Mikhail Gorbachev has died

RIP Gorbachev, one of the few genuinely good people in politics.

After he retired from politics, he was featured in several advertisements:

- In 1994 for Apple Computer: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/07/The-first-advertisem...

- In 1998 for Pizza Hut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial

- In 2000 for the ÖBB, the Austrian railways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLscz8kEg6c

- In 2007 for Louis Vuitton: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/business/media/05vuitton....

Personally, I try to avoid characterizing anyone in politics as a "genuinely good person" or otherwise. I don't think it's a useful framing.

As humans, we gravitate toward personalities, identities, and stories, and these all matter for the people we keep close to us. In the public sphere, however, actions and legacy are what matter, for better or worse. For a major historical figure like Gorbachev, there is bound to be both better and worse, and to me the most valuable analysis is of those actions and legacy rather than personal character.

For the West he was a hero, for the Russians he was a disaster https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Russia/Death_rate/ . I don't blame Gorbachev for this. Just as in the case of Nikolai II Russian totalitarian state and lack of checks and balances washed out an inept person to rule the country.

The communist system is responsible for that, not Gorbachev. Centralized gov't controlled economies create corruption which results in ultimate economic collapse.

I partially wanted to express it with "totalitarian state and lack of checks and balances". However, I slightly disagree. Being an authoritarian ruler, Gorbachev had lots of power. It is proven by the fact that his reforms were radical and unsuccessful, and many of the problems that the Soviet union faced during its demise were exacerbated by them. Of course, the Soviet Union was to suffer some losses but they could have been milder. But may be you are 100% correct. I don't feel knowledgeable enough on the topic of late Soviet union to argue.

Anyone have a link to a picture of the Apple ad?

I wish I had it! I think I would have to travel to some physical German archive to lookup old magazines... Or maybe Apple itself has the original digital version in their archives.

I saw that Pizza Hut commercial earlier today and I can't stop thinking about it. It has so much going on. It's the victory of capitalism over Soviet communism, the rise of neoliberalism to global hegemony, and the "End of History" in the form of a 30-second ad for pizza.

I think sincerity is a better measure. As leaders go, he is one of the lasts of his kind.

He was 14 when the war ended. “Our generation is the generation of wartime children,” he said. “It has burned us, leaving its mark both on our characters and on our view of the world.” -- Quote from the WAPO article on this.

He also did a cameo in Faraway, So Close! (1993)[1] by Wim Wenders:

> Mikhail Gorbachev only appears because his secretary was familiar with the movies of Wim Wenders and was a great admirer. She talked Gorbachev into giving up a couple of hours to do the cameo as he was on a trip to Germany anyway.

[1] https://imdb.com/title/tt0107209/mediaviewer/rm1602489600

All governments create corruption; centalized systems just have zero checks and balances.

That is indeed a loaded symbol

Good ? What about sending tanks against Lithuanians and you know...killing people. How good is this ?

700+ injured and 14 dead doesnt sound like something "genuinely good person" does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)

It was also the start of the rush to full neo feudalism. Many conflate capitalism (oppossed) with what we had after the USSR got weak capitalism(unopossed). Turns out the remarkable archievments happen with systemic competition.

> War of Northern Aggression

Rarely if ever I criticize naming conventions, but this definitely does seem the right moment to do so.

Gorbachev saw Pizza Hut come and leave his country.

> the War of Northern Aggression

That’s some choice phrasing there. Mind explaining this framing? Pretty sure the only people I’ve seen use this phrasing were people who thought the confederacy and slavery were good things

> the War of Northern Aggression

Of course you'd have a problem with the president who freed the slaves

Apple has DMCA'd people for hosting copies of their own ads as a hobbyist historical record

https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/27/the-unofficial-apple-archive/

Their Orwellian revision of their own history in the endless treadmill of the "one more thing" I'd be surprised if they truly have any of it still

"We have always been at war with x86"

"Shook hands with both Ronalds, Reagan and McDonalds..." [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/ZT2z0nrsQ8o?t=103

I tryed to get your argument .. but then …

> the War of Northern Aggression

Wtf dude. The 1870 want their thinking back

As non US person i was scratching my head about what exactly that meant.

If you are to suppose that the Confederate States of America were a legitimate, sovereign government of the Southern states, the term "War of Northern Aggression" makes more sense. They did not threaten to secede from the United States, they did secede from it. The United States taking action to take back control of the southern states could be viewed as "Northern Aggression."

Granted, it is a little odd considering that the Battle of Fort Sumter was initiated by the Confederates, though you could argue that attempting to resupply United States troops in Confederate territory as an act of aggression from the United States.

In either case, the argument seems to be that Gorbachev being responsible for the death of many lives doesn't discredit the notion that he could be a "genuinely good person" since there examples of people that have been responsible for the death of many that are generally viewed favorably, such as Lincoln.

It doesn't really make sense in that context. The Thirteen Colonies seceded from Great Britain, something not in dispute even in the UK. Great Britain sent troops into the United States to oppose the secession. But it's not referred to as "the War of British Aggression".

The only sense that singling out "Northern Aggression" makes sense in is perpetuating the myth that the slaveowners were the real victims.

> It doesn't really make sense in that context. The Thirteen Colonies seceded from Great Britain, something not in dispute even in the UK. Great Britain sent troops into the United States to oppose the secession. But it's not referred to as "the War of British Aggression".

You're making the mistake of assuming that every conflict must follow a strict naming convention when in reality it'd usually be called something different based on who you ask. The annexation of Texas by the United States resulted in what the United States calls the Mexican-American War, while Mexico refers to it as "U.S. Intervention in Mexico." I'd say that the "War of Northern Aggression" would pretty much exclusively used by people that view Southern secession from the United States as legitimate, but that doesn't mean it is used exclusively by your strawmen.

The term "Civil War" affirms the United States' (i.e. Northern) viewpoint that the secessions of the southern states were illegitimate and the conflict that ensued was between citizens of the same country.

If you think that the secession of southern states was a legitimate act and the formation of the CSA was legitimate, you can't call it a civil war. It's a war between two sovereign states, of which the United States (i.e. "The North") would be seen as the aggressor, hence "War of Northern Aggression."

The motivation behind seceding was predominantly maintaining slavery, though then a deeper question might be, when is secession legitimate? And is there any justification that the United States might simply accept secession of a state from the Union?

> though then a deeper question might be, when is secession legitimate?

It's an entirely subjective question. Never, according to the state being seceded from or revolted against, and always, according to the secessionists and revolutionaries.

It's worth mentioning that the same American government that added the Second Amendment and spoke in florid prose about the blood-sacrifice of patriots and rebellion against governments also put down rebellions against itself.

>And is there any justification that the United States might simply accept secession of a state from the Union?

No. Cultural reasons aside, there is simply too much money and infrastructure at stake (to say nothing of political instability threatening its superpower status) for the US to be willing to lose even a single state.

Supported the annexation of Crimea. Organized highly corrupt privatization of Soviet Union assets. Robbed Soviet working class of their pensions. Handled Chernobyl by throwing people into the furnace and withholding information.

Not sure where you were back in the 80s, but he is one of the etalons of a horrible, corrupt politician.

For the best, Dodo pizza is much better.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_Pizza

^ Russian politics aside, Dodo has some impressive tech and processes.

Those checks and balances weren't in Tzarist Russia either.

Just because there isn't a strict naming convention doesn't mean there isn't a longstanding convention in English-speaking countries of giving wars boring names based on the participants or theatre, even when it's absolutely unambiguous that the other side was the belligerent. Picking a ludicrously overblown name like "Northern Aggression" for a failed secession makes no sense in that context, but plenty of sense in Lost Cause victimhood narrative.

Which is why it was a name popularised by 1950s segregationists, not the original secessionists who may have rejected the notion that it was a "rebellion" or "civil" war, but talked about wars of "Separation" or "War for Independence" instead.

Interesting reaction to the phrasing here. I read OP as framing Lincoln through the eyes of the people who suffered the consequences of his decisions. History is messy. Even unambiguous positives like ending slavery come with a ton of collateral damage. If that collateral damage is your husband or brother coming home in a pine box, you're likely to have a poor view of those who caused it.

A few questions to consider:

1) If Texas or California were to secede in 2023, should the rest of the United States declare war on them and force them to return to the union? What if that war costs the lives of 500k people? 1 million? How many deaths is too many deaths to maintain the geo-political status quo?

2) There are places in the world today where slavery or near-slavery like conditions are a fact of life. Does the United States have a moral obligation to intervene? US interventionism in recent decades has led to unaccountable suffering for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. The American South suffered a similar fate during and after the civil war.

All that to say, big evils like slavery or Nazism tend to distort historical objectivity. Any cost seems small, any act defensible, as long at it helps end the big evil. Once a historical figure becomes canonized, the negative consequences of their actions get glossed over.

Well you can bet the Chinese will be calling the annexation of Taiwan as Chinese Reunification War.

"Checks and balances" mean nothing unless you specify who's checking who. System where the military keeps a check on the president, or the king keeps a check on parliament, aren't really much better than the "checker" being in charge all the time. And systems based on mutual checking tend to just reel from one constitutional crisis to another.

Such a great site! Thanks for this!

> Just because there isn't a strict naming convention doesn't mean there isn't a longstanding convention in English-speaking countries of giving wars boring names based on the participants or theatre

That is one name that is ascribed to a conflict, but we often have many. The Forgotten War is the Korean War, The Great War is World War 1, The American Civil War had many names.

> Picking a ludicrously overblown name like "Northern Aggression" for a failed secession makes no sense in that context, but plenty of sense in Lost Cause victimhood narrative.

How is it overblown? It's a descriptive title that is certainly controversial, but if you accept that particular viewpoint, it's simply descriptive.

> Which is why it was a name popularised by 1950s segregationists, not the original secessionists who may have rejected the notion that it was a "rebellion" or "civil" war, but talked about wars of "Separation" or "War for Independence" instead.

You can certainly find its usage linked to segregationists, but the entire basis for suggesting it wasn't used before the 1950's is that people couldn't find any evidence of the term being used prior to that in their google searches. It not showing up in term searches for archived OCRed newspapers is hardly evidence that it wasn't a term used before then. Regardless, that is beside the point. You're going out of you way to project meaning into it that isn't intrinsically there.

The quality of implementation definitely matters, agreed. However, the Soviet states by and large didn't even have a shitty form in place, the party leader was an 'elected' dictator.

> How is it overblown? It's a descriptive title that is certainly controversial, but if you accept that particular viewpoint, it's simply descriptive.

Suuuure. Nothing remotely overblown about the sole popular name for conflict involving English speakers with "aggression" or similar being that one. Completely normal name for a war with no propaganda value for Lost Cause mythology, and just coincidental its print usage maps perfectly to Southern indignation at the Civil Rights movement.

Gorbachev good? You think sending tanks to Lithuania to kill people is what good person does? Or hiding everything about Chernobyl and not telling people what happened is also good person best move?