Mikhail Gorbachev was a visionary leader. The refusal of the U.S. to help Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed was typical of America's arrogance and lack of visionary foreign policy. If we had helped Gorbachev then, Russia's path would probably have not been toward a Putin.

Aug 30, 2022 · 11:09 PM UTC

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Replying to @marwilliamson
Of course everything is our fault
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I didn't say that, nor do I believe it
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Replying to @marwilliamson
There was a clear diplomatic way forward of cooperation and mutual respect but the American cowboys destroyed that in very short order.
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Replying to @marwilliamson
I am Russian. I hate what the country has become. But the notion that the US somehow failed to help is a fantasy. If Americans gave us more money it would just go towards oligarch yachts.
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The oligarchs didn’t exist yet.
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Replying to @marwilliamson
US not only failed to help Gorbachev, it backed the autocratic ultra-capitalist Boris Yeltsin and endorsed Yeltsin's violent self-coup in 1993...
Replying to @marwilliamson
Gorbachev was a “visionary leader” to you and you hate Putin because you didn’t lose your job, see your lifetime savings vaporized, live through Siberian winter without heating, become a sex slave, or die in violence.
Gorbachev died. His legacy? Russia's GDP dropped by 40%. Real wages halved. Poverty ballooned from 2.2 million in 1987-88 to 66 million in 1993-95. Millions died under the brutal regime of privatization and shock therapy. Half a million women were trafficked into sexual slavery.
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