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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

(www.reuters.com)
970 points homarp | 53 comments | | HN request time: 1.495s | source | bottom
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lapcat ◴[] No.32655071[source]
The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet Union to glasnost and perestroika.

Of course Yeltsin was a big part of the problem too.

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1. karaterobot ◴[] No.32655593[source]
Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but if I'm not, I'm skeptical. Marshall plan notwithstanding, I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening. Likewise, the people of Russia and their government are ultimately the ones with agency in their case. I don't think the U.S. should take on the burden of developing other countries; going down that road has been a bad idea more often than not.
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2. lapcat ◴[] No.32655804[source]
> Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not.

There's a lot of evidence that US kleptocrats collaborated to help turn Russia into a kleptocracy. Practically encouraged rather than discouraged that outcome.

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3. DubiousPusher ◴[] No.32655984[source]
> I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening.

I suggest you read more about the post war occupation of Japan. The U.S. put its thumb heavily on the scale forcing Japan to accept democratization throughout. Unusual for the U.S. this included pushing economic democracy by supporting Japan's very successful land redistribution scheme.

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4. MichaelCollins ◴[] No.32656078[source]
> The U.S. put its thumb heavily on the scale

More than a thumb. The Constitution of Japan was written by Americans. America stomped on the scale, and that time it seems to have worked.

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5. avmich ◴[] No.32656081[source]
I'm sceptical that turning Russia into a kleptocracy was a plan. Usually participants just want to quickly enrich themselves. So I can agree that "let's make it good" plan didn't work well enough, but for planned degradation I'd like to see more arguments.
6. karaterobot ◴[] No.32656124[source]
Thanks for the suggestion about learning about the occupation. To be clear: my statement wasn't that the U.S. did nothing, but that there is no amount they could have done which would force Japan to succeed against their will, or their own ability. There are many examples of the U.S. putting its thumb on the scale, so to speak, in countries where there was not a subsequent, successful democratic transition. The difference between these cases, I'm suggesting, is not the weight of U.S. involvement, but factors external to U.S. foreign policy, such as the people in the countries affected.
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7. agumonkey ◴[] No.32656183{3}[source]
isn't it cultural ? japanese seems to be ok struggling under american control and keep reaching higher. People say US money made Japan thrive but so many time throwing money at a large problem fails.. I think the population was just more mentally compatible.

Or maybe the post soviet Russia was dealt a bad hand. Hard to know (just like here, you can find infinite streams of contradictory arguments)

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8. koheripbal ◴[] No.32656216[source]
You cite no evidence for this conspiratorial claim.
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9. jollybean ◴[] No.32656231[source]
The US military defeated Japan and was an occupying power.

The US had the power to dictate whatever terms.

Japan was on it's back.

Russia in 1992 was it's own entity. Still a nuclear power. Making it's own decisions.

Not only would Russia not have tolerated US intervention, I'm extremely doubtful there could have been such a thing on any terms.

As it stands, much of the money used by Oligarchs to buy up Natural Resources firms was from the US private banking system.

Russia is Russia, they are 100% responsible for their own problems, and those have been roiling through history for 100's of years.

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10. mannykannot ◴[] No.32656237[source]
The Marshall plan was partly a plan to create allies capable of resisting further Soviet expansion, but also a response to how the Versailles treaty set the stage for resurgent German militarism.

The response to the fall of the USSR was neither, but I recall breathless reports in the US press of how Harvard MBAs were going to Russia to help it transition to a free market economy, and ruefully thinking it would be better if they aimed for emulating Western European economies.

And, outside of the former USSR, Europe had the most to gain if this could have been effected - as is now all too clear. Insofar as anything might have helped, this was not only the US's bag.

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11. vkou ◴[] No.32656254[source]
> Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not.

Given the utter unmitigated disaster of the Russian economy in the 90s, I'd daresay that it certainly had the ability to influence it away from the hard swing towards strongman authoritarianism that followed.

The Washington Consensus was a disaster, and strongly soured the country on working with the West.

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12. MichaelCollins ◴[] No.32656256{4}[source]
Hard to say. I suspect the horrific bombing of Japanese cities probably had something to do with their willingness to submit. Leaving their Emperor intact as a figurehead probably helped a lot. Perhaps American willingness to help Japan rebuild immediately after such a bitter war also played a role.

There were probably innumerable factors that went into it. But there are a lot of differences between that situation and the fall of the Soviet Union.

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13. bigcat12345678 ◴[] No.32656329{4}[source]
> isn't it cultural ?

On the one hand, in the scale of brutality, every nation in history is at least 1 level below the Imperial Japan in WWII.

On the other hand, after the decisive show of force, beaconed by the nuclear bomb, Japan realized that brutality is going to cause the doom of that nation. So they naturally bowed down. After that brutality is no longer necessary, like a beaten dog that would not really need a leash.

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14. makeitdouble ◴[] No.32656352[source]
The US had a very consistent pattern of going for the Oil during that period, and the results are pretty clear. I'm not sure more US influence in Russia would have gone the way people hope.
15. confidantlake ◴[] No.32656355{3}[source]
Completely agree. Why would have Russia agreed to a Marshall plan? It makes little sense.
16. sigzero ◴[] No.32656362{3}[source]
Correct. It's an "apples to oranges" comparison.
17. colechristensen ◴[] No.32656462[source]
> I don't think the U.S. should take on the burden of developing other countries; going down that road has been a bad idea more often than not.

From what I can tell from history, our successes involved US taking sovereignty and ruling absolutely for a period of years while setting up a government of our choosing to replace us. Our failures involved quickly setting up a local democracy and allowing self rule while we tried and failed to help. It seems we lost the stomach to use power after military victory and the incompetent governments we set up doom the countries involved to decades of failure.

I really don’t think we should continue getting involved in places we don’t have the guts to set up a military government for a decade. It is clear you have to force societal change on a place at gunpoint in order to get good outcomes, if you’re just going to topple governments and hope whatever rises from the ashes is nice, you might as well not bother.

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18. pkaye ◴[] No.32656483[source]
Western Europe was in it for buying the cheap oil and selling luxury goods to the Oligarchs.
19. ◴[] No.32656491{3}[source]
20. gpm ◴[] No.32656530[source]
What successes are you thinking of?

The only two that come to mind for me are Korea and Japan (I could easily be overlooking some), and really the former happened as a part of the latter (Korea was ruled by Japan for the 35 years prior to WWII).

As I understand it South Korea was at least nominally under local democratic rule from the start.

I'm not sure that's a big enough sample set to be making generalizations from, and even if you are happy with a sample set of 2 I'm not really sure south korea fits the mold you're describing.

That said, I could definitely be missing some examples that would make the argument more convincing.

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21. DubiousPusher ◴[] No.32656580{3}[source]
I see what you mean.

I guess we'll never know. Because there was a remaking of Japanese society after the war in a democratic image. That just doesn't even appear as though it was attempted in post Soviet Russia.

I don't kmow the origins of why America departed from its usual course of propping up the traditional land owning and wealthy bourgeoisie classes in it' s occupation of Japan. I know FDR personally held very pro democracy and anti colonialist views. He had ambitions to remake America's relations with the developing world after the war though how far he would've progressed on that front is unknown. And of course he was dead by the end of the war and Japan was in the more conservative hands of Truman.

Perhaps the Japanese people ran with this program because of their cultural tenacity. Or perhaps because their defeat had been so total that they truly considered themselves defeated and simply wished to move on whatever with whatever power structure was presented.

Ultimately though, America began a campaign to turn the "subjects" of the Japanese Empire into "citizens" of a Japanese constitutional state. They did not undertake a similar project to turn "comrades" of the Soviet Union into "citizens" of a Russian Republic.

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22. somat ◴[] No.32656585{3}[source]
This is true, the question is, what was the difference between the occupation of japan and germany and the occupation of afganistan, iraq or vietnam. The lesson of the latter is that all it takes is 20 years of low level combat until the occupying country gets tired and leaves. the lesson of the former is that defeated countries can become your greatest allies. As to what leads a nation to choose one path or the other... That is complicated. as a interesting special case consider korea
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23. AnimalMuppet ◴[] No.32656596{5}[source]
Chief among them is, the US did not conquer or occupy the USSR. We had definite say in Japan (and West Germany). We didn't in the USSR.
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24. ◴[] No.32656646{3}[source]
25. throwaway0a5e ◴[] No.32656647{5}[source]
WW2 was the culmination of Japan's semi-conscious effort to speed run the transition from feudal backwater to first rate world power. Considering all the stuff they had pulled off up until that point and that they exited WW2 with their national identity and power structures intact I don't think it's that surprising that they pulled off the transition from imperial government to constitutional democracy with an imperial figurehead.
26. vladTheInhaler ◴[] No.32656712{3}[source]
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russ...

American consultants were instrumental in organizing the massive selloff of state assets, and quite a few of them turned around and used their knowledge of the system they created to become quite rich. Andrei Shleifer said as much in an interview on the topic, though I can't find it now.

edit: it seems like someone else posted the same link while I was looking for the interview.

27. DubiousPusher ◴[] No.32656730{6}[source]
That's a good point. America had some influence and backed Yeltsin to the hilt but he outflanked Gorbachev in the end and I'm not sure if that could've been changed.
28. pm90 ◴[] No.32656832{4}[source]
The US never invaded Russia, so they didn’t have the kind of power they had over post WW2 Japan.

Anyways even with that kind of power, the prevailing economic ideology at the time the Soviet Union fell was of extreme neoliberalism, so I doubt it would have helped anyway.

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29. gpt5 ◴[] No.32656862{4}[source]
FWIW, Vietnam and Iraq can be considered as US allies (or at least "partners").
30. Spooky23 ◴[] No.32656882{3}[source]
The difference is you had MacArthur, who was a better demi-emperor than general.
31. fomine3 ◴[] No.32656901{5}[source]
Korean war is a big reason why Japanese industries revived, and the US don't want let Japan poor
32. Spooky23 ◴[] No.32656938{4}[source]
The difference is that the machinery of governance existed and could be operated.

Afghanistan and Iraq are weak states dominated by sectarian violence. Vietnam is and was a strong state.

33. drpancake ◴[] No.32657022{3}[source]
Post-WW2 Germany, too. Although that was a joint effort.
34. kingkawn ◴[] No.32657178{4}[source]
Japanese militarist imperial culture has mostly remained intact in the corporate workplace. Other than brief political forays Japan has had one party rule at the national level for long stretches of time. They recognized their strategic position and adapted. When the convenience of a US umbrella fades the old face will re-emerge.
35. jollybean ◴[] No.32657255{4}[source]
Japan and Germany were extremely well organized and coherent states before the war. They had both civic and long established cultural basis to rebuild to.

'Afghanistan' is barely a state, it never really was a nation. It's a 'border' around a chaotic gaggle of tribes living in the past. They'll ebb and flow given different kinds of leadership, most of which won't have anything to do with anything happening outside urban limits anyhow.

Iraq was a deeply corrupted and broken state, again, difficult to rebuild to, but possible. Absent ethnic tensions it probably would have gone a little bit better, and paradoxically, US forces were more of a stabilizing factor than not. Literally the day that US forces withdrew and US lost it's leverage in Iraqi politics, PM malaki basically launched a kind of political civil war. That scared the Sunnis who 'allowed' ISIL to come in, believing they were a better option than the Shia dominate government, unrestrained from American influence.

S. Vietnam was a bit incoherent, but it could have worked fine were the US to have been able to provide security. They did not, largely due to the historical insanity of refusing to attack the North. As Op. Linebacker I and II eventually demonstrated (but way too late), North Vietnam could be handily decimated at will with direct strategic bombing. Were those ops to have happened in 1965 instead of 1972, the war would have had a different outcome. It's unlikely that S. Vietnam would quite look like S. Korea, but it would be more like it. Instead, we have an ultra authoritarian entity that did some vastly horrible things in the past, but which has settled down a bit in subsequent decades.

'Marshall Plan' works where the Marshall Plan can be taken advantage of.

The IMF has tried similar things elsewhere after WW2, it didn't work out so well, because, well, Nigeria and Indonesia are not at all like Germany or Japan.

Russia has been 'backwards' forever, it's like part of their identity to be 50 years behind everyone but still antagonist about it i.e. aggressors and victims at the same time. I can't see how it will change.

Russians will happily exchange their own prosperity to save face to themselves, and live in a kind of delusion of their own making. They will literally lose the war in Ukraine, but believe they have 'won'. They will declare Ukraine 'denazified', have a parade about it, and 50% of the population will fully believe it, the other 50% will know the truth and go about their daily business, unable to really speak publicly about it.

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36. ClumsyPilot ◴[] No.32657351{4}[source]
maybe the difference is a culture you understand vs a culture you don't. Many observers have said for years that middle east statebuildibg efforts were doomed - we left iraq worse off than we found it
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37. ClumsyPilot ◴[] No.32657368{5}[source]
> Nigeria and Indonesia are not at all like Germany

South Korea has recieved as much ecobomic aid as all of Africa combined in the 20 years after its formation.

38. kranke155 ◴[] No.32657440[source]
The idea of a democratic Japan is itself interesting as for the most part it actually is a one party state. Outside of brief breaks, one party has held power in post war Japan.

So even with the US stomping the scale, it still didn’t make it some kind of European multi partisan parliamentary democracy.

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39. fomine3 ◴[] No.32657545{3}[source]
I think US encouraged current only one party is strong situation as a result. LDP was encouraged by the US to against communists/socialists.
40. guelo ◴[] No.32657563{5}[source]
Japanese culture was and is very foreign to Americans.
41. agumonkey ◴[] No.32658143{5}[source]
It's one way to see that. But after such brutal events it's easy for a people to fall into despair or hate but Japan bounce back better than a lot of country. They rapidly absorbed and mastered electronics better than a lot of country. I always find it rare.
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42. ◴[] No.32658157{4}[source]
43. bigcat12345678 ◴[] No.32658301{6}[source]
That part thanks to confuscious tradition

Look at China, Confucius is the God of Asia....

44. cowtools ◴[] No.32658384[source]
It depends. Pulling out of afganistan earlier would have saved us a lot of time and money.
45. testrun ◴[] No.32658411{5}[source]
Agree with most except South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt to the core. And if you don't have the support of the populace there was nothing that the USA could do to make it work (Linebacker or otherwise). You would only prolonged the conflict.
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46. qwytw ◴[] No.32659162{6}[source]
The South Korean government was corrupt and largely only staid in power because they were willing to commit extreme atrocities (and obviously due to US support). However it still worked out in the end. Not sure Vietnam is that difference, however Korea seems to be much more ethnically and religiously homogenous so that probably played a part.
47. qwytw ◴[] No.32659180[source]
> our successes involved US taking sovereignty and ruling absolutely for a period of years while setting up a government of our choosing to replace us

Like Haiti, Cuba or the Philippines, right? Those were obviously great successes...

48. vintermann ◴[] No.32659441{3}[source]
But it ironically worked a lot because they pushed a constitution which looked nothing like their own.
49. vintermann ◴[] No.32659472{5}[source]
We do know what the US wanted though, because they were quite open about it, and they got it: in particular the neoliberal shock therapy reforms which were such a distaster.

Today, we also know that they were backing Yeltsin for a long time, and supported his 1993 attack on parliament which decisively turned Russia into the dictatorship it is now.

50. modo_mario ◴[] No.32661025[source]
>I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success

Perhaps a bit of both. We can also give credit to both for it's decline/stagnation. It wasn't the Japanese people that wanted quotas for US made cars, semiconductor technology transfers to the US, economic policy that didn't fit em, etc

51. jollybean ◴[] No.32661767{5}[source]
Middle East never had proper states. 100 years ago it was just a bunch of Ottoman administrative divisions. Since then it's been chaos and strong men. Iraq is better off now but maybe not by much.

Arguably Kurds should get their own territory.

52. Atatator ◴[] No.32662607{5}[source]
I wonder - when was the last time you were in Russia to speak so decisively about the country and Russians?
53. MichaelCollins ◴[] No.32665835{6}[source]
> They rapidly absorbed and mastered electronics better than a lot of country.

I believe this is something they started doing before/during the war. Specifically I've heard that they started reverse engineering and producing copies of allied radio equipment during the war.