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CharlesXII do you plan on reading the new Gorbachev biography
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Date: September 14th, 2017 2:46 PM Author: hot spectacular legal warrant getting a ton of hype
https://www.amazon.com/Gorbachev-Life-Times-William-Taubman-ebook/dp/B06XKFP455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505414799&sr=8-1 |
Date: September 14th, 2017 2:58 PM Author: Adulterous stage Definitely going to read that. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34210881) |
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Date: September 14th, 2017 3:13 PM Author: underhanded exhilarant boiling water I fully intend to Youtube my going to Russia to piss and shit all over his grave though I expect it will be difficult due to the 50 foot high mountain of shit others will leave there before I even get a chance. A more reviled figure is difficult to imagine. Joseph Stalin polls higher than Gorbachev. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34210984) |
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Date: October 12th, 2017 11:33 AM Author: Adulterous stage "A more reviled figure is difficult to imagine. Joseph Stalin polls higher than Gorbachev."
Yep. This is mentioned in the introduction. Gorbachev enjoys high favorability in the West (including among those leaders he worked and met with) and is detested in Russia. He takes most of the blame for what happened in the 90's after he resigned. What's fascinating is reading masha gessen's biography of Putin right before Gorbie's biography. Gessen portrays Putin as a greedy thug with gaudy taste. Gorbie comes off as a friendly intellectual (though at times vain) who can chat with everyone from rural peasants (where he grew up) to professors. |
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Date: September 14th, 2017 5:36 PM Author: big dopamine It's not on my immediate radar. I'm not as interested in modern biographies. For recent history I prefer topical nonfiction. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34212110) |
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Date: September 15th, 2017 9:18 AM Author: hot spectacular legal warrant tyft
I think I'm gonna read it tho |
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Date: October 12th, 2017 11:26 AM Author: Adulterous stage It's a really nice book. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm fascinated by how a lot of reformers/liberals/skeptics like Gorbachev knew the system was garbage way back in the 60's but largely kept quiet and acquiesced. Beyond the spotlight on Gorbachev, it's a good insight into the details of Soviet governance, education, and economy. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34424699) |
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Date: October 12th, 2017 11:29 AM Author: Crawly charcoal tattoo Basically everyone is a skeptic/critic of our system, at least privately, and it persists (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34424720) |
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Date: October 12th, 2017 11:35 AM Author: Adulterous stage Agreed. I drew some parallels with my own life. Though it was a lot worse for them. It was really a question of acquiescing or being banished. There wasn't much flexibility in their system, lol. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34424773) |
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Date: October 12th, 2017 11:43 AM Author: abnormal zombie-like stead codepig HyperNormalisation is a 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. In the film, Curtis argues that since the 1970s, governments, financiers, and technological utopians have given up on the complex "real world" and built a simple "fake world" that is run by corporations and kept stable by politicians. The film was released on 16 October 2016 on the BBC iPlayer.[2]
The term "hypernormalisation" is taken from Alexei Yurchak's 2006 book Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, about the paradoxes of life in the Soviet Union during the 20 years before it collapsed.[3][4] A professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley,[5] he argues that everyone knew the system was failing, but as no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo, politicians and citizens were resigned to maintaining a pretence of a functioning society.[6] Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the "fakeness" was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed "hypernormalisation".[7] |
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Date: October 12th, 2017 2:59 PM Author: Adulterous stage Might check out alexei's book too. I saw someone else post about the documentary and "hypernormalization". (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34426444) |
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Date: November 30th, 2017 2:41 PM Author: boyish lavender theater stage Going to watch this, 180 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34806870) |
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Date: November 17th, 2017 11:38 AM Author: Adulterous stage I'm most of the way through it. It's incredibly well done. The end of Gorbie's rule is so sad. When he traveled to the US and western europe in 1990 and the late 80's he was met by massive cheering crowds. He'd go back home and endure nothing but misplaced and moronic anger. The poor guy loved being outside the US so much that he'd get really sad and depressed when he had to go back home. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34709409) |
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Date: November 18th, 2017 2:32 PM Author: hot spectacular legal warrant i.e., he was a huge cuck (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34717863) |
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Date: November 29th, 2017 10:24 AM Author: Adulterous stage I finished the book. Rather than work I would like to share my thoughts with anyone on this board who cares to listen (i.e. no one). Gorbie is fascinating in that he was very different from current and past leaders in Russia/USSR. He was a model Soviet citizen born poor on a collectivized farm in some rural shithole. He was an intellectual who loved learning and reading any books he could get his hands on (not easy to do where he was). He and his father earned an award (highest civilian honor) for their record-breaking harvest on their farm. He leveraged his good grades and the award to get into the elite Moscow University where he became student body president.
Unlike many of his peers he went directly into communist party politics as an administrator in agriculture and returned to the rural province where he grew up. His peers in the party were old, boorish, inarticulate drunks (the USSR was a kakistocracy).
In the 60's he and the few intelligent reformers in the party could see that the system was fucked. The '68 crushing of the prague spring depressed the few "liberals/intellectuals" in the party, but they (including Gorbie) were forced to live a double life (speaking the incantations required of the party while secretly abhorring the anti-democratic system).
Gorbie climbed up the party ranks with the help of a friendship with KGB chief Andropov. Andropov also lived a sort of double-life listening to banned music and wanting reform while simultaneously jailing and torturing dissidents. When Gorbie finally took power (the super-old Politburo realized he was the only young intelligent guy left in the body) he started subtly introducing democratic language in his initial speeches. Chernobyl convinced Gorbie that reforms needed to occur immediately. He expertly navigated the party's internal politics and essentially convinced it to hand off its power to democratically elected bodies.
On foreign policy, he removed the USSR's grip on eastern europe and allowed east germany to be united with the west despite virtually everyone within the party demanding a harder stance and some form of intervention. He led efforts to drastically reduced nuclear arms and should be credited for the relative lack of bloodshed as the eastern bloc and the USSR fell.
I will return later with the end of Gorbie's reign and my conclusions and lessons. |
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Date: November 29th, 2017 10:26 AM Author: big dopamine Interesting, maybe worth a look just for his early life before taking power. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34796809) |
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Date: November 29th, 2017 10:37 AM Author: Adulterous stage Yep. Those are the best parts. Most people know the general outline of Gorbie's reign, the '91 coup attempt, and his resignation but his upbringing and his early years aren't well known. His experience on the collective farm, what his grandparents went through in Stalin's purges, and the bs he put up with when he was a young party apparatchik in Stavropol are enlightening. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34796909) |
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Date: November 29th, 2017 11:47 PM Author: hot spectacular legal warrant now Andropov is somebody I would drop everything to read a good, detailed bio of (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34803482) |
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Date: November 30th, 2017 2:29 PM Author: Adulterous stage meh. There were a bunch of Andropov's in the system, even though the USSR bureaucracy and party were dominated by drunken louts. Gorbachev was even more unique in that he really tried very hard to govern as a western statesman and wasn't afraid to confront Soviet/Russian society on its penchant for anti-western and totalitarian philosophy. Russia has never had a leader like that, before or since. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34806787) |
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Date: November 30th, 2017 2:50 PM Author: big dopamine Keep talking shit about Tsarina Elizabeth bro. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34806991) |
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Date: November 30th, 2017 2:37 PM Author: passionate windowlicker 180 poast tyft (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#34806848) |
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Date: June 4th, 2018 5:28 PM Author: Adulterous stage It's been a while but one thing that stood out from me in the book was how Gorbie and his advisers had a general understanding of the economic problems facing the country but lacked the framework or vocabulary to truly grasp what was happening. When it came to economics, their understanding was no better than that of a child. Intelligent people in the west take for granted basic notions of how a market-oriented economy is supposed to work. Gorbie and his staff were clueless and the "economists" in the government, even the reformers, would say fluffy rudimentary bs like "productivity and economic performance is suffering because the worker is alienated from the process!"
To demonstrate how clueless they were, in his chats with Bush Sr., Gorbie was befuddled by the process of purchasing property in the US. The broker, the recording of a deed, bidding wars, price listings etc. We take for granted basic notions of price discovery and supply and demand. Gorbie and his people could barely get their arms around the simple concepts. Ultimately, they did start receiving economic plans that were "radical" reforms, but by then the economic conditions in the USSR had worsened to a point where the government had no credibility. This resulted in an uncontrolled and anarchic implementation of the radical reforms after the fall of the USSR.
Reading the book makes me want to study the Chinese road to reform. What was it about China that led them to have a much better grasp of the economic reforms that would be necessary for the future? I have a few ideas why but I'd like to read more.
The book also made me wonder about the blind spots in our current political leadership. Do our leaders have a blind-spot or cluelessness on a particular issue that will lead to our downfall (mental health might be one given several epidemics on that front). |
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Date: June 15th, 2019 1:23 AM Author: hairraiser pink jewess The Chinese political system is a ruthless meritocracy. So they are led by better talent. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3731889&forum_id=2#38391719) |
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