In Sunday's The New York Times, 79-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of the Soviet Union, wrote:
PERESTROIKA, the series of political and economic reforms I undertook in the Soviet Union in 1985, has been the subject of heated debate ever since. Today the controversy has taken on a new urgency — not just because of the 25th anniversary, but also because Russia is again facing the challenge of change. In moments like this, it is appropriate and necessary to look back.
We introduced perestroika because our people and the country’s leaders understood that we could no longer continue as we had. The Soviet system, created on the precepts of socialism amid great efforts and sacrifices, had made our country a major power with a strong industrial base. The Soviet Union was strong in emergencies, but in more normal circumstances, our system condemned us to inferiority. ...
I am often asked whether my fellow leaders of perestroika and I knew the full scope of what we had to do. The answer is yes and no — not fully and not immediately. What we had to abandon was quite clear: the rigid ideological, political and economic system; the confrontation with much of the rest of the world; and the unbridled arms race. In rejecting all that, we had the full support of the people; those officials who later turned out to be die-hard Stalinists had to keep silent and even acquiesce. ...
After the Soviet Union was dismantled, Russian leaders opted for a more radical version of reform. Their "shock therapy" was much worse than the disease. Many people were plunged into poverty; the income gap grew tremendously. Health, education and culture took heavy blows. Russia began to lose its industrial base, its economy becoming fully dependent on exports of oil and natural gas. ...
By the turn of the century, the country was half destroyed and we were facing chaos. Democracy was imperiled. President Boris Yeltsin’s 1996 re-election and the transfer of power to his appointed heir, Vladimir Putin, in 2000 were democratic in form but not in substance. That was when I began to worry about the future of democracy in Russia.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2003:
Of course, Ari is still blabbing about Bush's "final push for diplomacy blah blah blah", when Bush's efforts have not been about averting war, but about cajoling, threatening, and bribing the rest of the world to sign on. The world wants "diplomacy" aimed at peace, not at war, a distinction that Ari, Bush and Co. seem to miss.
So facing stiff opposition (something Bush and Co. had never experienced before, certainly not from the US press or Democratic Party) the US is now threatening to attack Iraq without putting a second resolution up for a vote -- despite Bush's bold declaration last week that he would force every nation to "show its cards".