Gorbachev™

Mikhail Gorbachev sings.

Well.

bye then I'm sure being lauded as a hero for your biggest fuckup was a trip and a half

is there a more famous birthmark?

Thinking about brave Mikael Gorbachev and how his perestroika and glasnost inspired our Wacaday fun trip to Russia 1990

To explain Glasnost I stepped out of the shadows into the light and entertained Red Square with Mallett's Mallet

Thank you Gorby #RIP

— Timmy Mallett (@TimmyMallett) August 30, 2022

Has Mr. Blobby weighed in

My history professor in early 2000s, after a decade of post-cold-war victory laps:

"Gorbachev's legacy is positive because he helped oversee the peaceful end of the USSR, largely without bloodshed. At least it didn't end like Yugoslavia!"

*insert Maury Povich "the lie detector showed that was a lie" 2010's image macro here*

I don't blame him for not keeping the USSR together, probably nobody could do that. But he either ordered a bunch of repressive shit in Georgia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, etc, or oversaw others doing it, or stood by helplessly doing nothing while the aggrieved Russian "muh empire!" guys laid the groundwork for the 'frozen conflicts' and all-out wars we've heard so much about recently. And to top it all off, none of his 'limited' measures taken to preserve the USSR worked either! They just pissed off the aforementioned nationalities even more!

Just because the Soviet Union didn't immediately end in nuclear holocaust, civil war, or widespread ethnic cleansing doesn't mean Gorbachev was an astute statesman whose legacy is a massive win. If anything, the last three decades only serve to show up his failures even more.

Fuck this asshole and the sub-surface low bar set for him by cold war winners high on their own supply.

the western media obituaries for this tool are going to be so revisionist and full of shit that even Applebaum will be secretly embarrassed

Glad to see nuance here.

He broke his system, then had no idea how to exist outside the system, genuinely thinking he could build a reformed one. He pulled out of Afghanistan but suppressed liberationist movements in the Baltic states and Azerbaijan -- he was an authoritarian who couldn't understand why he couldn't be a Nobel Prize laureate and Lenin's true heir.

I don't believe he was an astute statesman...but to take power in 1985 and realize, "This shit's broken, y'all" when as a student of history he knew dissidents in his country ended up with bullets in the head took some kind of courage. And his own citizens hated him for it.

There's gonna be an awful lot of cant in the next few days, most of it indigestible, but from our POV it's quite something that Reagan went against his own advisors -- contravening the received opinion (often deserved) that his advisors manipululated him -- to endorse him fully. And Reagan in his dunce-ness actually came quite close w/Gorby to eliminating ALL nuclear weapons at Reykjavík -- provided, of course, Ronnie gave up his bullshit SDI. But the likes of Charles Krauthammer called Reagan another Chamberlain. It's the only statesman-like thing Reagan, the most evil president of my lifetime, ever did.

Good point, Alfred. To piggyback on your thoughts re: Reagan, though:

The reason Gorbachev is so admired in the West, with a few exceptions, is because after all the uncertainty and potential danger of the early 80's, he made the end of the Cold War easy on us.

Sure, but consider: the popular press gives Reagan ALL the credit anyway.

When my son was 2, I heard him mumbling to himself as he was going to sleep, 'Mikhail Gorbachev'. It sounded like a promise that the world he would grow up in would be less fearful and more hopeful.

— Fintan O'Toole (@fotoole) August 30, 2022

Earliest recorded instance of the woke toddler in human history.

thanks for ending history you clown

RIP Milkhail Gorbachev pic.twitter.com/6x43cytu6p

— Undercover Postie (@UndercoverPostE) August 30, 2022

"Just because the Soviet Union didn't immediately end in nuclear holocaust, civil war, or widespread ethnic cleansing doesn't mean Gorbachev was an astute statesman whose legacy is a massive win."

If you are gonna put it this way he sounds pretty good to me.

an often-overlooked fact is many post-soviet autocrats -- Shevardnadze in Georgia, Akayev in Kyrgyzstan, Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, Niyazov in Turkmenistan -- started their careers as reformers appointed personally by Gorbachev

— Seva (@SevaUT) August 31, 2022

anyone read collapse by vladimir zubok? I've been meaning to idk its angle or reputation

not going to bat for the guy but it's surreal seeing the biggest cheerleaders for the end of history celebrate one of the last world leaders who actually seemed to believe in something else, however naively

ditto seeing people who claim the legacy of lenin talk about someone with a far more legitimate claim than theirs as some kind of neoliberal ideologue who single handedly destroyed socialism on purpose

Gorbachev died. His legacy? Russia's GDP dropped by 40%. Real wages halved. Poverty ballooned from 2.2 million in 1987-88 to 66 million in 1993-95. Millions died under the brutal regime of privatization and shock therapy. Half a million women were trafficked into sexual slavery. pic.twitter.com/2GSvSqFlQ2

— Paweł Wargan (@pawelwargan) August 30, 2022

Sure, but consider: the popular press gives Reagan ALL the credit anyway.

Or worse, Thatcher.

If you are gonna put it this way he sounds pretty good to me.

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, August 31, 2022 8:22 AM (four hours ago)

https://i.imgur.com/Wp7CxJw.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foll8sDGq4M

Glad to see some nuance here.

*bows*

yeah i mean i bet planning 9/11 was fun for them https://t.co/A0E7zyMFEp

— John Ganz (@lionel_trolling) August 31, 2022

he looks weirdly like adorno in this one

— Last Days of Discourse (@lstdysdiscourse) August 31, 2022

he was, at the least, the best of a bad lot

https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/6350/3175205_10_seoimageog_RUSSIA_20Gorbachev_20223808A.jpg

just heard a very *nuanced* tribute from Boris Johnson, who might well have read a Gorby book himself but I wouldn't count on it. Although my unshakable definition of "nuance" here is people who employ waffle and wank and quote other bullshit wankers to defend the reputations of bad leaders.

gorbagool