did the soviet union really fall?

thinking about this the other day, in the context of how the bfee has existed behind the scenes, controlling so much, even though we thought we were in charge. and it occurred to me that there was some pr moments, the wall falling and all that. but i do not really recall hearing about prosecutions, executions, electoral reforms, or any real changes in power. i guess i hear that the mafia has filled the "vacuum", but i suspect that they are just more obvious, and have been there all along.
i confess to ignorance, here. but i was thinking about it in the context of what is really going to be accomplished when we send these corrupt thugs packing in november. ie- not much, i fear.

Redstone

same shit, different asshole, it looks like to me.

In fact, Bush has adopted some of their bad ideas

maybe we could talk to people about it, say, look, they pulled this there, you think it is different, but reality is under this rock here. do we have rocks? look, here, this voting machine here, what's under here?

Although some will argue it was done for financial reasons, I suspect he knew the US would turn on itself without a common enemy.

And he was right...

i think that they just decided that the kgb was getting cumbersome, so they opened the archives, (some of them, anyway). tore down the wall, let some troublemakers leave the country, but what else? nothing that i can see.

From Wikipedia

Emboldened by the liberalized atmosphere of glasnost, public dissatisfaction with economic conditions was much more overt than ever before in the Soviet period. Although perestroika was considered bold in the context of Soviet history, Gorbachev's attempts at economic reform were not radical enough to restart the country's chronically sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms made some inroads in decentralization, but Gorbachev and his team left intact most of the fundamental elements of the Stalinist system, including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production.

By 1990 the Soviet government had virtually lost control over economic conditions. Government spending increased sharply as an increasing number of unprofitable enterprises required state support and consumer price subsidies to continue. Tax revenues declined as revenues from the sales of vodka plummeted during the anti-alcohol campaign and because republic and local governments withheld tax revenues from the central government under the growing spirit of regional autonomy. The elimination of central control over production decisions, especially in the consumer goods sector, led to the breakdown in traditional supplier-producer relationships without contributing to the formation of new ones. Thus, instead of streamlining the system, Gorbachev's decentralization caused new production bottlenecks.

It seemed at the time that Gorbachev could have cracked down on the ethnic strife and break-away satellite countries that once formed the USSR, but this happened with realtively little violence resulting in the "dismantling" of the Soviet system. But as I said in my original post, by allowing this to happen, Gorbachev avoided a long, drawn-out civil war and permitted the United States to turn on itself as the world's only superpower. Notice that after the fall of the Berlin Wall and, symbolically, the "end of Communism," the prospect of "terrorism" rears its ugly head? In four short years, the fall of The Wall in 1989 and the WTC bombing of 1993 take place. Coincidence? It appears the United States cannot operate without a "boogieman" so we moved from the boogieman of Communism to the boogieman of terrorism.

this statement-
"By 1990 the Soviet government had virtually lost control over economic conditions. Government spending increased sharply as an increasing number of unprofitable enterprises required state support and consumer price subsidies to continue."

or- oligarchs took over companies, and continued to get "subsidies" which were really like the "subsidies" that we give to exxon- just a flat out rip off of the taxpayers. also, didn't most of the profitable state-owned companies get sold off to cronies for pennies on the dollar? and wouldn't those people be the ones that were not really "commies" in the first place? see, that's the kind of shell game that i am talking about. just rearranging the furniture.

are now "free"

I believe that the USSR war in Afghanistan is thought to have bankrupted them and thus contributed directly toward their loss of control over many of their satellite nations.

Doesn't that sort of feel like where we are, too? (except for the satellite nations part)

a series of revisionists to Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist doctrine.

starting with stalin. like us.

Yes, the USSR really fell. Yes, the USSR really was one of the most oppressive governments in history. Yes, it really did rule east Europe with an iron fist. Yes, it really was opposed by the west, with special credit going to George Soros and Karol Wojtyła. Yes, hundreds of millions of people in East Europe are now living in much more freedom than they did before its fall.

Does that mean Russia is now a liberal state? No. But even so, there is more opportunity for it than there was under the Soviets. And much more opportunity for the Czeck Republic, the former East Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, and the other nations of east Europe that are seeing a dawn after a long and bleak night.

what i remember of the soviet union is what i knew through u.s. msm. and what i know of the fall, as well. so.....
i do have a friend who has relatives in east germany. since the fall, he has visited several times. his people there are not really any better off. in fact, they are suffering without the old supports.

just relating the only personal experience that i have access to. i am not making statements here, just asking questions.

....

What if Bush is a commie? If you listen to that nutcase Joe McCarthy, you'll find that he described something similar to our current situation. He was lambasted, because he took on Ed Murrow, but his spiel about "altering the government of these United States, in an unconstitutional way" is interesting to listen to.

"SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS COMRADE!"

:D

Right now they're just in poverty coma.