Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "Gorbachev gave Russians freedom. They rejected it." video.

This is my issue with your thinking: we already tried a Russia without 'Putler' in the form of Yeltsin, and it failed spectacularly. It's this liberal idea (which I feel Gorbachev had in his mind) that if the people have freedom, everything will magically work itself out! It didn't, and with Putin gone, it won't. Democracy and economic neoliberalism is not the creator of prosperity, but rather a symptom of it. Like it or not, there need to be strong national policies to build domestic industry and genuinely raise quality of life. You could open yourself up to the West completely with a few IMF loans, but all that does is kill your own companies and allow the foreign ones to dominate your market and- attempt to, recently- dictate your politics (even though the Ukraine conflict is not justified, the fact remains that Western companies are an extension of Western political power, and that is rarely good for developing nations). England developed the first industrial capacity in the world- textiles- by banning all imports from India. Now they advocate for the exact opposite, achieve the growth that they got.
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@mikicerise6250 I find that distinction laughable- the economic engines of the EU (France, UK, indirectly Germany) and the most anti-Soviet countries (Poland, Baltics) all took part in the crusades you are trying to distance them from. They only reconciled after the damage had been done. An empty gesture. In fact, it was precisely because Russia, at the time of Putin, seemed to be moving to democracy, that Germany in particular (if you'll remember the speech in Munich in 2008) was so willing to invest in Russia. Not sure what you mean about glorious empires, even Putin acquiesced to the idea of Ukraine being independent, in his recent nationalist writings. He simply views the two as so intertwined that it only makes sense for their politics to be closely aligned. As America and Canada, he put it. If Ukraine had followed Minsk II, a good deal of this could have been avoided. I don't think Putin's stated reasons were why he invaded, but I do think the real reasons could have been averted.
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@cgt3704 You described Romania to me. I now have to ask: what has it achieved? It sounds like you have all the same issues, just with a different political alliance. You said it yourself- you have massive brain drain (especially to UK), corruption, bad infrastructure,, etc. So was aligning with the West, and opening up your market right away, even worth it? What do you have to show for it, Pizza Hut? I am not saying you should "give up", but I think your strategy is bad, Greece is still worse now than it was before joining the EU. Will you tell them to "never give up!"? You seem to put a lot of faith in this idea, that being with the West will eventually make things better, with basically no evidence to show for it. Poland and Baltics are really all that come to mind, but this comes from their smoother transition to capitalism and technology transfer. There was a political motivation to get them away from Russia, so the countries with money and colonial legacies made sure they succeeded. Not sure what to tell you about Putin, literally anyone was better than Yeltsin, you have no position to lecture others about ideals and values when we were starving to death. He is not perfect, but he is much better (even now) than the results we got under the Western-supported leader. And none of what happened in 2000s, stabilizing the country and economy, was "easy". We are sacrificing the political process, yes, but if we put all our efforts into one goal and fail, there will be nothing left. Better to stabilize the economy first, then transition to more democratic. We tried what you are suggesting (Glastnost first, than Perestroika). It failed
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@dukebanerjee4710 I don't disagree with those 2 ideas, but they have nothing to do with each other. India is not totally neoliberal, not like the US, and Pakistan is a semi-democracy (Imran Khan is gone). Not to mention, Modi is similar to Putin, and democracy worked in India because it is geographically safe, it is easier to take a risk and make yourself vulnerable to outside manipulation (like Russia's elections getting rigged in 1996) if you have Himalayas as your border. The government is still mostly run by upper castes by the way, same with land ownership and wealth building.
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@prplt You sound like someone who had never actually lived in the USSR. I can tell you, from my family in 3 different Soviet republics, that none of what you said is true. Organized crime was largely underground, certainly not like in the 1990s where they openly roamed the streets and extorted people. Think of it like a Soviet Yakuza, tolerated but contained. Healthcare was not cutting-edge everywhere, but especially in transplants and transfusions it was rather advanced. It was also guaranteed for everyone, nobody was turned away or billed. Shopping? Are you serious? You could go shopping in the RSFSR. The selection was less than today, but by the 1970s most cities were indistinguishable from Western ones. I think you're just making things up, asking "what would make my argument sound the best" and then creating it out of thin air. I think you just don't want to admit that the West failed in remaking Russia in its image. It didn't work. The benefits are minuscule or illusory.
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@mikicerise6250 1) I was thinking of Afghanistan. 2) You said "crusades, until Iraq came back to bite them". Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq are all fair game, you should have specified. Germany was one of the main European contributors in terms of troops in Afghanistan, France also. Both were part of the ISAF. It took Germany until 2021 to completely withdraw. As far as Iraq goes, Spain, Italy, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Romania (are you sensing a pattern with the last few?), Denmark, Bulgaria, to name just a few, is no small contingent.
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@prplt Few basic items is better than none. Better than no healthcare, gangs roaming each street, salaries not paid for months or years, collapse of supply chains... Why do Westerners try so hard to downplay the fact that the USSR collapsing was a genuinely bad thing for most peoples quality of life? Do they not want to admit that it would have been better to transition slowly, prolonging the Union for another decade?
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