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by genman 887 days ago
The empire was collapsing on itself. USSR occupied nearly 1/6 of the total landmass, it had on the ground every imaginable element in the periodic table and yet it was not a self sustained developed country. Large part of it was corruption and constant stealing on every level possible, but also the fact that all of its economy was managed by what comes effectively down to a large Excel sheet - completely top down.

Gorbachev tried to turn it around and failed. Fortunately he was a great man because he had a lot of humility and he allowed to fall it apart gracefully (relatively speaking). This gave freedom (from Russians) to many nations, yet too many of them are still imprisoned within Russian Federation (the name is a hint - it's not Russia but a federation of many nations) and I think of it as a great tragedy, especially now, when mainly the minority nations are sent to kill Ukrainians and to get killed instead of Russians.
1 comments
stracer 887 days ago
> he was a great man because he had a lot of humility and he allowed to fall it apart gracefully

Source?

> On 10 January Gorbachev addressed the Supreme Council, demanding a restoration of the constitution of the USSR in Lithuania and the revocation of "all anti-constitutional laws".[9] He mentioned that military intervention could be possible within days. When Lithuanian officials asked for Moscow's guarantee not to send armed troops, Gorbachev did not reply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events

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genman 887 days ago
True, and this is why I added "relatively speaking". There was also Tbilisi massacre and the situation was very much on the edge also in Latvia and Estonia, but it all could have been much, much worse. He could have used brutal force and drowned all these independence movements in blood like was done in Budapest and Prague previously. Most importantly he accepted the withdrawal of Soviet armed forces from East Germany that eventually led to withdrawal of Russian occupation forces from all Russian occupied republics (except from less autonomous occupied territories on Russian SFSR).
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