[ergothus]

I recall reading an article many years ago that said that a repeated pattern in history is that an oppressive government attempts to be somewhat less oppressive, but this creates a feedback loop where being less oppressive creates self-awareness and increased desire to be less oppressive, and thus those persons that try to preserve such regimes by creating incremental reform tend to bring out their collapse.

IIRC, this article also stated that the subsequent pains as even the dependable/reliable parts of society become unreliable tends to lead to a new oppressive regime, which is why truly straightforward oppressive->relatively democratic regime changes are so rare.

I'm likely torturing the actual article with my twisted memories (this would be, like, 15 years ago), but those are the points that stuck with me. If that article was accurate, you could then credit Gorbachev AND assume he wasn't intending the future that came about.

It is depressing though, because if true, it's an argument against incremental reforms.

[vmh1928]

In Crane Brinton's "The Anatomy of Revolution" he analyzes the English, French, American and Russian revolutions. One of the conclusions is that revolutionary events tend to occur during times of rising expectations. The tyrant gives the proles a little freedom or a crumbs of bread and they start to expect continued improvement.

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Revolution-Crane-Brinton/dp/0...

[mc32]

Basically, if you want to be a dictator be a bad one (like Saddam or mr Kim). A nice dictator will not survive (witness the Romanovs -forgiving an assassin, for example) because people naturally will "take advantage" of that situation.

[harimau777]

Another data point in support of that idea is Indonesia, although in that case WW2 probably helped.