On Thu, 18 Aug 2011, SA wrote:
> Maybe - within decades. But once you accept that it would have taken some
> unspecified number of decades without Gorbachev before serious change would
> have been forced
Also, I'm not accepting that. It would have been decades before system collapsed of its own accord. But that spectre was quite to them. So change was already forced. If not from Gorby, it would have come from someone else. And the "force" would have accelerated with each extra year of failure. You can't take statements CC members being complacent that small changes would work as evidence they wouldn't change their minds any more than you can take statements from EU leaders from a few years ago like that.
And once enough change was initiated, you'd run into exactly problems Gorby did and failed to solve.
It's kind of hard to imagine anyone else could have done it worse.
Michael