[struwwelpeter]

Gorby's double program of "Glasnost" (openness) and "Perestroika" (reconstruction) were just desperate band-aids on the arterial hemorraging of the Soviet Union. Neither kept the empire alive, and if anything hastened its collapse.

During the Yeltsin years Gorby went into hibernation - either at his 4-room beach house south of Yalta or at his academic retreat in his western-funded "Gorbachev Institute" in Moscow. His influence is zip inside Russia, though he still has pull in Germany - enough to get his dying wife treated there. Even the word "perestroika" is frowned on - goverment and journalism preferring the russified english word "rekonstruktsiya".

During the days of Yeltsin Russia sank so low - its economy eclipsed by Denmark's - that one joke had Boris Nikolaevich stating "America... wanted to bring Russia to her knees... but they decided this was too expensive... and left her laying on her back."

Vladimir Putin may still be a bit of a cipher, but he has managed to pull Russia back from complete anarchy. A power vacuum that large with Islam to the south and China to the east would not help the US. The Soviet conspiracy you allude to, however, is not very likely. Though Russia might still pine for the center of the world stage, with its old military and scientific prowess, no one wants to go back to standing in line for cheap shoes.

[TheMilkMan]

During the Yeltsin years Gorby went into hibernation - either at his 4-room beach house south of Yalta or at his academic retreat in his western-funded "Gorbachev Institute" in Moscow. His influence is zip inside Russia, though he still has pull in Germany - enough to get his dying wife treated there. Even the word "perestroika" is frowned on - goverment and journalism preferring the russified english word "rekonstruktsiya".

---

Gorbachev still a prophet in his own country
(from the above link)
...and he [Gorbachev] has found a new role in Russian public life as the head of a new social democratic party

Do you know anything about the Social Democratic Party and what kind (if any) of influence they have in Russia and the CIS?

[Kozak]

Gorbachev was the worlds greatest magician.
He made the whole Soviet Union disapear.....

[GOP_1900AD]

Actually, a vaccum in the current bloc of Eastern oriented and untrustworthy power in the Northern half of Eurasia is exactly what I want to see. That way, the West can conquer it once and for all.

[JudgemAll]

Though Russia might still pine for the center of the world stage, with its old military and scientific prowess, no one wants to go back to standing in line for cheap shoes.

I prefer cheap shoes and full power than good shoes, no guns and no nukes, if I were a Russian today....

I am stunned by your philosophy of cheap shoes. Very very bright.