> In fact he's a well
> > educated man, though not of spectacular intellect
> in my opinion.
As opposed to who? I mean, the revolutionary generation of Soviet pols contained intellectuals that were spectacular by any standards--Lenin and Trotsky, chief of all. Same as ours: Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, Madison, Burr, Hamilton. And afterwards, there was a falling off, that's normal too. Gorby is a smart man, writes his own books and speeches, which is more than any US politician for some time could do. I guess Clinton, who is very bright, could probably write a speech if he had too. Compared to the reactionary moron in the White House now, Gorby is Einstein, Leonardo, Shakespeare. -- He's a smart guy, just overly idealistic and not the kind of person who should be leading a country. Hell, in a pretty damn short period of time, he lost his country, his party and his job. He's also very, very bitter over the dissolution of the USSR and his treatment by Yeltsin, and also over his extremely low popularity level. Gorbachev is not liked in Russia at all. I feel sorry for the guy, honestly. He had such good intentions. The early Perestroika era really was a very idealistic period, everyone was so full of hope. Genuine Communism and Freedom were just around the corner. You can hear it in the pop music from that period (like Kino's "Our Hearts Are Demanding Changes").
If you
> want
> > rube, look at Khrushchev.
Well, a rube but no dummy. ANd every day you get up and watch the sun rise you can thank him, because he grasped what nuclear weapons could do, and was grown up enough to back down when JFK pushed the world to the brink.
jks --- No argument from me. By "rube" I mean down-home country boy, which is what Khrushchev was. And you're right, he does deserve a lot of credit, not just for pulling the world back from the brink but de-Stalinization and turning the Soviet economy in a more consumer-goods direction. To this day, people he released from the Gulag leave flowers on his grave. Though is "let's grom corn in Siberia!" initiative is still joked about.
My opinion of Brezhnev is becoming increasingly high, by the way. Most Russians consider the Brezhnev era to be the high point of their history. They're probably right.