Mikhail Gorbachev is a traitor to Socialism - Proof!

I'm sure some of you already know this, but here is solid proof for those who are unsure

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/r ... orbach.htm

At least on here, you aren't going to find many fans of Gorbachev

I personally know a person who says that this guy turned the nation's food industry from producing pure, chemically non-contaminated quality foodstuffs to producing frankfurters that contained ground down toilet paper. He did not continue reforms of Dubček (as he tried to claim). Under Dubček, the country (CSSR not USSR) was basically going in a Titoist direction, with limited private enterprise meaning that not only there were no queues, but the shelves were full of not just all domestic, but foreign products too. Gorbachev, by contrast, "reformed" his country in the same way a tactical nuclear bomb can "reform" a city block.

Why did his reforms lead people to make sausages with ground toilet paper in them? Because of a lack of resources and industrial mismanagment? What did Gorbachev do to create such an inefficient and defective system? I am interested to know.

Because he mixed market and planned economy principles in such a way that the economy was bound to collapse.

Neuron wrote:

Under Dubček, the country (CSSR not USSR) was basically going in a Titoist direction, with limited private enterprise meaning that not only there were no queues, but the shelves were full of not just all domestic, but foreign products too. Gorbachev, by contrast, "reformed" his country in the same way a tactical nuclear bomb can "reform" a city block.

You showed the difference between approaches to socialism. Choosing between the two, I prefer to be labelled a hard-core titoist than something else.

The USSR was illegally broken up by a cabal of western conformists and anti-revolutionary profiteers.
The constitution required that each republic have a public vote on whether to separate: almost all these votes went "Stay in USSR" excluding the baltic and perhaps georgia. (cant remember)

Yeltsin & Co made the CIS when the USSR was law. They should had been shot.

They lead to 2 decades, perhaps more, of sheer misery and destruction of the nations infrastructure and power. Todays Russia is lol. Good job, gorby and yeltsin, you put your nation back to the 1920s, perhaps a little better well off but still.


Examples of industries destroyed:
Aviation
Optical Instruments (Cameras, Lenses, etc)
Electronics
Defense
Arts

I have to agree with you, Aeroflot. Today, the general image of Russia is people living in mud huts and in poverty. And if the protests we're seeing at the moment in Moscow are true, then elections are being rigged. So few people in Russia end up leading successfull lives, while so many have to suffer in silence. They may have thought they were doing a favour for Russia, but they quite clearly weren't.

Curiously, the article quoted above does not make me as much angry as sad and disappointed. I used to think that the guy was attempting a democratic reform within socialism, and it went awry. Ok, I can understand that, to err is human, and it's not like the USSR collapse happened because of a single person. But now he says that, -while he wanted some sort of social democracy- his primary goal was to destroy socialism/communism as a economic system, and he's happy to have achieved that? Russian living standards collapsed with the USSR, and it's not like it's a shining example of democratic principles, either. So, given how it turned out, why is he proud of this?

As I said, the USSR collapse cannot be linked to the deeds of a single man, whatever Gorvachev or his detractors think. But where in the past I regarded him as a well-meaning guy in a tough situation, now I see him as a sad and pathethic little man. Not because under his rule the USSR went kaput -as I said, I don't think this can be linked to the deeds of a single man, over a short period of time. It does make him a hypocrite, though-, and not because he came out as not being communist after all -there are plenty of people I respect who aren't-, but because his master plan was an utter political failure, an economic mess, and a humanitarian catastrophe, and he hasn't got the balls to own up to it.

Comrade Whiggon wrote:

And if the protests we're seeing at the moment in Moscow are true, then elections are being rigged.

Comrade, I don't see this causal connection. I have seen some funny videos of the past week's elections in which Russian newscasters showed election results which summed up were not 100%, but 140% But that does not prove the elections were rigged.

I can easily imagine that out of a 100 million adults quite a number must be poorly educated (thus easily influenced) and who ended up in voting for Putin's United Russia. If you take Slovenia, for example, out of 1.1 million voters some 35% voted for extreme right parties and I can see why - there are lots of people in villages who's only contact with the "real world" is through priests' sermons and shit like that. I think it must've happened in Russia as well, but I understand that rigging could be used as well (http://bit.ly/uBToEO)

As if proof was needed, he was a capitalist roader that wanted to keep the Soviet Union to carry out his own imperialism. How did that work out for you Gorby?

Quote:

I'm sure some of you already know this, but here is solid proof for those who are unsure

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/r ... orbach.htm

Excellent!
Because many people at the time thought he was just "renewing" socialism's way towards communism. But this says as clearly as it gets.

No wonder why he was writing such things at the time:

Quote:

If there was no Stalinist 'Thermidor' in the mid-'20s, which betrayed and trampled the ideas of the Great Revolution, really of the people and for the people would be possible to steer the country on the path of democratic progress, regeneration and economic prosperity. [...] It would be suicide, although this time, as in the 50s and 60s, hesitate and stop halfway.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the coup of August, 1991

I really doubt whether this is authentic. I mean, it's laying things on a bit thick, isn't it? Perhaps he could also do some evil cackling at the end of the interview? His subjective opinions on communism 10 years later aren't very important anyway.

I also question the veracity of this document. Especially the part about it his wife being behind it. No matter what one might say about Mikhail, Raisa had always been known to have been a strong Marxist-Leninist. I know that she was a lecturer on Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Not saying that the document was a forgery, I'd just like to know it's source.

There's a cite at the bottom, but TBH I haven't found any more references to this.

I do have found some other Gorbachev interviews. And he certainly wasn't *that* happy with how things turned out, in this one:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... -3,00.html

Quote:

SPIEGEL: What would be better today if the Soviet Union still existed?

Gorbachev: Isn't that clear to you? Everything had grown together over the decades: culture, education, language, the economy, everything. They were building cars in the Baltic republics and airplanes in the Ukraine. We still can't get by without each other today. And a population of 300 million was also a plus.

SPIEGEL: Are there other things that you did that still torment you today?

Gorbachev: My goal was to avoid bloodshed. But unfortunately there was some bloodshed, after all. It also troubles me that I didn't resolve the problem with the Communist Party in time. And that I underestimated the fact that the establishment in the other national republics wanted to decide issues relating to their own lives on their own, without anyone from the central government getting involved. Now they have this possibility.

He's sort of ambiguous on his political stance, though.

[/quote]Comrade, I don't see this causal connection. I have seen some funny videos of the past week's elections in which Russian newscasters showed election results which summed up were not 100%, but 140% But that does not prove the elections were rigged.[/quote]

If that does not constitute proof the elections were rigged, then what on Earth possibly could?

Does Gorbachev even live in Russia these days? I saw in London that there was a huge event held for his birthday.