; againandagain; andagainandagain; deadagain; gorbachev; hediesnextyearat92; mikhailgorbachev; mikhailsgorbachev; russia; search; searchworks; sovietunion
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1 posted on 08/30/2022 9:41:24 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

It is my understanding that the CCCP started to fall apart when Lithuania declared independence and Ukraine declared it was going to run Ukraine from Kiev.

The breakup was from the bottom up.


2 posted on 08/30/2022 9:45:48 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin

The ball got rolling with Solidarity in Poland. Encouraged by the Polish Pope, Reagan and Thatcher, that bit of freedom was like acid that rapidly started eating away the totalitarian state


3 posted on 08/30/2022 9:51:13 PM PDT by j.havenfarm (21 years on Free Republic, 12/10/21! More than 5000 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: Brian Griffin
Re: The breakup was from the bottom up.

True - but, only because Gorbachev did not make a Top-Down violent response to stop it.

4 posted on 08/30/2022 9:54:45 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

Chernobyl undermined Soviet elites opinion of themselves as the vanguard of an infallible system.


5 posted on 08/30/2022 9:58:54 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: zeestephen

When Russia missed that 1984 window, and then 1985 passed with still no attack, we knew that Reagan’s military build-up while overtaxing the Russian military and their economy, along with his diplomatic victories, alliances, and those mid-range missiles in Europe, Grenada, his ignoring the massive demonstrations in Europe, his activities in Afghanistan, and Africa, we knew we had a long period of no attack coming for at least a decade, we didn’t know the wall would come down in 1991.


6 posted on 08/30/2022 10:04:10 PM PDT by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: zeestephen

He had very compelling incentives. The Soviet Union was broke and needed loans from the western governments to buy grain or they would starve. These loans came with strings attached.

https://tamilnation.org/intframe/070419collapse_of_soviet_union.pdf

>When the situation in the Soviet Union is examined from financial and hard currency perspectives, Gorbachev’s policies at the time are much easier to comprehend (see figure 6). Government-to-government loans were bound to come with a number of rigid conditions. For instance, if the Soviet military crushed Solidarity Party demonstrations in Warsaw, the Soviet Union would not have received the desperately needed $100 billion from the West. The Socialist bloc was stable when the Soviet Union had the prerogative to
use as much force as necessary to reestablish control, as previously demonstrated in Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. But in 1989 the Polish elites understood that Soviet tanks would not be used to defend the communist government.

>The only option left for the Soviet elites was to begin immediate negotiations about the conditions of surrender. Gorbachev did not have to inform President George H. W. Bush at the Malta Summit in 1989 that the threat of force to support the communist regimes in Eastern Europe would not be employed. This was already evident at the time. Six weeks after the talks, no communist regime in Eastern Europe remained


7 posted on 08/30/2022 10:06:34 PM PDT by Krosan
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To: ansel12

Latin America was a big deal back then also, with Reagan blocking Russian weapon deliveries and doing a lot of military stuff there, it was a time when many a patriotic American was serving as a merc in Africa or Latin America, I forget if guys were finding work in Afghanistan, Rhodesia and South Africa were popular destinations.


8 posted on 08/30/2022 10:08:22 PM PDT by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: zeestephen

And the Devil have him.


9 posted on 08/30/2022 10:29:58 PM PDT by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots. )
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To: Krosan

Re: Government-to-government loans were bound to come with a number of rigid conditions.

Sorry, that is not serious.

The USA delivered Eastern Europe on a silver tray to Joe Stalin in 1945, AFTER the USA had funded almost 100% of the USSR logistical war effort from 1941-1945.


10 posted on 08/30/2022 10:44:35 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Whether real or imagined, Reagan’s vision for a strategic shield to protect the United States from nuclear attack was enough to convince Gorbachev he could not compete neither technologically nor financially buidling such a system. It was a brilliant move by Reagan, and ultimately ended the Cold War, even though the very idea was derided by the intelligentsia.


11 posted on 08/30/2022 10:51:29 PM PDT by Mozzafiato
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To: zeestephen

The late 80s was the West of Reagan, H.W Bush and Thatcher. The issue was as simple as threatening to refuse government-backed loans.


12 posted on 08/30/2022 11:02:49 PM PDT by Krosan
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To: Mozzafiato

the very idea was derided by the intelligentsia.

Funny how that word has come to have an opposite meaning. These are now the dumbest andcmost foolish. Any plumber or auto mechanic would make better decisions than these University trained eggheads.


13 posted on 08/30/2022 11:08:45 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: Mozzafiato
Re: Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.

I disagree.

In 2022, a nuclear armed cruise missile can still defeat every anti-missile system in the world, at least sometimes.

In the 1990s, the USSR could have destroyed NATO in a couple hours with a cruise missile nuclear attack.

The USSR collapsed because Gorbachev made a conscious decision to NOT maintain Soviet control by force of arms.

14 posted on 08/30/2022 11:45:17 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: j.havenfarm
I was at a speech by Lech Walesa and he was asked his opinion of Gorbachev:

"He wanted to save communism and the world was so impressed with his failure they gave him a Nobel Prize."

15 posted on 08/31/2022 4:33:25 AM PDT by nonliberal (Z.)
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To: zeestephen

What a time in history that was.


16 posted on 08/31/2022 4:40:22 AM PDT by Ciexyz (Prayers for America.)
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To: zeestephen

I met him and his daughter once in 2005. Of all places, Manhattan ……………..
………….Kansas.


17 posted on 08/31/2022 4:40:55 AM PDT by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: zeestephen

One final Gorbasm for the NYT.


18 posted on 08/31/2022 6:36:23 AM PDT by Buckeye Battle Cry (Progressivism is socialism. Venezuela is how it ends.)
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To: j.havenfarm
The ball got rolling with Solidarity in Poland.

Started in Poznan in 1956, and Gdansk in 1970.

19 posted on 08/31/2022 6:39:06 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: j.havenfarm

Actually the trigger for 1989 was Tiananmen Square, it provided inspiration to the people in the Captive Nations to rise up.


20 posted on 08/31/2022 6:40:43 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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