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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (228259)	4/8/2005 4:55:25 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1578305

I don't think Gorbachov had much choice. I think the Soviet Union was broke and had very little control over its empire. Had he used repression, the satellites would have begun to spun off. If he used repression it might have worked or it might not have worked. If the army followed the commands of those who ordered the repression with a degree of enthusiasm it would have "worked". Even if it "worked" in the short run the system was going to hell in a hand basket but he could have kept the Soviet Empire around for another generation. I also think its romantic to believe that the Pope and Reagan were instrumental in the downfall of the Soviet Union but I think when its all said and done, it was economic upheaval....from oil, from Afghanistan, from corruption.. The Soviet Union and its empire had other periods of economic upheaval. The combination of the inspiration from the Pope, and to a degree from Reagan, and of course from people like Welesa and Havel, combined with the economic upheaval and other factors allowed the empire to finally come crashing down. Corruption had probably increased but the increase of corruption was itself probably only a small factor, at least in purely economic terms (in addition to the economic effects it was a political factor because it gave the regime opponents and potential opponents something to be pissed off at). Afghanistan was such a problem for the USSR partially because of Reagan's policies. I give the most credit to the people inside the Soviet Empire who resisted it, but Reagan and Karol Wojtyla where also factors. Tim