Comments on: Sunday photoblogging – the end of communism

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:34:32 +0000

Back then, many of us hoped that the Eastern working class would, given the choice, reject both Soviet-style dictatorship and western capitalism…

http://exiledonline.com/how-the-west-hijacked-the-berlin-wall-revolution/

By: novakant

novakant — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:16:21 +0000

Whatever – we could engage in a drawn-out back and forth now about your week in the GDR 25 years ago and the way you subsequently referred to it, but frankly it would be a waste of both our time.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:59:33 +0000

Novakant, I recommended Anna Funder’s Stasiland in comment #4 above. Since, in the sentence you quote, I’m reporting my impressions in 1984, it isn’t clear what you think I should reconsider. Are you saying that I should report now that my beliefs then were as they would have been if I had been better informed? Presumably not.

By: novakant

novakant — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:10:24 +0000

And of course the Stasi was famous for their skill in abducting and disappearing people.

By: novakant

novakant — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:34:26 +0000

I have written about it intermittently on blogs over the years. Including in this post:

You might want to reconsider this statement:

“There were not, as far as I could tell, widespread disappearances, torture or any of that stuff.”

since it shows a worrying lack of knowledge of the subject matter. Of course there was widespread torture in the GDR, the whole Stasi system was built on torturing large parts of the citizenry psychologically and physical torture was the norm in GDR prisons right up until 1989.

By: engels

engels — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:14:00 +0000

Thomas Friedman rises to the occasion:

The most important difference between 11/9 and 9/11 is “people power.” Germans showed the world how good ideas about expanding human freedom — amplified by people power — can bring down a wall and an entire autocratic power structure, without a shot. There is now a Dunkin’ Donuts on Paris Square adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate, where all that people power was concentrated. Normally, I am horrified by American fast-food brands near iconic sites, but in the case of this once open sore between East and West, I find it something of a balm. The war over Europe is indeed over. People power won. We can stand down — pass the donuts.

By: Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:17:55 +0000

The Neoconservatives have nothing but contempt for Gorbachev because they figured that they could have piloted the USSR through the storm by the application of enough blood and iron. Of course, Neoconservatism, which is pretty much fascism for Jews, is heavy on the triumph of the will and light on the political economy so its adherents aren’t much interested in hearing about deep-seated structural problems and the nationality question. To be honest, I don’t know if a sufficiently ruthless leader could have crushed the nationalists and reformers. Would the cost in lives and suffering have been any greater than what Lenin and Stalin inflicted? Doubtless the question is moot since the sorry bunch of old drunks who tried to pull off the coup were certainly not up to the game, for which we can all be thankful.

By: engels

engels — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:30:51 +0000

‘[T]his development of productive forces … is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with want the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would begin again…’ (Marx, The German Ideology)

By: Natilo Paennim

Natilo Paennim — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:57:04 +0000

I’m confused about why we have to think any one thing about “the Soviet leadership”. Do we conflate Reagan and Goldwater? Or Carter and Ted Kennedy? To be sure, some of the nomenklatura in the USSR were cunning indeed—just look at the way that many of them surfed the waves of crisis to their advantage. And equally, some of them were much more like modern-day Bobchinskys and Dobchinskys. And some of them were probably the selfless public servants that James imagines. Not everyone is a cynic, after all.
Try as they might have though, it’s hard to imagine how they could’ve kept it all going much longer than they did, assuming that many of them wanted to. The historical weight of Stalin’s crimes (we’ll leave Kronstadt and Makhno out of it for the nonce), the internal pressures of the never-resolved nationalities question, the costs of the doomed Afghanistan adventure, and frankly the understandable, if not strictly virtuous, desire for a late-20th century, first world standard of living on the part of much of the population, were a lot to deal with.
Maybe if they’d started the counter-revolution 5 years earlier like the PRC did, they could’ve come out of it with at least a veneer of soc1al/sm to pay lip-service to, but they moved too slowly. That’s the way the печенье crumbles.

By: Walt

Walt — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:32:25 +0000

Chris, I think Alex means you’re a serious person arguing with a silly person.

By: alex

alex — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:30:07 +0000

The Fall of the Soviet Union – just one big excluded middle fallacy.

By: Down and Out of Sài Gòn

Down and Out of Sài Gòn — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:47:08 +0000

The sad thing about the fall of the Soviet Union was that millions died anyway. It just didn't turn out to be the nasty civil war that many people predicted (except in outlying areas like Chechnya). Instead, it was due to increased drug use and alcoholism, which was due to the collapse of the economic system, but aggravated by Yeltsin's and Gaidar's shock therapy.

By: Dr. Minorka

Dr. Minorka — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:26:51 +0000

@12: Speaking about Hungary: The situation is rather” interesting”. Capitalism is extremely unpopular, just we have no socialists.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:15:11 +0000

Back then, many of us hoped that the Eastern working class would, given the choice, reject both Soviet-style dictatorship and western capitalism, in favour of a combination of democracy and collective ownership with self-management

I can’t say much about most of Eastern Europe, and I don’t know for sure about “collective ownership with self-management”, but I do know that many people in Russia hoped to have options other than the ones they were actually given in the early 90’s. (Whether these were real options, given both the situation of the country and the outside pressures, I can’t say, but I do know that quite a lot of people hoped for something other than what they got in the end.) As for me, I wish that Yavlinsky would have had more luck in getting his proposals put into law, both in 1990 and in the later 9o’s.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:00:28 +0000

I have absolutely no idea what Alex imagines me to be thinking.