Did Reagan really "defeat" the Soviet Union?

[cowcommander]

Conservatives have constantly used Reagan's military buildup back in the 80s, along with the Afghanistan debacle and the Star Wars program as a reason to why the Soviet Union collapsed. Is there really any truth to this? I've always been under the impression that the Soviet system was always fundamentally flawed and was inevitably going to collapse, even without American influence.

[Sherman A1]

1. At the very best he might have hurried it along, but in the

process coming close to bankrupting our country on military spending.

The USSR was going to collapse, it was just a matter of when. There was a book from the 1970's who's title I forget, that explained the whole thing in detail. The cold war was a 50+ year event. Reagan was just around towards the end of it. Every other President along the way shares the credit of doing so just as should he.

[bulloney]

40. I would agree with your assessment, Sherman. The Soviet Union was falling apart

before Reagan took office. The signs became visible after he took office.

I attended a program in SW Ohio where a Miami (Ohio) University professor gave a slide presentation of a recent trip he had in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. It showed a nation whose infrastructure was in shambles and its agriculture was grossly inefficient. These things didn't occur because Ronnie Ray-gun told Gorbachev to tear down the wall. These things were the results of years, if not decades of deterioration in the Soviet Union. Reagan just happened to be president when these things became visible to the West.

[starroute]

41. Andrei Amalrik's Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Amalrik

Amalrik was best known in the Western world for his essay Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?, published in 1970. The book predicts the country's eventual breakup under the weight of social and ethnic antagonisms and a disastrous war with China.

Writing in 1969, Amalrik originally wanted to make 1980 as the date of the Soviet downfall, because 1980 was a round number, but Amalrik was persuaded by a friend to change it to the Orwellian 1984. Amalrik predicted the collapse of the regime would occur between 1980 and 1985.

[Sherman A1]

55. That sounds about right

I recall it having a couple of Soviet Tanks on the cover.

[Skittles]

2. fuck no he didn't

it collapsed under its own weight; he just happened to be prez when it happened

[Art_from_Ark]

7. He wasn't even prez when it happened

since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, mid-way through Bush Sr.'s term.

[Skittles]

8. so I should have said

he was just the fucking conservative asshole who took credit for it

Blum nailed it

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum06072004.html

[Art_from_Ark]

9. I took a couple of classes on the Soviet Union in the '70s

and early '80s. Both professors had previously been to the USSR on Intourist tours, and they both concluded that the USSR was on the verge of collapse, because their economy was in a shambles-- people had to wait in line to buy daily necessities, even bread and toilet paper, while a lot of their factories were just cranking out either military crap, or parts for other factories! And they were wasting a lot of resources trying to keep their Eastern Bloc "alllies" in line.

[Skittles]

10. yes; I've heard the same from Russians themselves

absolutely it was already well on its way out when Reagan pulled his phallic stunts

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Reagan actually caused the Soviet government to become more repressive, IMO.

When Gorbachev was in power, he actually attempted to institute reforms, remember Glasnost? (openness and transparency) However, because of Reagan's refusal to negotiate or compromise, the Soviet hardliners panicked, thwarting most of Gorbachev's efforts. I was in Russia in 1986 as part of a peace group and the folks we met had no fondness for then-President Reagan. He scared them and they did not look on him as a friend. x(

However, they looked with much more favor on President Carter, whose policies they approved of much more and was much more humanitarian in his approach. Reagan's policies are often credited with helping to bring down the USSR, when actually the opposite is true. His policies caused them to shore up their defenses. It was Carter's grain embargo that was an important factor in bringing down the Soviets and we seem to have forgotten the reason he boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics - which was to protest the Soviet war in Afghanistan... *sigh*

So I credit Jimmy Carter and not Ronald Reagan, despite current conventional wisdom to the contrary... :(

[alfredo]

50. Back in the sixties I was attached to an information gathering

organization and I remember being told that the USSR was collapsing and all we needed to be was patient. They were not investing in infrastructure, obscene amounts of money was being pumped into the military, factories were not modernizing, the ruling elite was raiding the treasury. Sounds like us.

Reagan short circuited the process of transitioning to a more democratic Russia. What Gorby wanted was an orderly transition. Reagan wanted a legacy. What we got was 10 years of chaos in Russia.

[Rhiannon12866]

68. When I was there in 1986, they were in trouble, but not as bad as I expected.

The lines that we all heard about were non-existent, at least where I was, Moscow, Leningrad and Sochi. But there was a lot of fear because Gorbachev was in negotiations with then-President Reagan, and the Russian people had experienced enough of war to yearn for a permanent and reliable peace. The peace group I was with met with similar Russian groups and there was one woman who remains in my mind. She was elderly and had been a nurse during WWII and she said to us "When you go back, please tell your president that we want peace..." ;( The Reykjavík Summit was coming up and I remembered her words when the talks stalled and Reagan came home with no agreement... ;(

And I appreciate your perspective. I was pretty young at the time, made the trip with my grandmother and her group. But the people we met made a huge impression on me. I was of the generation that hid under our desks to prepare for the bomb... :crazy: So it was a pleasant surprise to learn that the Russian people were just like us, wanted the same things and were committed to peace. I learned a great deal about their devastating experiences during wartime and the reasons why they never wanted it to happen again. :(

I agree with you about Reagan and it always rankles when it's said he "won" the Cold War and was responsible for the collapse of the USSR. If anything, he made things much tougher for Gorbachev, who I think deserves much more credit for his efforts, as does President Carter. :( :hi:

[alfredo]

74. We were enamored with the "Chile miracle" and wanted to replicate it

In the rest of the world. I think that was why we pushed Russia into a crisis.

[Lasher]

4. In reality, Reagan did nothing to bring down the Soviet Union.

By 1980, the Soviet Union was trying to cut its own defense spending. Reagan made it harder for them to do so. In fact, Reagan increased the possibility of a nuclear war because he was -- frankly, and sadly -- senile. He thought we could actually recall submarine-launched nuclear missiles (talk about a Reagan myth), and bullied the Soviets to highest alert several times.

Critically, Reagan never even tried to bring down the Soviet Union.

Wasteful overspending on defense didn't end the Soviet Union. In fact, it played into the hands of authoritarian "Communist" hard-liners in the Kremlin. Reagan thought the Soviet Union was more powerful than we were. He was trying to close what he called "the window of vulnerability."

This was sheer idiocy.

No general in our military would trade our armed forces for theirs. If it were to happen, none of the Soviet military command would turn down that deal. We had better systems, better troops, and better morale.

Here's the truth: we'd already won the Cold War before Reagan took office. All Reagan needed to do was continue the tried-and-true containment policies Harry S. Truman began and all subsequent presidents employed. The Soviet Union was Collapsing from within. The CIA actually told this to Reagan as he took office.

Here's an example: the Soviet Union military couldn't deal with a weak state on its own border, the poor, undermanned Afghanistan. Most of the Soviets' military might had to make sure its "allies" in the Warsaw Pact and subjects along the South Asian front didn't revolt. Even Richard Nixon told Reagan he could balance the budget with big defense cuts.

Reagan ignored this, and wrecked our budget.

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020319Hersh.html

[alfredo]

53. I remember back in the sixties, they had few computers and

they were compromised.

The CIA was overstating the threat so they could continue getting obscene amounts of tax dollars.

The Soviet military was only able to sustain combat for appox 60 days. They had too much territory to protect, and too few roads and rails to transport supplies.

We built the super highway system for the military. The Soviets had no such system. Paved roads were few and far between as you moved east. They had little access to year round ports. They were victims of geography. Their expansionism was an effort to gain ice free ports. There were some on the east coast, but it was too far from the industrial west.


They were a paper tiger.

[DeSwiss]

5. No. He just dreamed that he did during one of his many daily naps. n/t

[denbot]

6. The person, if there was one person who broght down the U.S.S.R .

Was a shipyard worker from a Polish town of Gadansk, by the name of Lech Walesa. He co-founded the Solidarity movement that swept through the Eastblock, and when a fairly evil East German leader saw the writing on the wall and stopped shooting his own people while fleeing, the entire Warsaw Block collasped, and that implosion destroyed the Old Kremlin Guard.

Ronnie was a doddering, story telling hack that happened to occupy the whitehouse in the 80's.

Does anyone remember lighting candles and placing them in the windows to show support with Solidarity?

[ngant17]

13. Glasnost and perestroika started the changes

which were implemented under Gorbachev. He deserves the most credit for the end of the Soviet Union.

Rather than end the Cold War, Reagan added fuel to the fire with his rhetoric of the Evil Empire. Reagan absolutely refused to disarm in 1986 at the summit in Reykjavik. He had the opportunity to make history then, and he failed miserably.

[primavera]

38. Precisely so

The Soviet system was hugely unpopular, but, then again, so is prison - but that doesn't stop inmates from continuing to be detained against their wills by a tiny handful of guards. What Gorbachev did was to create legitimate venues for addressing the fundamental flaws in the Soviet system, which enabled the people to finally make the extent of their discontent a matter of public policy. Raygun did a great deal more harm than good, in that every thing he did was designed to antagonize the Soviet Union and to give ammo to the hardliners who wanted to clamp down on the reform process and restore things to the way they had been. Raygun played right into the hands of the Communist Party hardliners; he was their best friend. Make no mistake, the Soviet system collapsed despite Raygun's best efforts, not because of them.

[ngant17]

47. Raygun was a consistent negative, all in all

Especially during the 1980's when he was President. Closer to home, we have the El Salvador, Nicaragua, in fact the whole of Latin America with few exceptions, he created enormous problems.

After KAL007 and the Evil Empire speech, Raygun was responsible for the biggest military spending in US history, although Congress was not innocent of this matter either.

But the Soviet Union only acted appropriately when shooting down a foreign airplane, one which invaded their territory and repeatedly refused to turn back or make an emergency landing. "Evil Empire"? I'd say we should have admired them for their ability to resolutely respond to a possible terrorist attack on their territory.

Compare that to what happened after 9-11. The Russians immediately sacked and replaced its air force command, even though they successfully defended their airspace. But we gave out medals and promotions for sheer incompetence! Instead of demotions, Bush rewarded the Army and Air Force generals for their completely incompetent defense of our nation's capitol.

[Brickbat]

62. We lit candles. I remember that.

[jmowreader]

86. I'm going to change your narrative a little...

What actually collapsed the East Bloc was Hungary's decision to open its border on May 2, 1989. When they did this, Warsaw Pact citizens--Poles, Czechs, East Germans...--took vacations to Hungary, which was a popular place to vacation, and defected to Austria. I don't know where the Poles and Czechs went, but the East Germans wound up in West Germany where they were given instant West German citizenship.

The Poles and Czechs realized if they didn't Do Something to stop the outflow, everyone who had a skill they could sell in the West would go there, so they decided to democratize. The only holdout was Erich Honecker, chairman of the East German Communist Party (In East German: "Socialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland," or SED.). When his aides explained to him that East Germany should democratize because the rest of the East Bloc was, Honecker replied, "You don't put up new wallpaper just because your neighbor does." This was reported dutifully in Neues Deutschland, the SED newspaper, and led to an immediate shortage of wallpaper in all stores in East Germany. (East Germans did have a sense of humor, although you needed an electron microscope to find it.) So...on October 18, 1989, the SED Presidium removed Honecker from power and replaced him with Egon Krenz. After that, the Wall fell, a couple months later Krenz himself was gone, and the SED became the Party of Democratic Socialism, or PDS. (Now, after some mergers, the SED is part of "Die Linke," or "the left.")

Reagan, OTOH, was a doddering, storytelling hack who just happened to also be a warmonger.

[Richard Steele]

11. The Soviet Union defeated itself. Reagan was just an actor who happened to be President at the time

[Hannah Bell]

12. no, the russian ruling class decided they'd be better off as capitalists.

[eShirl]

14. oh, hell no

he just had the good timing to show up at the very end of a generations-long effort

[Robb]

15. Yes, in the same way the iceberg defeated Titanic. nt

[Saboburns]

16. This topic pisses me off, because it forgets to realize those millions of brave people

from eastern Europe, like the Polish Solidarity Movement that got this whole thing started, they were risking their very lives by showing up to Demonstrations.

Brave Brave Brave people.


Now tell me what Reagan did??


He did nothing.

[primavera]

56. Hear, hear

It never fails to infuriate the crap out of me to hear Repukes re-write history to take credit for an historic series of events that were brought about through the courage and commitment of others despite the Repukes' best efforts to perpetuate the status quo! Talk about adding insult to injury - isn't it bad enough that they were a roadblock to history, they have to also take credit for the very thing they were blocking?

[randr]

17. Rock and Roll had a larger roll than the ol gipper

If you ever have a chance check out http://www.thirteen.org/beatles/about/
Documentary proof of the power of peace, love and rock and roll.

[Javaman]

80. Stale bread had more of an effect than ray-gun...

Not knocking Rock and Roll at all.

[undeterred]

18. There was an Al Franken commentary on SNL which explained it best-

Their system collapsed because there was no money in it. Wish I had the link.

[cordelia]

19. Hell, no.

It imploded all on its own. He just happened to be president when it happened.

[sendero]

20. Afghanistan..

.. and oil prices collapsed the Soviet Union.

[MadHound]

21. Better question, was the Soviet Union really a threat?

The answer is no, they were simply a convenient excuse for the MIC to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit.

[democrat2thecore]

63. I agree the threat was USED for profit - but the USSR was most definitely a threat

All you have to do is read the Russian leaders today and their talk of how close we all came to nuclear war on 3 separate occasions. When two countries have tens of thousands of missiles ready-to-launch and pointed at the others population centers - it's a threat.

[MadHound]

72. Yes, there was the nuclear threat, but it was vastly overblown.

The country with the vast majority of nukes in this instance was the US. Let me explain.

In the aftermath of WWII the US employed one Reinholt Gehlen, former Nazi general, war criminal, and head of the Nazi's Eastern European intelligence division. After the war, Gehlen turned himself in to the US forces, and cut a deal. Instead of turning him over to the Soviets, as was agreed upon by treaty, the US would take in Gehlen in exchange for all he knew about the Soviets and also for his help in setting up a Eastern European spy ring, since the US didn't have any intelligence assets in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union.

Gehlen did far more than that however. Over the years, he and his organization was our only source of USSR intelligence. We turned him loose, he reformed his old gang(also made up of former Nazis, and war criminals), and then proceeded to run operations into the USSR. Gehlen was a disaster, almost from the beginning. First, being a fascist, Gehlen loathed the Communists, and wanted them destroyed. Thus, he would grossly overstate the Soviet threat to the US. Instead of reporting the truth, that the Soviet Union had dozens of missiles, he reported they had hundreds. Instead of reporting that the Soviets were ripping up train tracks leading into West Germany and Western Europe, Gehlen reported that the Soviets were laying down tracks in preparation of an invasion.

What's worse is that the US continued to accept these reports by Gehlen's organization, and act on them, even when we were getting evidence that directly contradicted them, such as the U2 overflights. Gehlen was also elevated through the ranks, winding up as West Germany's head of intelligence, where he continued to issue overblown threat assessments to the West.

The threat of the Soviet Union was dramatically overblown throughout the postwar years. Yet it is these false threats that allowed for the justification of our own military buildup, and most importantly, allowed the industries of the MIC to make obscene amounts of money. If we had not relied on Nazis for our intelligence, if we had approached the Russians differently, there would have been no Cold War. But there were players out there who stood to profit from the increased tensions between the US and USSR, and they pushed their agenda above all, including the well being of the US.

[democrat2thecore]

77. It wasn't vastly overblown

The nukes and their associated silos were accounted for. Remember Gus Hall claiming the Soviets never supported the Communist Party, USA? Now, there are tons of documents proving that the CPUSA was almost completely paid for by the CPSU. In much the same way, those who thought the Soviets had fewer nukes and delivery systems than claimed have since been silenced. The Soviet Union was a threat. There may have been two "bad guys" at times, but the USSR was certainly no innocent party to the nuclear standoff. In short, it was not overblown. Those were scary times.

[MadHound]

81. Yes, actually it was.

The nukes weren't accounted for. Gehlen was reporting hundreds of missiles in the Soviet Union, yet at the time he was reporting this, U2 overflights were showing up only dozens. That is overblown.

In addition to nukes, and the railroad tracks example I gave upthread, various other numbers concerning the Soviet military were also inflated by Gehlen and his organization. Remember, for twelve years, this man and his organization were the sum total of our intelligence about the Soviet Union, and they were inflating the numbers.

Furthermore, the CIA was going around the world throughout the Cold War and essentially creating Communist "threats". For instance, the Viet Cong were nothing more than the one million Tonkinese natives that the CIA had forced from the North to South Vietnam to reside. Since they didn't have relatives, or much other means of subsistence, they turned to thievery and banditry, thus becoming the Viet Cong.

I have no idea who Gus Hall is, and yes, it is common knowledge that the CPUSA had Soviet connections. But that has nothing to do what I'm talking about. This is not about silencing people who believe that the Soviet Union didn't have that many nuclear missiles, this is about people just now finding out how badly they've been duped in this regard. Over the past fifteen years there have been so serious document drops come to light at the Library of Congress and National Archive, material that is still being sifted and written about, material that shows just how much the US blew up the threat of the Soviet Union.

If you don't believe me, if you don't believe other well known and trusted historians, then go to the National Archives, go to the Library of Congress, do your own research, see for yourself. I did, I've been researching this and related topics for years, in part for college dissertations.

What have you done except believe the party line?

[democrat2thecore]

83. Difference of opinion?

"What have you done except believe the party line?"

Oh...if you only knew.

This Soviet revisionism is dangerous. And if you don't know who Gus Hall is - you have not done any serious research on the Soviet Union. Period. If you have, and still don't know who Gus Hall is -- start over.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

[MadHound]

91. This isn't "Soviet Revisionism", this is fact

Again, go to the National Archives, the Library of Congress, do your own research. You hint that you've done some sort of great thing ("Oh. . .if you only knew), but really, what have you done. I researched this material for my dissertation on post WWII Germany/US relations(which is why I didn't know who Gus Hall is, and why I still don't see the relevance of that reference), and I have seen the primary sources with my own eyes. So again, cut the bullshit, what have you done except be an internet mystery man?

You quote Moynihan, but yet you still want to have your own facts. Do you even know who Gehlen is? Do you understand his significance, or the significance of the US employment of hundreds of other former Nazis post WWII?

Stop trying to bluff your way through our little debate here by acting mysterious, and instead, show me something actual and concrete.

[oldlib]

22. Reagan did not stop the Cold War.

The men in the US military, who served during that period, maintained the aggressive pressure that eventually forced the Soviet Union to collapse. Reagan was just a blowhard who happened to be president at the time.

[ProfessorGAC]

23. No. Ted Turner Did

Ted Turner showed the moneyed interests, world-wide that there was profit to be made by direct satelite broadcasting.

Then when Turner started making big money at it, he spawned imitators in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East. Eventually, there was too much access of too much information.

When that happend, the proliferation of unaltered video of life in the West made it nearly impossible to censor. Then, the majority of the Soviet block citizenry saw with their own eyes that they were living in a system dependent upon the big lie.

They saw the West wasn't perfect, but was WAY better than what they had been told for decades. Once the genie was out of the bottle, Gorbachev was smart enough to see he couldn't ever put it back in there.

So, he liberalized the system and it went from there.

Reagan had almost nothing to do with it. That's one of our big lies.

[blm]

82. Ted Turner's satellite for INTERNATIONAL NEWS, cable. I want my MTV wasn't JUST aimed at US teens

.

[Itchinjim]

24. The old hardline Stalinists dying off ended the cold war.

Without a Gorbachev there would have been no change. Stalin, Kruschev or somebody like Beria would have eaten Reagan's lunch. I give more credit to Mikhail than to Ronnie. Lennon and Mccartney had a hand in it too.

[barbtries]

25. i have shared your belief

but it's a good question. i believe their system was unsupportable and that's why it failed.

[Axrendale]

26. I'm probably going to cop some flak for this, but Reagan did actually make an important contribution

but it was NOT towards "defeating" the USSR - rather it was in his (eventual) aquiescence to the relative olive branch that was held out by Gorbachev, which resulted in some important steps being taken towards reducing the catastrophic possibility of nuclear war.

One thing that must be admitted about Reagan, even by those who (rightfully) loathe him and everything that he stood for, is that he was a far cry from the fire-breathing ideologue that he is often taken as by the many who, either admiringly or critically, continue to misunderstand and misrepresent his (mostly toxic) legacy - a phenomenon that occurs on the left as well as on the right. Contrary to the popular image bandied by his legions of worshippers today, the Gipper was in fact a highly pragmatic master of compromise who was fully capable of performing startling volte-faces when it was clear that necessity required him to do so. This was visible not only in his domestic policies (where after the ill-concieved tax cutting program of his first two years in office failed to do anything except run up record deficits he was willing to orchestrate a series of six tax hikes) but also in his foreign policies, particularly in regards to the Soviet Union.

During his first five years in office, the Reagan administration's anti-USSR strategy of a massive arms build-up and agressive posturing can be generously described as having been a debacle. The entire basis of the ludicrous myth promoted by neo-cons that this "stratgy" had anything at all to do with the rapid deterioration of the Soviet socio-economic scene is easily debunked by a simple perusal of the records, which show clearly that the American arms build-up had no effect at all upon Soviet policy (or armaments manufacturing) except to sabotage attempts by Gorbachev and other doves in the Kremlin to secure a continuation and expansion of the detente and arms limitation/reduction that on the American side had been envisioned by Kennedy and implemented to a degreee by Nixon and Kissinger. Even the "oil glut" that had an effect as detrimental for the USSR as it was beneficial for the USA was less something that Reagan can recieve any major credit for than it resulted from policies that he inheroted from Carter. All that Reagan really managed to achieve during these years was to strain tensions between the two superpowers to a greater extent than they had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and hence was almost responsible for the outbreak of WWIII.

To his credit however, Reagan was able to recognize this - and he blinked in a decisive and beneficial way. In an about-face that ranks alongside Nixon's pursuit of friendly relations with China, the Gipper became in the latter part of his term the leading dove of his administration. The Soviet Union ceased to be an "Evil Empire" and the result was that in these years Gorbachev's olive branch initiatives had something that they could connect to from the other side, culminating in a commendable easing of tensions and some haltering steps being taken toward nuclear arms limitation and reduction.

The fact is that Ronald Reagan is almost unique in that he is misunderstood by both the left and right, both of whom hold images of him that bear little relationship with the reality of his legacy - which was mostly a negative one but had some silver linings. Reagan was not responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, anymore than he was responsible for the "Morning in America" that came about after the "Reagan Recession" of his first two years had ended. If one president is to recieve a lions share of the credit for the "American Victory" in the Cold War, then it is probably Richard Nixon, who for all his faults was (with Henry Kissinger) the architect of detente, significant advances in the realm of arms control, and the reorientation of the geopolitical strategic scene in America's favor by means of the famous Opening to China and a series of lesser initiatives (though John F. Kennedy must be credited with anticipating much of this several years earlier, even if his assassination robbed him (and the world) of the chance to implement much of his vision). Reagan however, cannot be written off as merely a senile failure who was lucky enough to preside over the closing stages of a long process. He was on the contrary a masterful politician and capable diplomat, fully in command of his own administration, whose ability to recognize that his own ideas were bankrupt and to embrace (to an extent)ideas from the opposition did reap historic fruit in the late 1980s.

In case I haven't made it clear already, I am no admirer of Ronald Reagan. On the contrary, I regard much of his legacy as toxic. But it is foolish not to acknowledge (as some seem hell-bent on doing) that he was a formidable man in many ways and an important figure of world history. I'll probably cop some considerable flak for it, but there it is.

[Nye Bevan]

46. I always enjoy thoughtful posts that do not necessarily concur with the DU conventional wisdom.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

[Axrendale]

70. You are most welcome.

:)

[democrat2thecore]

64. Reagan as the "dove" in the administration in 2nd term - so true

I do agree that RR was the dove in the administration in the second term. Many young people don't realize this and some old-timers don't want to admit it. But it's the truth. And he was opposed every step of the way by his Vice President, George Bush and the neo-cons in the White House basement.

I think you make some good points. I could quibble with a few things, but I like your guts.

[Axrendale]

71. Thank you to you as well.

:)

[leveymg]

27. Reagan insured we would also collapse, only a bit later. Like now.

Celebrate citizens, celebrate! Eurasia is defeated! Victory is ours!

We have always been at war with Eastasia! Fight! We will prevail!

[hulka38]

28. No.

That is more conservative mythology that centrist Dems have been afraid to challenge and has been allowed to settle into conventional wisdom.

[old mark]

29. The Soviet Union defeated itself. They spent so much of their GDP on their military and on

perks for the rich and politically connected while giving little attention other than police surveillance and political prisons for the workers. Despite their professed "communism", their centralized government provided for the elite far and away above what it provided for the majority of its people, and as the cracks started to appear, the cuts to balance their budget came from the workers, as the privileged tried to keep their good lives. The people could no longer support their top heavy repressive government, despite the real fear of punishment.

What is very interesting to me is the similarity right now with our situation in the US...the right wants all the cuts in services to come from the poor and the workers and middle class to protect the rich and connected. Note that Governor Christie of NJ is cutting workers pay and benefits and destroying unions while rejecting bills that tax the rich or cut the pay of state legislators and politicians, who will probably vote themselves raises for cutting spending. I certainly expect the increase in the number of rw-GOP politicians to make the average American much worse off than we are now, and I expect this to start happening very soon.


mark

[HopeHoops]

30. Levi jeans had more to do with the collapse of the USSR than Reagan did.

[WingDinger]

31. How the USSR, and sane men viewed Reagans paranoia

Robert Anton Wilson
What would you think of a man who not only kept an arsenal in his home, but was collecting at enormous financial sacrifice a second arsenal to protect the first one? What would you say if this man so frightened his neighbors that they in turn were collecting weapons to protect themselves from him? What if this man spent ten times as much money on his expensive weapons as he did on the education of his children? What if one of his children criticized his hobby and he called that child a traitor and a bum and disowned him? And he took another child who obeyed him faithfully and armed that child and sent it out into the world to attack neighbors? What would you say about a man who introduces poisons into the water he drinks and the air he breathes? What if this man not only is feuding with the people on his block but involves himself in the quarrels of others in distant parts of the city and even in the suburbs? Such a man would clearly be a paranoid schizophrenic...with homicidal tendencies.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They thought him so insane, that they invented a doomsday machine. To trigger in case of a nuke attack.

[lpbk2713]

32. RayGun was lucky, he was simply an observer.

He just happened to be around at the time that Communism had finished running its course.
Every other world leader at the time could claim a victory the same way RayGun did.
Fate had them in a leadership position at the right moment in history.

[GeorgeGist]

33. Reagan did the fancy speechifying ...

the poor did the work.

[Darth_Kitten]

34. You are right, the collapse was inevitable.

Reagan couldn't tie his own shoes without assistance, so I doubt he was responsible for defeating anything.

[baldguy]

35. In the '80s, the USSR was in the same situation the USA is in now.

Gorbachev tried to save his country, cursed with a massive military & bogged down in foreign wars, but the radical conservatives who opposed him made him fail. And the country failed as well.

Now, Obama is trying to save his country, cursed with a massive military & bogged down in foreign wars, and radical conservatives oppose him.

The heirs of Reagan are out to bag a 2nd superpower.

[BOG PERSON]

67. "My ambition was to liquidate communism...

"...the dictatorship over all the people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who was of this opinion long before I was.

"I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In this my wife urged me to climb to the top post.

"When I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU and the USSR.

"Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries.

"My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall benefit all the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.

"I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and Shevernadze, they also deserve to be thanked for the break up of the USSR and the defeat of communism.

"A world without communism is going to be much better. After the year 2000 the world will be much better because it will develop and prosper.

"But there are countries which will have to try and struggle against this. China for one.

"I was in Beijing during the time of the protests at Tianamen Square, where I really though that communism in China was going to crash. I sternly demanded of the Chinese leadership that I be allowed to speak to the protesters, but they did not allow me to do so.

"If communism were to fall in China all the world would be better off and on the road to peace.

"I wanted to save the USSR, but only under the rule of social democracy. This I could not do. Yeltsin wanted power, he knew nothing about democracy or what I intended to do. We wanted the democratic USSR to have rights and freedom.

"When Yeltsin broke up the USSR, and at that time I was not in the Kremlin, all the newspaper reporters asked me if I would cry. I did not cry because I had managed to destroy communism in the USSR as well as in the other European socialist countries.

"I did not cry because I knew I had fulfilled my main aim – the defeat of communism in Europe.

"But you must also know that communism must be defeated in Asia too to make the transition to democracy and freedom quicker throughout the whole world.

"The liquidation of the USSR is not beneficial to the United States since they now have no mighty democratic country (the former USSR) which I wanted to call the Union of Independent Sovereign Republics. I could not accomplish all of this.

"All the small countries now are thanking the United States for the help. I wanted the US and the former USSR to be partners without the scourge of communism; these could have been the ruling countries of the world.

"The road towards democracy will be a long one, but it is coming very quickly. The whole world must now defeat the last remnants of communism!"

http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/mar2000/gorbachev.html

[bemildred]

36. I don't believe he had the slightest interest in that.

It's clear the event took the US intelligence community largely by surprise, as these things commonly do take the existing powers by surprise.

And I do remember the sense of loss in the defense community when the USSR collapsed, good enemies are hard to find.

But anyway, all that Raygun blather about evil empires was mainly for domestic consumption, it was show-biz, not policy, like Shrub's blather about an "Axis of Evil".

I will close with a comment from Norman Mailer about that:

It is worth reminding ourselves that the life of a democracy may also depend on the good and honorable use of language and not on the scurvy manipulation of such words as "evil" and "love" by intellectual striplings of the caliber of our president.

[Nevernose]

37. Recommended book:

Tear Down This Myth

[mmonk]

39. No. It simply imploded.

We helped it along with the Afghanistan war funding of the Mujahideen, supporting opposition in soviet states, etc. It couldn't maintain empire. We're next.

[Arkana]

42. Yep. Killed Hitler with his bare hands too.

[primavera]

54. Lmao - don't give them any ideas!

Given the Repukes' willingness to re-write history to make themselves look good, there's no telling what they'd do to bolster the image of their chief political deity!

[elehhhhna]

43. Answer: Not unless he ordered their "war" in Afghanistan.

The Russian immigrants I knew back then blamed that above all else for making the wheels come off. Most of them LEFT to help their sons avoid the draft -- so they may have been biased. They were also well educated and had been well employed there.

[JackRiddler]

58. Well that was Brzezinski, not Reagan.

Who supported a US covert intervention to support the rebels in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet invasion, in the hope of prompting one.

I think the significance of Afghanistan is exaggerated. Even if Russians think so, Eastern Europeans generally tell a different story. After the wall went up it was always a question of how far the Soviets were willing to one day wage war in Europe to suppress the inevitable revolts of the Warsaw Pact satellites.

.

[slampoet]

44. Lech Walesa and Gorbachev had more to do with it than Reagan ever did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lech_Wa%C5%82%C4%99sa

Walesa had already been president of Poland for a year by the time the Berlin Wall fell.

[JackRiddler]

45. The Western policies that speeded up the inevitable collapse were Ostpolitik and China alliance.

The Reagan arms build up (which started two years earlier under Carter, by the way) at most might have resulted in Gorbachev coming to power two years later than he did, and thus slowed down the inevitable. This is a myth that lives only in the United States establishment wisdom, and isn't even taken seriously among the European Transatlantic right.

Look up Ostpolitik if you don't know.

[DailyGrind51]

48. The Soviet Union was decaying from within for sometime, but the CIA was given misinformation

to make Americans believe the Soviets had capabilities they really didn't have.

[immoderate]

49. I think the CIA was inventing that information.

Seriously, you can't always point out the deficiencies in the Soviet system and maintain at the same time, that they are beating us. At least, I never bought it. :)

--imm

[MineralMan]

51. The Soviet Union defeated itself, and it was already well underway

when Ronnie took office. He just watched it happen, then took credit for it.

[MrMickeysMom]

52. NO... actually, it was timing... all timing...

Ask the guy with the wine stained forehead... He might have had something to do with Ray-gun's timing.

This timing, by the way, would be the best in Ray-gun's acting career...

[Lucian]

57. He single handedly did it himself. Video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkGnLjXu1o8&feature=related

[BlueJazz]

66. LOL! Reagan Smash

[pnorman]

59. K & R!

For the useful links and discussion on this thread!

[WinkyDink]

60. Hardly. Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, and Afghanistan did.

[jimlup]

61. CHERNOBYL

That is why the USSR failed. Really, and maybe Gorbachov it wasn't Reagan - that's a very naive and self congratulatory analysis.

[BOG PERSON]

65. no, the soviet union voluntarily disbanded

the party had been corrupt and ideologically degraded for some time, but after the berlin wall came down, they decided all that revolution stuff was a waste of time and decided to go home to their fat wives

[underpants]

69. The Poles (the Pope and Lech), economic ruin, Afghanistan, Chernobyl, Gorbachov

and THEN one line in a Reagan speech that Gorbachov now says they laughed at.

If anything the massive military spending extended the Cold War because the old guard Soviets were not about to lose to the Americans without firing a shot.

[H2O Man]

73. A couple of weeks ago,

I read the new book of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's letters. By the early-to-mid 1970s, he was predicting the Soviet Union would not see two more decades. He accurately identified the reasons it would fall apart. This, obviously, was well before Reagan took office.

[democrat2thecore]

78. I'm reading that now

Moynihan was a fascinating public figure. I'm loving reading these letters. It's basically a short course in recent world history.

[Orsino]

75. No. He was asleep at the time. n/t

[democrat2thecore]

85. Revisionist history - again. He was a "CEO-like" president. He delegated.

But don't think for a minute Ronald Reagan - for better or worse - didn't know what he was doing.

[Orsino]

90. He didn't *care* what he was doing...

...beyond his narrow focus on wealth transference. As such, he might as well have been asleep.

[truebrit71]

76. Not even remotely close to reality...

...

[Javaman]

79. The Soviet Union Defeated the Soviet Union.

Trying to equate right wing ideology as a means of Soviet collapse is grossly obnoxiously ignorant of history and economics.

[democrat2thecore]

84. I will remind you...

It wasn't just "right wing ideology"....it was American policy under NINE U.S. presidents, Democrats and Republicans. The arms race from administrations of both parties put the dagger in the USSR by spending them into oblivion without an escape hatch. It's not a partisan thing. It's a patriotic thing. They stood against everything Americans stood for. Democratic and Republican Americans. There is nothing obnoxiously ignorant about the truth.

Revisionist history is dangerous. I see too much of it here at Democratic Underground, especially from too many young people.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

[Javaman]

89. And I will remind you, the topic was about ray-gun. If you want to talk about US policy

then that is a different story.

[apocalypsehow]

87. His military build-up had an effect, but it was largely the "containment" policy of numerous

Presidents, from Truman to Reagan, that hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, it was a bipartisan effort.

Trying to "score" partisan political points over it on either side is a silly exercise.

[quaker bill]

88. A curious bit

Conservatives claim that state socialism is a failed means to run a country and economy that will cause it to collapse. That it was more or less inevitable that a country run in this manner would fail. Yet, they spent trillions of dollars to "defeat" it and claim a victory for its failure.

Now either it was an inherent failure and would have collapsed on its own without all the expense, or alternately was really a fairly effective system to run a country that cost trillions to "defeat".

Personally, I think it had nothing to do with socialism. Every large empire that has required extensive use of military force to maintain has failed on its own eventually, regardless of the form of economic management. Just as Machiavelli predicted, this sort of venture is not sustainable.

Central planning failed because it was attempted before the invention of computer technology and "just in time" inventory systems. Wal-mart runs a company larger than many small national economies with this technology, and rarely if ever are there lines for toilet paper at their stores. It is not the magic of a free enterprise market that does this, it is central planning run at gigahertz speed, as opposed to using clerks with paper ledgers.

[marmar]

92. And how ironic that this country is going to collapse in much the same fashion......

nt

[GalleryGod]

93. A cohort told me this in 1989, "We tripped a drunk, that's all."

I agreed then and still do today.
:patriot: