Russian President Vladimir Putin © Michael Klimentyev / Reuters
RT: Putin: USSR could have been reformed, there was no need to destroy it
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union should have transformed the bloc into a democratic entity rather than see it collapse, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
“You know my attitude towards the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was no need to do it. Reforms could have been undertaken, including those of democratic nature,” the Russian president told the leaders of the parties which won seats in last week's general election.
“But I want to point out that the Communist Party was in charge of our former homeland, the USSR, not any other,” Putin added.
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Update: Putin Says Soviet Union’s Collapse Wasn’t Inevitable (Bloomberg)
WNU Editor: Russian President Putin is forgetting how people felt at the time. Within Russia itself I would estimate that 80% of the population (if not more) wanted the system to be overthrown .... and since the system was the Soviet Union .... it had to go. In the non-Russian Republics .... many Russians wanted the Soviet Union to exist in order to protect their language and cultural rights .... but for those who were native (i.e. Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc.) .... the sentiment was overwhelmingly to break the USSR apart. As for Putin's remarks that the USSR could have reformed .... sorry .... I was there at the time and much of the leadership (with the exception of Gorbachev and a few others) .... had no interest in reform .... none. And even Gorbachev's push for reform was too little and far too late. What's my take .... I hated the Soviet Union and the communist system that it represented from the day that I became sensitive to politics .... and I know that Russia is in a far better place today than if the Soviet Union was still around. As for the chaos in some of the former Soviet Republics (Ukraine, the Central Republics, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, etc.) .... this is something that in the end they will have to settle and work out .... a process that I predict will probably take a few more decades.
9 comments:
Maybe Russia is in a better place today, but thanks to USSR heritage.
Heavy industry, healthcare, education, space technology, army, nukes and Putin.
I have to thanks to the USSR to have preserved the peace of Europe from the madness of western capital and ethnic wars for 50 years.
If the USSR have been reformed to democracy, the time good was at the end of '60 - beginning of '70. But is not a matter of only USSR, the entire communist movements, parties and nations around the world would have pose the question of the progress in communist method and ideology, instead to only search to defend and justify themselves.
With a Fifth International.
This is not happened, and that is the problem that bring to the end.
Do not confuse democracy with capitalism. Fascists are capitalist.
There are those who hated it and those who loved it. Both have legitimate points and deserve to be heard.
We may be facing a collapse of our own in the not too distant future. We may even live to see the U.S. break up. Some will say it was bad and needed to go, others will call them liars. Both will be right in their own way.
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/seven-myths-about-the-ussr/
One thing is for sure,
The collapse of the USSR did nothing for working people in "the west". Like my Grandfather said "now you'll see the fangs come out"; it's been a race to Victorian times ever since.
Putin is reported as saying some years after the USSR disintegrated, "The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century." Whether or not he actually said those words, it's clear he believes it with every fiber in his being.
To me, aside from the viewpoints and statements above, the real question is why did he say this, now?
The majority wanted the system to be overthrown, true. I'm not so sure that the majority outside of the Baltic States would not have preferred the Soviet Union as in a unified state in those territories to be retained if at all possible. It was not on the table but not because of the people.
Would Russia have been better off if the Soviet Union was still around? I think there is no way to know because it would probably not have been the same Soviet Union that it was before. It also seems to me that its fall was a dual-edged sword that cut different parts of society differently. Are people like you or me better off? Sure, but I'm not sure that's true for the majority, which gained certain "freedoms" but did not always experience a net gain in real liberty (more poverty, more crime, increasingly more punitive legislation in a number of areas).
Putin wants a re-unified Russia. And all the Russians currently outside the Russian border to be back inside. But its not a question of moving people, its about moving borders.
YC is still in the goo-goo gaa-gaa stage of life.
"Across the world, the free market is being overtaken by state capitalism, a system in which the state is the leading economic actor. "
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2009-05-01/state-capitalism-comes-age
The USSR was a state capitalist nation.
Capitalism in Crisis | Foreign Affairs
Proto-State-Capitalism - Foreign Affairs
Lots of Italian men live at home with the mothers and are unmarried at age 30 or age 40. What are the chances ....?
Capitalism is a tool. It is a description of affairs.
Hell, Maggiew Thatcher talked about state capitalism back in the 1980s.'
The director of the movie "Highrise" quoted her. It is a terrible movie. It stars Huddleston I would not recommend watching the movie
"ike my Grandfather said "now you'll see the fangs come out"; it's been a race to Victorian times ever since."
I have been to the county museums of my stomping grounds.
Funny dat. There was welfare long before the federal government stepped in.
You would not know it form listening to the likes of RRH.
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