Board 8 > Did the Cold War really end when the USSR faked a revolution?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Am I the only one who has thought about this? All of these "the Russians hacked the election" accusations, Putin's obvious dictatorial governing, and Snowden's defection, among other things, make me legitimately about whether or not the Cold War "ending" was just a Soviet ruse to save face. Sure, things like the Space Race are over, but has the Cold War simply turned the page into an era of political games? Or am I just being ridiculous?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFNRlvEh7ok
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yeah no the ussr didnt fake anything
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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFNRlvEh7ok

I see I'm not needed here.
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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFNRlvEh7ok

I came into this topic for this.

I want to hear more about how the USSR collapsing, losing a ton of land and people, was a ruse to save face.
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Uh, the Cold War ended because Rocky beat Drago and then warmed the hearts of both nations

Get it right
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OliviaTremor posted...

I want to hear more about how the USSR collapsing, losing a ton of land and people, was a ruse to save face.

That was not a ruse, it was the reason for it. They had to save face because they'd lost all of that, so what remained faked a revolution that was only a transfer of power between Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Apologies for lack of response. Holiday party at work.
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So, after Gorbachev reformed the government with perestroika, making the Party, the de facto leading body in the USSR since its inception, impotent, leading the loss of the SSRs and the effective collapse of the Russian government when faced with mass, uncontained protest, he decided to save face by transferring power to a new leader in a new government, thereby faking a revolution?
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Hungary only got away with its revolution because the USSR was busy dealing with its own spat of reforms. Gorbachev also did his best to learn from historys mistakes, and was just as successful as the Hungarian reformists. Khrushchev wanted his new Soviet policy to differ significantly to that of Stalin, but much of his reforms were held back by Party elites. He ended up an effete leader and was deposed for his ineffectiveness. Gorbachev was determined not to make the same mistake, and so, with his policy of perestroika, he endeavored to cripple his potential Party opponents to allow his reform to go through unmolested. Binding the nations leaders in paperwork and red tape while simultaneously weakening the bonds that tied the Union together had the unfortunate side effect of giving the SSRs the means to break free and forge their independence.
Perestroika gave the Republics the means the escape, but Gorbachevs other main political initiative, glasnost, gave them and the Russian populace further motivation to do so. One of the USSRs admitted flaws about state planning is an inability to perfectly processes available data to create optimal policies or to react appropriately to issues popping up all over the large Union (hence the creation of cybernetics, for example). To mitigate this issue, and to provide more freedoms at the same time, Gorbachev relaxed censorship of the press and encouraged them to investigate systematic and situational problems with the USSR. He hoped that when the people were given more rights, and when they saw their government take steps to address some issues that theyve surely noticed, theyd be more content with their situation and have more faith in their government. Instead, the people were disillusioned with the Soviet Communist system as a whole, and when presented with so many wrongs, inefficiencies, and instances of incompetence, from drug crises to the farce of show trials, they were that much more motivated to make drastic change. Perhaps Gorbachev believed it was purely an increase in oppression that encouraged revolts; the effects of glasnost imply that, rather, it is an increase in the awareness of oppression that foments rebellion.
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ITT:

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/018/832/tumblr_inline_nfw0jkh13t1rn9eqb.gif
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