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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

(www.reuters.com)
970 points homarp | 5 comments | 30 Aug 22 20:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.859s | source
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Nokinside ◴[30 Aug 22 21:30 UTC] No.32655380[source]▶
He was able to get into politburo very young because he was a good administrator and he had powerful patrons. But he became the leader of the USSR just because there was nobody else. Politburo was so old that everybody ahead of him, or more power hungry than him was in hospice or otherwise not fully functioning.

Then he started finally some of the common sense reforms needed.

His intention was never to drop communism or let the soviet block to disintegrate, but things got out of hand. His greatest act was let it happen even when it was against everything he had worked for.

replies(1): >>32656094 #
epolanski ◴[30 Aug 22 22:42 UTC] No.32656094[source]▶
> common sense reforms

Politically and in terms of press freedom, maybe.

Economically it was a disaster that ruined an already stagnating growth and turned it into recession.

replies(1): >>32657413 #
1. 88840-8855 ◴[31 Aug 22 01:48 UTC] No.32657413[source]▶
Fully disagree.

Economic reforms were trash, the Chinese did them better. Political reforms broke the system. The Chinese avoided doing them and look at them today.

replies(2): >>32659321 #>>32660336 #
2. vintermann ◴[31 Aug 22 07:19 UTC] No.32659321[source]▶
Today they are rich and poweful, but have pretty much abandoned any pretense at worrying about capital exploitation of labour. It's a nationalist, corporatist, authoritarian state, ironically closer to Chiang Kai-shek's ideal state than Mao's, let alone Marx's.

That was not the outcome he wanted. People often paper over that he was a true believer in Marxism-Leninism, unlike his predecessors.

replies(1): >>32661372 #
3. mvc ◴[31 Aug 22 10:15 UTC] No.32660336[source]▶
Oh yeah. China's a real "land of the free, home of the brave" these days. Just ask Jack Ma or Peng Shuai.
4. lenkite ◴[31 Aug 22 12:47 UTC] No.32661372[source]▶
The Chinese have successfully uplifted most of their citizenry out of poverty while their neighbour India - despite a head-start - is yet to manage the same. Looks like the corporate nationalist approach works well at overcoming the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
replies(1): >>32665120 #
5. B1FF_PSUVM ◴[31 Aug 22 17:02 UTC] No.32665120{3}[source]▶
Shh, can't say that.