|
Tweezer Reprise posted:I hope this doesn't count as a necropost, but I've recently had a particular fire lit under me after learning a lot more than I used to know about Yeltsin's coup in 1993, and my attention has shifted backwards to Gorbachev. Does anyone have any good books about him and the late era of Soviet history? My (perhaps flawed) impression of Gorbachev at present is basically FDR though the looking glass, so to speak: a singular figure trying to keep the house from coming down by putting his ear to the ground and attempting to harness the adversarial forces bubbling up, to reform by folding the corners all back into a cooperating unit. This worked for FDR: the American state in the 30s and 40s more fully became the master of capitalism instead of merely its interlocutor and conduit. This however, did not work for Gorbachev, and I'd love to learn more about why, and if there was any conceivable way for the Soviet Union not to fall apart post-Brezhnev. I would last it was very unlikely especially after 1979. That said, I would say I would have some difficulty comparing FDR and Gorbachev, while both had ambitious plans. I would say FDR's goal was more about bolstering what was an relatively weak state while Gorbachev was working in relative reverse even if it was for what he thought was good reasons. As for why the Soviet Union fell apart, in my opinion it is much more of a dollar and cents issues, trade and energy prices.
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2021 04:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 02:30 |
|