[lbo-talk] Gorbachev: I Should Have Left the Communist Party Earlier

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Aug 17 20:03:22 PDT 2011


On Wed, 17 Aug 2011, SA wrote:


>> In that case, we live in the era of Bush.
>
> I take your point, but do you really think the Iraq invasion is of the
> same magnitude as the collapse of Communism?

It may take longer, but with that and his other policies, he may have fatally weakened the US empire and ruling class unintentionally. That would be even more consequential than fatally weakening the Soviet empire and ruling class unintentionally. And in the realm of counterfactual history, just as consequential might have been missing the unique post- 9/11 opportunity to set up a new post cold war world order, and instead sending us down this hyper-cold-war rerun road on which we seem to be stuck hurtling toward the cliff.

As Zhou Enlai famously said (albeit not about the French Revolution -- rather about the 1968 student revolts in France), It's too early to tell.

Michael



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