> Yeah right, because the USSR had never before gone through hardship, and it's the "bankruptcy" that led to ousting of Gorbachev in a coup after his reforms (including a de-facto Prohibition, in Russia of all places!).
Hardship is something USSR went through many times - until it didn't. And there were many reasons, on many levels, why the situation in late 1980-s was bleak. What was with the oil prices at the time?
> The USSR didn't fall apart because of any goodwill, but it did fall apart because Gorbachev fucked up.
One of his phrases was "socialism with a human face". Before Gorbachev, Andropov tried to "rule as it should be done", but, as a popular joke states, "has proven that if you rule seriously, you can't live longer than a year". Stalinist times have ended, and more soft, Brezhnev-like ruling turned out to be too incapable. Gorbachev managed to do few mistakes, while trying to rule mostly well - and ended up with opening the country, in the form of many states, to the beneficial external world.
I'm not saying that Gorbachev's ideals were flawed. It's the approach he took to putting them in place.
In a way, he was putting "the human face" on socialism in the same hamfisted manner that the "should be done" socialism was pushed down people's throats before.
His bright idea to solve the alcoholism problem by having a Prohibition 2.0 is a prime example.
What with the oil prices? Forget that, look at the vodka prices.
That's solely on Gorbachev. And it worked as well as you'd expect.
Hardship is something USSR went through many times - until it didn't. And there were many reasons, on many levels, why the situation in late 1980-s was bleak. What was with the oil prices at the time?
> The USSR didn't fall apart because of any goodwill, but it did fall apart because Gorbachev fucked up.
One of his phrases was "socialism with a human face". Before Gorbachev, Andropov tried to "rule as it should be done", but, as a popular joke states, "has proven that if you rule seriously, you can't live longer than a year". Stalinist times have ended, and more soft, Brezhnev-like ruling turned out to be too incapable. Gorbachev managed to do few mistakes, while trying to rule mostly well - and ended up with opening the country, in the form of many states, to the beneficial external world.