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Lol, if "our people rejected the model" because "it does not respect the man, oppresses him spiritually and politically, " and Gorbachev was the initiator of changes that were supposed to bring "respect of the man" and remove the "spiritual and political oppression," and people loved his ideas so much, why is he the most hated man/politician in Russia, while Stalin is not?
First if you are relying on the state run VTsIOM poll that gave Putin a 61% approval rating, I have a Dick Morris pole that you should look into.
The second issue one needs to ask oneself is how much time did Gorbachev have to undo 70 years of Soviet stagnation before the August 91 coup? Here's a hint, Gorbachev Became President in March of 1990.
There is really no reason why Russia and the USA can't be friends, or if not friends at least stronger allies than they are now. There are too many misconceptions about the other side floating around in both countries. Unfortunately I have a feeling that it is still in Russia's best interest to have an old school "enemy"( doesn't not really matter who)to help keep the sad population focused abroad, so they don't initiate changes at home.
It gets very confusing.. there is so much more both can do for this world with just a little more cooperation.... I hope there is alot more co-operating going on behind the scenes than we are led to believe.....
"The Soviet model was defeated not only on the economic and social levels; it was defeated on a cultural level."
So the Beatles did have something to do with it?
Yes and no.
Russia is a deeply divided society; it's a class society, always has been, always will be.
So to certain part of population ( smaller one I'd say and mostly in big cities,) Beatles ( and Western culture in general) did play a role; to other part of society western culture ( Beatles including) was really irrelevant.
What did play big role however ( the way I see it) was the Soviet nomenclature ( and certain amount of Russians in Moscow, St Petersburg + port cities like Vladivostok) being exposed to Western goods. To them this material part was far more important than "cultural" part, and they were the ones who basically plotted the demise of the Soviet system.
The USA a threat? Sure, but that depends on what Russia wants in the first place.
......The world financial empire spares no expense to create a mighty military battering-ram in the form of the American armed forces and NATO to expand its system of global surveillance and control over every square meter of land and sea, annihilation of planes at take-off and missiles at launch, and strikes at any spot on the planet at any moment.......
That is a quote from the article referenced above. "control over every square meter of land and sea, annihilation of planes at take-off and missiles at launch"?
Oh, come now. Russia want to become a world power again.
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And it should be. Or rather should have been even after the fall of Soviet system, because the world has been a stable place and the life was probably the best in the West and Russia alike back in seventies - to mid-eighties, when the world was not uni-polar.
I simply don't see a point any longer in Russia being super-power under Putin - that's all.
Quote:
That's all.So, yeah. The USA is a threat. Actually, we're an obstacle.
Actually when Russia was a world power, the US was not an obstacle to it. Therefore there are different reasons at play, and that's not the point that Ivashov is making in his article.
How big of a role did "ethnic strife" play in the breakup of the USSR? Is it possible that some of the people in power in Moscow at that time decided that certain groups were no longer worth the trouble?
First if you are relying on the state run VTsIOM poll that gave Putin a 61% approval rating, I have a Dick Morris pole that you should look into.
I am not sure what VTsIOM has got to do with it; I am talking from the point of view of a former citizen who has witnessed those times and can assure you that those rosy bubbles that Gorbachev are passing now for a fact are far from reality of those days. I don't know whether he became senile in his old age or he simply convinced himself that was he is writing now is true ( and that's why he leads the authors of this article on the wrong trail,) but initially his "perestroika" has got anything and everything to do with economy, not some "cultural" aspects of Soviet life as he is trying to implicate now.
The authors of this article can speculate all they want about "inflation-adjusted wages" or the "growth of GDP," and how it couldn't be the cause for political changes, but on practical level I can tell you that starting somewhere after Olympic games ( by 1982 may be) the food assortment ( as much as the quantity) was visibly reduced in Moscow, as much as consumer goods in the stores. I mean by that time I could visibly see the difference with the 70ies in this respect. And if shortages became visible in Moscow, the best-supplied city in the country, that means by that time a lot of other regions were already in trouble. So what Gorbachev wanted to do first of all, was to fix the faulting economy, but he simply couldn't do it without addressing political issues, and that's how this whole enterprise called "glasnost and perestroika" came about.
Who the heck is Cherne...
Ah... that one... Of course, wasn't he the next one in line after Brezhnev?
I don't remember anything about him either way, but I sure said my little prayer when Andropov croaked soon after he became gensek. If he would have remained in power, there would have been no perestroyka, no nothing; the course of history would have become completely different I'm sure and that Berlin Wall could have been still be there until now for all I know.
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