Does anyone believe that if Andropov or Brezhnev had lived thru the 80's

[JFW]

that Reagan would have "single handedly defeated the Soviet Union" as
they claim? Of course not. The idiot probably would've gotten us into a war, or worsened the cold war if nothing else. Reagan was the
beneficiary of an immense amount of good luck in that a progressive,
reform minded pragmatist like Gorbachev was in power at the time.
Hell, Ronald McDonald probably would've accomplished as much given
identical circumstances.

[physioex]

1. Groby was a wuss...

Stack Ronnie against Stalin or Lenin and let's see what happens to the Gipper...

[Guaranteed]

2. LOL who was it JFK went up against?

Was it Krushchev?

Reagan was a charming guy, but even he was no Jack Kennedy. He would have eaten shit trying to take on Krushchev.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. Nope

Agree with you completely on the subject. Although I am glad that Reagan chose to engage with Gorbachev, rather that maintain his bellicose posture.

It really pissed off the RW at the time too. They re-wrote history later.

[LTR]

4. There were four Soviet leaders in the 80's

Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev. The first three died in office.

The first three were Communist hardliners. Gorby was a reformer. Remember Perestroika?

Gorby saw that the USSR was starting to crumble under the weight of its own bureacracy. He started reforms. Eventually, Communism started to disappear country by country across Europe.

If any one individual deserves credit, it was Gorbachev. Remember who was Time Magazine's "Man of the Decade" in '89? Or why the hardliners put him under house arrest and staged a drunken coup? And that the Soviet Union died almost immediately after that? Who do you think was the main person responsible?

Reagan and Bush were lucky to have Gorbachev as an advesary. They were getting nowhere, and probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere, with the previous three leaders.

[jayavarman]

5. I read yesterday that at the end USSR was spending 40% of GDP

on defense, trying to keep up with US. If that fact is true, it would have been hard for any soviet leader to keep things going smoothly for very long. Realize that in USSR govt was everything. More money for defense meant less # for everything else, including things that kept the population happy. Plus the USSR had to worry about keeping all of those satellite states in line as well.

Some of the original posters may be right, a more volatile soviet leader may have tried to start a war or conflict with us . . . . But the idea that the soviet system would still be around if they had just had a leader with more backbone than gorby is, historically speaking, a joke.

[Jim__]

6. In 1976, the CIA predictied the demise of the Soviet Union b/4 1990

The corruption under Brezhnev was so extreme that it bankrupted the Soviet Union. The CIA analysts concluded that it was an economic basket case and would not survive. The right denied the accuracy of the report, and then CIA Director, poppy, allowed the right, under the auspices of the Committe on the Present Danger, to come in and analyze the data. This committee concluded that the Soviet Union was trying for a first strike capability, and our only chance for survival was a massive arms build-up by the US.

Andropov recognized the sad state of the Soviet Union and asked the Politburo to have Gorbachev succeed him. The Politiburo refused and picked Chernyenko (sp) because of Reagan's militancy. So, if Reagan hadn't been as militant as he was, we probably would have had Gorbachev sooner; and the collapse of the Soviet Unioin sooner.

Reagan probably helped to prop up the Soviet Union for an extra couple of years.

[Vladimir]

7. The Sviet collapse had nothing to do with Reagan

they survived Hitler's tanks on the gates of Stalingrad, but couldn't survive a bit of tough talk by Reagan? Gimme a break. The USSR, sadly, collapsed under its own weight. In 500 years time, historians will list its collapse as one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.

[theboss]

9. Yea, it's always sad when totalitarian states die

20 million people dead here. A few million arrested there. Those were the good times.

[Vladimir]

11. For many Russians

compared to today, yes. When you can't eat, freedom of speech doesn't mean much. And in fact, freedoms barely exists anyway in today's Russia, what with the Yeltsin-Putin dynasty of scumbag puppets for the oligarchy running the show.

The USSR collapsed because of its own corruption and because of gross mismanagement - this much is undeniable. Had reforms of a different sort to the ones Gorbachov toyed with been brought along earlier, it may well not have done - and much misery could have been avoided.

[theboss]

12. The tragedy is the opportunity missed when the USSR collapsed

Not that it collapsed in the first place. If only for the freedoms brought forth in Eastern Europe, that was a marvelous event.

[Vladimir]

16. Well it could be argued that

Eastern Europe was indeed a large part of the Soviet problem, and that had the whole Eastern block been let off the leash sooner, or encouraged to reform, things might have turned out better. But in any case, Soviet influence over the Eastern block was not at all removed from American influnce and interference in places like Chile, Nicaragua, Cambodia back then... or looking at today's picture Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc. So we've traded one set of satellites for another in many ways, and this makes things far less clear cut.

[IrateCitizen]

13. What is sad is that it imploded so completely and wrecked so many lives

I often wonder what would have happened if Gorbachev would have been able to remain in power, and affect a gradual shift to a blend of market capitalism and socialism; as opposed to the complete collapse of the old USSR, rise of the drunken and infinitely corrupt Yeltsin and the "shock therapy" designed by Western economists. I would bet that Russia would be in much better shape than it is today.

[theboss]

14. Possibly

But there was no template for how to do that and certainly the sheer size of Russia made it a daunting task.

[IrateCitizen]

15. The United States, I believe, assisted in this collapse

Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote about this in his book, The Grand Chessboard, that the United States never should have reconciled with Russia, but rather should have worked to hasten its disintegration. The reason being, that Russia alone possesses the natural resources, manpower, and technological base needed to challenge US hegemony -- and also to drive a wedge between the US and the emerging (some might say eclipsing) powers of Europe and Japan.

It could be argued, in studying the "shock therapy" and US role in encouraging former republics to spin off from Russia, that the US did try to do this to a certain extent. But the path the US leaders chose was predictably the one of least resistance, which only resulted in a weaker, not decimated Russia.

Now, Russia is climbing back. It's oil and gas reserves are second in the world, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia. It's experienced economic growth for the past few years, after nearly a decade of contraction. With its resource base and trade surplus, it can effectively ignore the dictates of the IMF and US Treasury. Of course there are still significant obstacles, both economically and democratically, but Russia is on its way to finding its own path to some form of democracy that fits with its traditional communitarian sensibilities, which date back centuries before the rise of the Bolsheviks.

All of this bodes poorly for the future of the US. A Europe and Japan opening ties with Russia only means the cutting of more ties with the US over time.

[Zolok]

8. Andropov and Breszhnev were dying men

in the 1980's no matter how you cut it.
I don't enroll Leonid among the elite of soviet hard-asses he was "elected" First Secretary on a promise to maintain "stability of cadres".
Roughly translated this meant he was gonna lay off the endless Khrushchev era reform campaigns and leave the boys in the back room alone.
His last three summits with Nixon, Ford and Carter were plagued with health problems...Leonid surrounded by aides doctors and suchlike with little real give and take going on.
The rumor has lingered to this day Brezhnev suffered a STROKE at the Valdivostok Summit with Ford.
Hardly a solo strongman, he needed consensus in the Politburo to operate.
Andropov was a different fish...tougher and had been the USSR's top secret policeman for years. On the other hand he didn't get the top jov because he was a security apparatchik, he got it on a promise to reform the communist party of the Soviet Union and get the economy moving again.
Gorbachev was his right hand man, much of Mikhail's policies were derived from Andropov.
So it is a wash...Gorbie needed Ron Ron needed GOrbie...assymetrical weaknesses at work.
:)
www.chimeatmidnight.blogspot.com

[theboss]

10. Reagan and Gorbachev fed off each other

Reagan did have a rather original approach to dealing with the Soviets, which was antagonistic at first, but then became remarkably concilitory once Gorbachev began to take him seriously.

Gorbachev deserves the lion's share of the credit for ending the Cold War, because he was the first Premier to ever even conceive of such a thing. But the one area that Reagan deserves credit for is that he actually worked with Gorby. If George H.W. Bush had been President, we never would have signed the arms reduction treaties at the end of Reagan's term, which were in fact pretty remarkable.

But Reagan should never get credit for ending the Cold War with his name being followed by "and Gorbachev."