"We badly need a new economic model, that is not based on hyper profits and hyper consumption." —Mikhail Gorbachev, 2012
McDonalds pulls out of Russia: I sleep
Pizza Hut pulls out of Russia: NOOO MY LIFE'S WORK IS BEING DESTROYEDED :wojak-nooo:
IIRC they did actually close the Pizza Hut in Red Square so it is possible this is what he meant.
Gorbachev wasn't a full liberal he was a reformist and basically wanted social democracy. The liberal opposition that he at first championed with glastnost quickly outflanked him while the Soviet conservatives also hated him. His naivete and ineptitude destroyed the country by allowing liberal and nationalist forces (Yeltsin and his cronies) to tear the union apart from under his unsteady feet. The August coup was an attempt by the conservatives to force Gorbachev to fucking do something to save the country (several states had already declared independence at this point), but he couldn't even be assed to take a side so the conservative had to try to throw together a new government overnight.
So he's less of a sell out (that fits Yeltsin better) and more of a person who was just completely incapable of recognizing the situation and was overcome by more decisive forces.
Gorbachev said in an interview in Turkey in 2000 "My ambition was to liquidate Communism." and establish a "Union of Independent Sovereign Republics" and to basically help America fight China. So he wanted a return of bourgeois nationalism, and a fully capitalist mode of production, but without dissolving the USSR, and with the addition of social democracy, which would rely on imperialism. It was a very naive in my opinion.
That interview is monstrous bearing in mind what happened what he did to the Soviet living standard
I think on a long enough timeline it could be said Gorbachev killed more people than WW2. Because what he really did was he dismantled the nation best equipped to handle climate change, and to help others handle climate change. :doomjak:
While the Soviets had some terrible environmental policies (their role in whaling, for instance.) on the whole they were better than the USA, and they were concerned about climate change in the mid 70s, and established the first predictive models about it.
I was thinking about something similar this morning actually. Maybe the USA would've felt more coerced to take action on COVID with the USSR instead of China. Similar to the Smallpox situation
If nothing else, we would've had another truly major distributor of vaccines to the third world rather than just China and to a lesser extent Russia
Also being able to actually plan the economy instead of just letting the market decide everything allows you to re-prioritize away from endlessly profiting off of fossil fuels and towards alternative sources of energy at a system-wide level.
We live in the stupidest timeline… but we don’t get to pick what we’re born into, we only get to pick what we fight for.
He wanted to rename it "Union of Independent Sovereign Republics". Basically he wanted to turn the USSR into "America: Eastern Edition". His naivete was in imagining that America could tolerate a rival of any variety.
Putin has too much actual power over the "oligarchs" to be considered neoliberal. He's basically the anti-thesis of neoliberalism.
motherfucker you handed control of your country over to capitalist repo men
I always love hearing Hakim seethe over this bastard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GUOPHl6nDk
Fuck both of these assholes and also Yeltsin
Death to America
