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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: 0.422s | source
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lapcat ◴[30 Aug 22 21:07 UTC] 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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kemiller ◴[31 Aug 22 01:13 UTC] No.32657198[source]▶
Not sure how a Marshall plan would have worked since, unlike Germany, we were not occupiers. Our ability to reshape their system was limited. Not that we didn’t bubble things.
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1. lapcat ◴[31 Aug 22 02:23 UTC] No.32657630[source]▶
"Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed toward the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total). The next highest contributions went to France" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
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2. hetman ◴[31 Aug 22 05:14 UTC] No.32658621[source]▶
The UK was already aligned with US ideology.
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3. lapcat ◴[31 Aug 22 13:52 UTC] No.32662034[source]▶
So was Russia, actually. Yeltsin went all-in on "shock therapy" and rapid privatization of the economy.

If anything, Yeltsin was too aligned with US capitalist ideology.

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4. hetman ◴[01 Sep 22 03:53 UTC] No.32671746{3}[source]▶
Capitalism isn't the entirety of US ideology, and I would hardly say Russia was aligned given how vastly different their outcomes were compared to other eastern European nations.
5. kemiller ◴[04 Sep 22 18:27 UTC] No.32716134{3}[source]▶
I think the point is that the UK only needed rebuilding, not fundamentally restructuring.