Mikhail Gorbachev and the fall of the USSR

[victim77]

Do you think Gorbachev's reforms where to little or to much? Would the USSR still be standing if he done less to try and reform or should he have tried harder? I believe the USSR needed reform at that point or another communist revolution. In the late 80's the USSR had drifted so far away from real communism that they were almost state-Capitalist.

[RHIZOMES]

He reformed the USSR in the wrong direction.

[victim77]

True his economic reforms were misguided but his media and free speech reforms where a step in the right direction.

[spartan]

Wasnt he the one who let McDonalds open resteraunts in the USSR?

If so then you can guess where he was heading with his reforms (Social Democracy), either way more press freedoms and civil liberties for its citizens are vital in any self described Socialist state so you have to give him credit for that at least (Even though it ended up looking in the west like the desperate attempts of a failing regime to hold onto power by bringing in Populist measures to quell internal dissent).

[Dean]

Do you think Gorbachev's reforms where to little or to much? Would the USSR still be standing if he done less to try and reform or should he have tried harder? I believe the USSR needed reform at that point or another communist revolution. In the late 80's the USSR had drifted so far away from real communism that they were almost state-Capitalist.

I have never seen a criticism of his reforms which really convinced me that he was a bad guy. I mean, the USSR is extremely secretive and suppressive as a so-called "workers state" for fifty years, and then a guy comes along trying to give peopel genuine freedoms, albeit very slowly. The people revolt, just like anyone would have, and then all the orthodox communists calls him an evil man.

[chegitz guevara]

Gorbie's reforms are not what brought down the USSR. They only hastened what was inevitable by that point.

[Holden Caulfield]

he was stuck in between a rock and a hard place,
and wasn't a 'bad' person but rather made the wrong desicions for what he percieved to be good reasons for the benafit of the people and the regieme,

still i'm not a fan on his

[Hawksarepointless]

I think Gorbachev did it out of political necessity, rather than his own moral ambition. Gorbachev simply saw that his government was loosing tremendous popularity. Berlin had opened up, people were rallying towards capitalism. It was either reform or fall. However, he didn't account for the amount of fervency that the new Capitalist reformers had, and by giving them a sandwich, his people decided on wanting the whole kitchen.

[3A CCCP]

Do you think Gorbachev's reforms where to little or to much? Would the USSR still be standing if he done less to try and reform or should he have tried harder? I believe the USSR needed reform at that point or another communist revolution. In the late 80's the USSR had drifted so far away from real communism that they were almost state-Capitalist.

You miss the point. Gorbachev was not interested in "reforms." From 1985 when he took office Gorbachev's mission was the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. The reason the USSR had "drifted so far away from real communism in the late 80s" was precisely because Gorbachev was steering the country in that direction.

In the early years of "Perestroika" Gorbachev covered up his real intentions by praising comrade Lenin, and giving lip service to Socialism. By 1990 things had gone so far that he finally felt confident to openly state, in substance, that they were discarding Socialism and pushing toward a market economy.

3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[3A CCCP]

True his economic reforms were misguided but his media and free speech reforms where a step in the right direction.

As one who lived in the Soviet Union at that time, I must say that you are incorrect.

Gorbachev's "Glasnost" was reserved for supporters of his regime. Communists who disagreed with "Perestroika" were quietly transferred to posts in obscure regions so that their protests and criticisms could not be heard and cause trouble.

"Glasnost" was the propaganda arm of "Perestroika" that was used to prepare the people for the coming change to capitalism and a "free" market economy.

3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[3A CCCP]

I think Gorbachev did it out of political necessity, rather than his own moral ambition. Gorbachev simply saw that his government was loosing tremendous popularity. Berlin had opened up, people were rallying towards capitalism. It was either reform or fall. However, he didn't account for the amount of fervency that the new Capitalist reformers had, and by giving them a sandwich, his people decided on wanting the whole kitchen.

You don't seem to understand that Gorbachev didn't miscalculate "the amount of fervency the new capitalist reformers had." HE WAS THE CAPITALIST REFORMER!

Berlin "opened up" and things started falling apart in the Warsaw Pact countries because of Gorbachev. He wasn't reacting to those situations. He created them!

3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[3A CCCP]

I have never seen a criticism of his reforms which really convinced me that he was a bad guy. I mean, the USSR is extremely secretive and suppressive as a so-called "workers state" for fifty years, and then a guy comes along trying to give peopel genuine freedoms, albeit very slowly. The people revolt, just like anyone would have, and then all the orthodox communists calls him an evil man.


I don't expect the criticisms listed below to change your mind either. But, hopefully, this will help list members understand what Gorbachev, Perestroika, and Glasnost were really about.

1. Gorbachev formally eliminated the leadership of the CPSU , the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and called for bourgeois democracy instead of a deepening of the class struggle. He even made the statement that he “could envision a time when there would be a non-Communist Party running the Soviet Union.”

2. Gorbachev denied Soviet revolutionary history and parroted western slanders such as “the serious deviations of Lenin.” (This was later in the Perestroika period around 1988-89 when he was throwing off his phoney Socialist mask.)

3. Gorbachev stopped short of privatization, but freed state enterprises from the control of central planners to run on their own. “Full cost accounting,” “commodity-money relations” and the “socialist market” were some of Gorbachev’s favorite themes.

4. Perestroika represented the liquidation of the planned economy by the State, yielding to "free competition," and "supply and demand" of the market, determined not by social needs, but by the consumers' buying power.

5. Under Perestroika the sole right to foreign trade was taken away from the state and given to individual enterprises that were free to negotiate on their own with foreign companies.

6. Perestroika opened the flood gates for the rise of the criminal element that had been kept down prior to Gorbachev’s “reforms” and would eventually lift Yeltsin to power.

7. Gorbachev abandoned the Communist Parties of the Warsaw Pact nations and left them to the mercy of the western wolves on their borders.

8. Gorbachev abandoned the Communist government in Afghanistan and allowed the Islamic Fundamentalist Jihadists (including Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahadeen) and their ally, the United States of America, to bring down the people’s government.

EXAMPLES OF THE NONSENSE WRITTEN BY THE ARCHITECTS AND SUPPORTERS OF PERESTROIKA DURING THE GORBACHEV REGIME:

“Changes at the basis of bourgeois society show that the self-regulation of capitalist reproduction is beginning to negate the exploitation of man by man…”
Oleg Shakhnazarov, Research Centre of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions


“... there are no more proletarians, at any rate in the East and West of Europe.
There are workers, farmers, employees, businessmen, professionals, clergymen, students, pensioners, children, servicemen. Their common interest is to live in peace and survive and to preserve their common European home.
Therefore it would seem the time has come for the slogan ‘Workers of all countries, unite!’ to be withdrawn from our state banners..."
Vladimir Stupishin, a D. Sc (Hist) and the Chief Councillor in a department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Any person that claims to be a Communist is either blind or, in fact, is a bourgeois provocateur if he/she cannot see Gorbachev and Perestroika for what they really were!

3A CCCP!
Mikhail

[3A CCCP]

I would request that the moderators keep this post on this thread and not move it to literature. While it recommends two books, it is not a book review and is concerned with the basic theme of this thread.

For those who are interested in reading a book that gives an excellent narrative of Gorbachev's Perestroika as the events were unfolding and an in depth analysis of the the period, I highly recommend Harpal Brar's "Perestroika - The Complete Collapse of Revisionism," 1992.

When I read Brar's book I felt like I was back in Moscow re-living the events of the period.

After you read the above, get a copy of Gorbachev's "Perestroika and New Thought" (Перестройка и Новое Мышление), 1988. Once you have a background in Gorbachev's treachery that is revealed in Brar's book, you will easily see through the thinly disguised plans for the restoration of capitaism that Gorbachev prepares the people for in his book.

3A CCCP!
Mikhail