What could he have done differently to save AND reform the soviet union?
>>18172054Turns out not all press is good press, more censorship could have kept the Union together a bit longer. Don't think the Pact itself was salvageable tho, at least not without rolling in the tanks through Eastern Europe again, and that would have been a PR disaster to put Afghanistan to shame.
all uniparty states reach their expiration date, one way or another. once enough people in power stopped believing in the party, it was game over.
>>18172054Nothing, it was hopelessly corrupt, communist, and everyone hated it
>>18172054The writing was on the wall when life expectancies dropped.
>>18172054Andropov gets better health from God
>>18172054The fate of the Ussr was sealed after the failure of the German revolution. There nothing he could have done to change that.
>>18172054Anon, you are literally coping.He couldn't save it because the soviet union was a car that was already falling apart and on fire.Saving' it means using the red army to massacre everyone in the baltics and beyond, turning the whole thing into a giant north korea. Reform was just pouring gasoline on the fire. The whole system was a failed experiment and the patient was already brain dead. Glasnost just let everyone see the corpse was rotting.It was over.
>>18172054>My ambition was to liquidate socialism, the dictatorship over all the people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who was of this opinion long before I was. I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In this my wife urged me to climb to the top post. While I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU and the USSR. Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries. My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall benefit all the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.>I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and Shevernadze, they all deserve to be thanked for the break-up of the USSR and the defeat of Socialism.>World without socialism is going to be much better. After year 2000 the world will be much better, because it shall develop and prosper. But there are countries which shall try to struggle against this. China for one. I was in Peking during the time of the protests on Tienanmen Square, where I really thought that Socialism in China is going to crash. I sternly demanded of the Chinese leadership that I want to speak to the protesters, but they did not allow me to do so. If the Communist party would fall in China, all the world would be better off, and on the road to peace. - Interview with Gorbachev, Ankara. Gorbachev, Yakovlev and Shevernadze were literal traitors who destroyed the USSR on purpose. The Soviet Economy was growing, Andropov's reforms were working, and these faggots nuked their own country because they wanted to suck Reagans dick.
>The Soviet totalitarian regime could only be destroyed through glasnost and the totalitarian discipline of the party, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism ... Looking back, I can proudly say that the clever but very simple tactic -- use the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism -- worked. We had no other way of political struggle. Bolshevism completely rejected any democratic reforms, any dissent.>After the 20th Congress, in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and like-minded people, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society ... A group of real, not imaginary, reformers developed (orally, of course) the following plan: to strike at Stalin, at Stalinism, with Lenin's authority. And then, in case of success, to beat Lenin with Plekhanov and Social Democracy, and with liberalism to beat the idea of revolution in general.Literal shameless traitor.
From the former head of the KGB>Was Gorbachev so naive that he did not understand what kind of upheaval was taking place in the life of the country? No ... From the very beginning of perestroika, everything was done thoughtfully and unhurriedly. Our leaders understood well: if they had immediately declared their ultimate goal -- to replace the socialist system and dissolve the Communist Party -- it is not difficult to imagine what kind of public indignation this would have caused
>>18172166Pretty much, Andropov still around the USSR looks like China today.Andropov wasn't a total fucking traitorous retard like Gorbachev and Yakovlev and knew first that the USSR needed to clamp down on the corruption and it's major issues before any sort of reform needed to be done. He was far more a Xi Jinping style figure who despised Corruption and went on a mass anti-corruption campaign immediately which actually did see massive results immediately in improving production.
>>18172054Gorbachev wasn't perfect but he had the right idea and the USSR would still be around if it wasn't for the coup. His predecessors had already fucked everything up and radical reform of some kind was needed. A USSR without Gorby, or some kind of equivalent reformer, would still have fallen apart - albeit slowly and probably with more bloodshed.
>>18172689This faggot spams this fake quote in every thread and never adressed the important facts lke that Gorbachev was an Andropov protégé or tehere were no American Institue in Ancara where interview allegedly took place.> https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8090/did-gorbachev-say-that-his-intention-was-to-destroy-communism
>>18172054He got the order wrong for reform: he reformed the politics before the economy. He let the people speak freely and vote freely while they all still living under an objectively horrible system that everyone hated, so no fucking shit they would vote that shit out. He had two options to preserve the USSR:1) Crack down on any pro-democracy dissent ruthlessly, which would basically look like dozens of Tienamen Squares and completely destroy any vestige of the USSR's international prestige and respectability, even more than Afghanistan did; or2) Gradually chip away at the socialist system and just become de facto state capitalist or HEAVILY market socialist, and when that sees an improvement in quality of life very gradually democratise at local levels first. That's basically what China did and they've seen monumental success with it.But Gorby was clear at the time at least that he was not anti-socialist and that he would not dismantle the socialist/Marxist doctrines underlying the USSR. He had the absurd belief that people would actually willingly and freely vote to remain under a Marxist system. Even the CCP today know that is impossible.
>>18172888> he reformed the politics before the economyHe couldn't reform economics firsts because old guard cockblocked changes so political changes were needed first. Perhaps he choose the wrong ones, but I dunno what other options where here.
>>18172689Sounds noble to destroy a corrupt communist dictatorship in favor of a higher ideal.
>>18172905Well, then he needed to ruthlessly purge the Communist Party elites of anyone that opposed his policies. Either way he needed to be ruthless - against pro-democracy citizens in the outlying "republics", or against oldguard elites within the Party. Being a soft-spoken and mild-mannered negotiator wasn't going to achieve anything. He couldn't expet that things would just work out if he was nice to everyone. That works in Western democracies, not in Marxist empires.
>>18172054Don’t introduce “free speech” if your entire system is built on lies
>>18172054I've heard that he wanted to preserve the Soviet Union, but the coup in August along with his inability to handle economic problems well contributed to it's fall. He should've kept the Union alive, and slowly but gradually adopt neoliberal reforms to turn the Union into a market economy instead of the shock therapy that ensued in the coming years. We could probably see the USSR maintain it's hegemony and even compete with the U.S. in terms of GDP
>>18172689>Great Man theory becomes real when it comes to crying about how the USSR was supposedly betrayed
>>18174908> compete with the U.S. in terms of GDPNah, not enough people. And per capita is also out of the question.
>>18172637>He couldn't save it because the soviet union was a car that was already falling apart and on fire.I have seen no evidence for this.This was a nuclear armed superpower with no existential threats.
>>18175341Nations can fall from factors besides external. The Soviet Union's was an entirely internal one brought about by generational shifts. Once the Soviet old-guard died off, reform was inevitable.
>>18175408>Nations can fall from factors besides external.Agreed in this case.It fell due to its leadership desire for it to fail.> Once the Soviet old-guard died off, reform was inevitable.None of this makes a LICK of sense.Most soviet people wanted to maintain the union, the only ones who wanted to destroy it were the scumbag gang of Andropov (Yeltsin and Gorby).
>>18172054More Pizza Huts
The real question is, what should HE have done not to fuck up the 90s and prevent resovietisation of modern Russia?
>>18175873You don't get it. Early Putin was more liberal than Yeltsin, lowering taxes and such. Taxes in the 90s were super high, higher than anywhere else.
>>18175873Not fucking it up wasn't an option. the whole country was a failed state. the seeds for putin were sown in 1917, not 1991.
>>18172054Do what China did. Liberalize the markets but crack down on people who want to liberalize the government.
>>18175341You can cook the books, but you can't eat them, it's over anon.
>>18172741Doesn't change the fact that it's true essentially.>>18172054>to saveNot much had to be done to do so desu. Essentially keep the press reigned in and that's it. Tchernenko essentially did nothing during his reign and the union survived.>to reformThe USSR essentially worked like a huge private enterprises. Except, tt had both a terrible admin and terrible feedback loops. To actually reform the bureaucracy he should've just done what Andropov had started; a mass anti-corruption and pro-technocrats campaign.To reform the economy he should've allowed for co-ops and small enterprises in sector which wouldn't disturb the economy, especially in agriculture. As for the feedback loops, implementing an intranet and good usage of technology would've essentially taken care of the problem. It would've done essentially 2 things, namely accurate feedback loops and optimized distribution, aswell as relief on the soviet system by having small to medium efficient enterprises that could've taken care of services (high in demand, hard to plan).This isn't anything special btw. Huge enterprises like Amazon or Walmart already do this : producing and adapting to demand internally through internet feedback.And even if he didn't. He could've gone full Nork style and probably wouldn't have declined that much.
