Mikhail Gorbachev has died

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.

On the contrary, the "shock therapy" approach that Russia took in the Yeltsin years was, in many ways, prescribed by the West, and ended up being a complete disaster for both your average Russian person, and for capitalism and democracy as a whole, because most people just learned to associate these things with the kleptocracy that occurred in the 90s.

> [Western-driven reconstruction was] complete disaster for both your average Russian person

I think that's overstating the case. In fact the "average Russian person" was living in destitute poverty through most of the cold war, and none of that meaningfully changed with the advent of a market economy. Except that Russians of the 2000's could get eat better food and watch (much) better TV.

It's absolutely true that most of the western aid ended up hurting and not helping. But the bar was very, very low to begin with.

Check life expectancy of russians… it is not the same… it has gone worse.

I tried googling

Search Term : Result

Life expectancy Russia 1990 : 68.89

Life expectancy Russia 2019 : 73.08

For reference, in the US:

Life expectancy US 1990 : 75.21

Life expectancy US 2019 : 78.79

I dunno nothing really stands out. It looks like Russians benefited a little bit more, but Americans were starting from a higher baseline so it makes sense that gains would be harder to come by.

2019 was selected rather than 2021 for obvious reasons.