this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2022
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Gorbachev wasn't a full liberal he was a reformist and basically wanted social democracy. The liberal opposition that he at first championed with glastnost quickly outflanked him while the Soviet conservatives also hated him. His naivete and ineptitude destroyed the country by allowing liberal and nationalist forces (Yeltsin and his cronies) to tear the union apart from under his unsteady feet. The August coup was an attempt by the conservatives to force Gorbachev to fucking do something to save the country (several states had already declared independence at this point), but he couldn't even be assed to take a side so the conservative had to try to throw together a new government overnight.
So he's less of a sell out (that fits Yeltsin better) and more of a person who was just completely incapable of recognizing the situation and was overcome by more decisive forces.
Gorbachev said in an interview in Turkey in 2000 "My ambition was to liquidate Communism." and establish a "Union of Independent Sovereign Republics" and to basically help America fight China. So he wanted a return of bourgeois nationalism, and a fully capitalist mode of production, but without dissolving the USSR, and with the addition of social democracy, which would rely on imperialism. It was a very naive in my opinion.
That interview is monstrous bearing in mind what happened what he did to the Soviet living standard
I think on a long enough timeline it could be said Gorbachev killed more people than WW2. Because what he really did was he dismantled the nation best equipped to handle climate change, and to help others handle climate change. :doomjak:
While the Soviets had some terrible environmental policies (their role in whaling, for instance.) on the whole they were better than the USA, and they were concerned about climate change in the mid 70s, and established the first predictive models about it.