Who would you guys and gals consider the worst post-Stalin leader. I have to go with Cornman because he set up a foundation for everything to fall apart. The best thing he did was fund fund socalist leaders.
/spoiler/he should have nuked America though/spoiler/
Gorbachev may have been terrible, but it was Yeltsin who banned the communist party and abolished the soviets. You can't top that.
Khrushchev did nothing wrong. When he left office the USSR was growing stronger, had achieved new heights of international prestige, and made great accomplishments helping third world revolutions and natlib movements. Brezhnev on the other hand killed their cybernetics program, left behind a stagnating economy and a bloody quagmire in Afghanistan.
that was Stalin's accomplishment, cornman would have stopped that if he could have
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yeah he did all that he will also save Venezuela from the US
Tbh ignorant and silly of you to say.
For one thing, Krushchev oversaw the most consistent period of growth and achievement in the USSR (not counting military victories in the revolution and Great Patriotic War), a period during which the world at large was genuinely convinced of the inevitable triumph of the Soviet Union over the west and the efficacy of planned economy. Krushchev did much to dismantle the lauded international communist movement by discrediting Stalin, to be sure, but he did more than any post-Stalin administration to maintain, defend and expand the socialist mode of production.
Second, your post would imply that it was ever Stalin's intention to go to war with the west. Stalin, who built his entire political philosophy on the concept of isolating the communist movement to the defense of a single country. Going to war with the west would have been the most absurd ultra left posadist suicidal idiocy I can imagine. The survival of socialist production in a post nuclear civilization is ridiculous, if the Union survived as a political structure at all (it wouldn't). If anything Krushchev's greatest mistake (besides smearing Stalin and permanently disparaging international communism as a political movement) was not doing even more to seek amicable relations with the west. Even in the 60s, the USSR was falling into the trap that would eventually destroy them: trying in vain to keep up with absurd US defense budgets and stockpiling arms and WMDs that would never be used, wasting the time and talents of their brightest minds on weapons research, all sucking resources away the from the development of a detailed planned economy which would be able to keep up with the demands of an advanced society after initial industrialization was complete. Because planning was never refined by the development of information technology infrastructure and computerization to match developments in the west, the USSR doomed itself to stagnation.
Even for all his faults, saying Krushchev was a worse leader than Gorbachev is dumb at best and slightly offensive at worst.
I believe Yeltsin was only ever Chairman of the Presidium of the RSFR, he never held a position in the all-union government.
To his credit on that issue, Khrushchev downsized the conventional Soviet military and built up their nuclear stockpile because it was a far more cost effective deterrent.
yes, Stalin deserves the credit for leading the construction of a proletarian state that could accomplish all those things. Kuckchev only failed to tear it all down as quickly as he'd have liked.
Seriously, why do people keep insisting Khrushchev is worse than Brezhnev? Is it because Khrushchev is easier to paint as a "deviant" from flawless marxism-leninism while Brezhnev instead shows its weaknesses and internal contradictions? Brezhnev paved the way for Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
Um….No? Wtf
Nikita continued to build Soviet Society and many milestones of development occurred under his tenure with standards of living and life expectancy continuing to skyrocket and the international revolution / National Liberation being aided on a mass scale
He can not be compared to Gorbachev who was actively Anti-Marxist / Communist and actively seeked to abolish socialism in the USSR
Why would he have stopped that? Any evidence he wished to stop these things from happening?
Once again any evidence Kruschev was not a Marxist?
I would say Andropov gave Gorbachev more of an avenue to power then any one else as his economic reform gave Social-Democrats (Gorbachev) and Liberals (Yeltsin) the ability to masquerade their true intentions under the guise of reform
Sources? I tend to not hear many positive things about him so I'm interested. Also what's your opinion on the Secret Speech and his intentions with it?
Except he didnt tear it down, quite the opposite actually. Under him the USSR continued to grow rapidly, standards of living increased, new advances were made in science and technology, millions of colonized people were liberated, etc. What did he really do that was so evil? He did some factional shitflinging about Stalin, and that's about it. Brezhnev meanwhile took a vibrant and powerful country and set it on the path to decline.
Imo it was an over-zealous attempt to purge his political enemies who were closely associated with Stalin. Denouncing Stalin was just a tactic to isolate Beria, Molotov, Voroshilov, etc so that Khrushchev and his allies could retain power.
he set the path for Brezhnev by compromising with Kennedy and getting thrown out
That’s like blaming Stalin for the Secret Speech.
By that logic Trotsky is responsible for Stalin because he compromised with Zinoviev and was thrown out, lmao
Gorbachev practically let Yeltsin take over.
I prefer 'comrade'.
in neither of those scenarios did someone flub a nuclear weapons crisis that ended up making the USSR look weak.
I suppose you would have preferred nuclear war? Also the idea that it made the USSR look weak is silly, since the Americans came out of it thinking they looked weak. There were significant concessions granted by the US to the Soviets, including the removal of missiles from Turkey as well as the abandonment of any attempts to invade Cuba. Kennedy's perceived weakness on Cuba probably contributed to his assassination by the CIA.
A) Brezhnev was a decrepit dying old man when that war started
B) Calling it a quagmire is a meme to get you to think it was like Vietnam. Only 15,000 Soviets died over 10 years (60k Americans died in nam), it was a very low level war on their end, and they weren't utterly unsuccessful, the president they installed remained in charge of Kabul at least until the USSR collapsed and Russia stopped sending aid.
It only made the USSR look weak to Americans because the removal of missiles from Turkey wasn't reported.
Soviet citizens thought they won that battle.
The problem is that it escalated to that point that Khruschev had to do nuclear war or make concessions, and any sane person would make concessions. Putting yourself in a position where you have to publicly retreat isn't good leadership.
Even if they thought they won the Politburo certainly didn't, if it was a win Khrushchev wouldn't have been kicked out and called a disgrace to socialism.
It was a totally unnecessary intervention in the first place. The course of the war from 1989 to 1991 showed that the government could win on its own. Direct Soviet involvement was just an unnecessary drain on their economy, alienated many Soviets from the government when their sons started coming home in body bags, and damaged their standing on the world stage. It was a bad geopolitical move in general, and if anything the direct involvement of foreigners strengthened the Mujahideen in the short term. They should have just stuck with aid to the Afghan government, with special forces and air strikes at most.
Kennedy was the one who escalated it by blockading Cuba. How else could Khrushchev have handled that situation?
A) not sending nukes to Cuba and sending conventional instead
B) not getting caught
BY LAUNCHING THE GOD DAMN NUKES THAT WOULD HAVE WIPED CAPITALISM OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH.
ALLOWING CAPITALISTS TO LIVE IS THE WORST FORM OF REVISIONISM
Fair enough, but even sending conventional forces may have provoked the same response from Kennedy.
At that point the USSR was completely outmatched in nukes by the US, if anybody even survived it wouldn’t have been the Soviets.
Ok here's how I see them soviet leaders.
Mad lad
Purge happy mad lad hell bent on ensuring the survival of the USSR.
Wanker. Nothing about what he did I just think he was a wanker.
Other than being a wanker, upkeep mad lad. Could've done better but it's not like he did anything overtly bad. Into space 10/10 and national librarian.
Also his speech was a dick move.
Lad. Less mad. Should've done better to into computers and less into army stuff. Overall sorta just hung about making sure the USSR was going cool.
Absolute sad lad.
Considering the US performance in Bay of Pigs and Vietnam an invasion of Cuba might have fucked up accordingly.
The Bay of Pigs wasn't the US military, it was US equipped gusanos. On top of that Kennedy didn't support them with airstrikes like he was supposed to, and the entire plan relied on an uprising by the Cuban population against Castro. Vietnam is a better example, but it hadn't happened yet, so its not as if the US would have had any hesitation to invade.
the absolute state of the CIA
Yeah it was pretty hilarious tbh. They literally thought that people hated Castro and would overthrow him at the first opportunity. Pretty sure they were getting their intelligence from gusano anecdotes.
I love when capitalists do shit like this. It must be part of how they will "sell us the rope to hang them with".
if you don't think Gorbachev was the single worst leader then you're retarded, because no matter what mistakes previous leaders made he was the one who actually denounced ML, implemented market reforms, created dissatisfaction among the people, which all eventually paved the way for Yeltsin to dissolve the USSR.
on another note i'm glad some people are debunking the whole "Khrushchev was an anti-communist who ruined the USSR" meme.
Bump
also, you do spoilers by putting a pair of * on each side of the text
The Market reforms to the Soviet economy themselves did not cause the dissatisfaction of the Soviet people that occurred under Gorbachev
There already was dissatisfaction at the stagnating economy and lack of consumer goods / Liury goods
Limited Market reforms by Andropov seeked to allow more Market reforms along the lines of Hungary
This was a success but Gorbachev (Intentioanlly) faulty reforms in 89-91 proved disastorous
Undertaking Market reforms does not doom a socialist state (See PRC / Vietnam / Cuba etc)
thanks
lol no
hahAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT? The Market Reforms directly affected the economy and quickly caused low production, high debt and loss in quality. Those are the main reasons for dissatisfaction in the USSR.
Key word, limited, not to mention You say this as if Andropov is highly praised. The man died in office so fast that he's forgotten by modern textbooks.