On Thu, 18 Aug 2011, SA wrote:
> Gorby strikes me as a rare example of Huge Change + Clear Individual
> Responsibility. Yes, in the end it was actually Yeltsin who brought down
> the system, but once Gorbachev chose to take the steps that destabilized
> it -- which he didn't have to do, and which no other plausible party GS
> would have done
See, that's what I don't buy. The communist system had a big economic crisis that had to get solved in both China and Russia. One way or another it would have. Or the system would have collapsed. So if collapse is your huge change, it was a comin. Just like it came in China.
It was a similar case in the US. We didn't get neoliberalism because Reagan was elected. We got it because the 70s reached a crisis of power and profitability. There had to be a change or the system would collapse. Instead it adapted and got stronger. Like in China.
Michael