On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, ChrisD(RJ) wrote:
> Everybody hates Gorbachev though.They guy really was an incredible
> loser.
But you like him, right? So why does everyone hate so much? Because they blame him for the break-up of the Soviet Union? Isn't that unfair, since he wasn't for it?
Michael -- I like him much less than I used too. I consider him an idealistic, bumbling oaf. People blame him for permitting the breakup of the USST, and, moreover, for perestroika. "Perestroika" is a dirty wotd in Russia. Economic collapse began under Gorbachev, not Stalin. He did really stupid things, like ploughing under Moldova's wine field's as part fo his anti-alcohol campaign. Moreover, he stupidly believed the West when they verbally assured him, WITHOUT EVEN A WRITTEN DOCUMENT, that NATO would be dissolved if he let the Warsaw Pact go. Outside of allowing openness (probably too much openness) into the public sphere, Gorbachev did absolutely nothing for people in the Soviet Union.
I was walking with a 23-year-old girl on Red Square the other day and we were looking at the graves of the Soviet leaders. I asked her if she thought they would bury Gorbachev there. Her response was, "I never thought about it. Who cares about Gorbachev? He did his 'black deeds' (chyorniye dela, her words) and went away."
Yeltsin his hated far more deeply, though.