Reply #36: Gorbachev and the USSR

[ngant17]

I think Mikhail Gorbachev often gets a bad rap, and I think it is unfair to blame him for the collapse of the Soviet Union. He put ideas into place which brought about the collapse, but I don't think he had any plan to do that. I mean, the USSR needed "glasnost" and "perestroika" as much then as we in the USA need it today. We need openness in our government, not secrecy. We need to fundamentally restructure our economy based on peace and not on war. That was his agenda, and unfortunately it put forces into motion which caused an internal collapse of the Soviet Union.

And if we implement those same kinds of radical new ideas, which result in the internal collapse of our government, I can only say, "bring it on".