Debinking the notion that Ronald Reagan brought down communism

[shemp]

Gorby had the lead role, not Gipper

Fiction has its place -- especially at the time of one's passing. And so, the American airwaves glisten these days with tales about how it was Ronald Reagan who engineered the defeat of communism and the end of the Cold War.

It was his arms buildup, Republican admirers say, and his menacing rhetoric that brought the Soviets to their knees and changed the world forever. He was a pleasant man, the 40th president, which makes this fairy tale easier to swallow than some of history's other canards. Truth be known, however, the Iron Curtain's collapse was hardly Ronald Reagan's doing.

It was Mikhail Gorbachev, who with a sweeping democratic revolution at home and one peace initiative after another abroad, backed the Gipper into a corner, leaving him little choice -- actors don't like to be upstaged -- but to concede there was a whole new world opening up over there.

As a journalist based first in Washington, then in Moscow, I was fortunate to witness the intriguing drama from both ends.

Ronnie was just there to mop up the leftovers after Gorby did the job.

 

[Jocko]

Gorby had the lead role, not Gipper



Ronnie was just there to mop up the leftovers after Gorby did the job.

And I suppose you would "credit" Captain E. J. Smith for the "glory" that befell the Titanic. They share the distinction of being on watch at the culminating moment of a thousand other mistakes.

Never mind that Reagan laid out the plan he followed in 1966 when he was running for the presidency - it's all about Gorby (or any other non-American you can fellate as long as you perceive it comes at the expense of your own country).

 

[aerocontrols]

a more balanced view

 

[aerocontrols]

Here's an interesting comparison, Shemp.

From your link

Then Mr. Gorbachev announced a grandiose plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons by 2000. Just another hoax, the Reagan men cried. More Commie flim-flam.

From mine

At their face-to-face summit of October 1986 in Reykjavik, Reagan went far beyond Gorbachev's proposal of a 50 percent strategic-arms cut. To the alarm of some aides, who were not let in on the discussion, he suggested that the two sides get rid of nuclear weapons altogether and jointly build an SDI system to guard against a nuclear revival.

 

[rikzilla]

Gorby had the lead role, not Gipper



Ronnie was just there to mop up the leftovers after Gorby did the job.

Of course, I remember how Gorby said "Tear down this wall Mr. er, ah, ummmmm"

I was in the US Army in W. Germany from 1978 to 1981. I was well placed to see both the effect President Reagan had on the military and on the situation overseas.

Under Mr. Carter, if we'd heard of a "war on drugs" we'd have thought that to be a special plan to be implemented if the Russians attacked on a payday weekend.

Under Reagan the military climate changed noticably...for the better readiness-wise. (I was young and kinda bummed because it looked like the party was over....it was....and in retrospect I'm damned glad)

The fact that Reagan was instrumental in applying the pressure that brought down the Soviet Union is unassailable. That you are making the attempt is laughable. There is a body of evidence to the contrary of your claim....history is writ in stone....piss on it all you like but you'll not change one word. Look at the people lining up 6+ hours to be near the casket....and despair because you know what it means, you're an outsider in your own nation. Out of step with society....perhaps eventually to be a pariah. Enjoy.

-z

 

[Sloe_Bohemian]

Two points to add

First) For those that claim Ronnie's "strength" and his policy to outspend the soviets militarily and drive their economy to the edge by making the cold war too expensive...

Carter had requested a larger military budget from Congress than Reagan was advocating during the campaign... it was Carter's policy, not Reagan's.


Second) I'd like to see a source for what Reagan's 1966 plans were... something written before 1979 (not that I would accuse Reaganites of revisionism).

But more importantly, the situation with the Soviet Union in 1966 was so different (China was still following a Soviet example for one) that if Ronnie had been allowed to try in 1966 what he did in 1980... it would not have had the same results (i.e. failure). Which means his role as a thinker is limited to luck that the situation fit.


But the truth is better proven in the original post. Gorby took action inside the Soviet Union that changed things... Ronnie did what? Make an emotional impact?

It's like saying that a new owner takes over a failing restaurant and makes drastic changes to how it's run... but when it starts to make a profit, we want to give credit to the grocer down the street who threatened to burn the place down for years.

It's so nonsensical that the claim requires extraordinary evidence be presented.


I don't think I'll change anyone's mind though. I mean how many people know that the Soviets sent a series of space ships to the surface of Venus and took lots of amazing pictures? But we all hear about the Mars mission. It's just the way information is done... people want to hear about how WE did it all... no one wants to hear a fair and balanced bit of news... that wouldn't be complimentary all the time.

Truth is irrelevant... especially when discussing Reagan. No one wants to hear it.

 

[bignickel]

Anyone read the "Tom the Dancing Bug" by Ruben Bolling, entitled

"Cold War Strategies on the Highway, or Outspent to Oblivion"?

Panel 1
SUV 1 speeding down road, next to small car 2
1: "If we crash, I'll survive, and you'll die!"

Panel 2
smaller car 2 now an SUV
2: "Now we're even!"

Panel 3
SUV 1 is now a bigger SUV
1: "But now if we crash, I'll survive, and you'll die!"

Panel 4
smaller SUV 2 is now a bigger SUV
2: "Now we're even again!"

Panel 5
SUV 1 is now a Hummer
1: "Now if we crash..."
2. "Arrgh! I can't afford the car payments and gas! I'm bankrupt!"

Panel 6
Hummer 1 is now on road by itself, driving next to man and girl on bicycles
1: "Finally! The roadways are safe for us!"

If you're willing to have a 30 second commercial play on your screen, you can see it here (unless you already subscribe to Salon, that is)

http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2003/12/11/boll/index1.html

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

It was a fortuitous confluence of factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union . The determinate being in order Ronald Reagan, Michail Gorbachev, the state of the Soviet Union ( both financially and politically bankrupt) and the fiction of Star Wars... not just the program but the blearing announcements of success.

The covert part of SDI was the spreading of dis-information ( not only to the Soviets, but to ABC,CBS..read the American public) about the trial results. Reports ( and films ) of missiles being hit by long range interceptors being launched from Edwards AFB and an empty "nuke " from the kwajalein atoll ..complete with pictures was a fiction ( they were hit but the experiment was staged all knew the "nukes' path as did the interceptor) as was the pictures of a space based x-ray laser destroying a Titan missile on the testing ground with much public fanfare, unusual for a nascent secret program wouldn't You think?

That was planned as was Reagan's obsession with the totalitarian state nay bloc , of the USSR. He was met with a newer younger version of the stodgy, homicidal Premiers of the USSR, Gorbachev, for whom the term realpolitik meant more then foiling your enemies but also a recognition that he was responsible for a People. Andropov had no such grasp, neither did Chernenko..

What we had was a President who was willing , even in his distrust and moral outrage at the entity that was the USSR, willing to compromise as was Gorbachev. The premier seeing his country collapsing around him, seeing that the west could far outspent The USSR and finally ( kudos here) seeing he had a diplomatic partner he calculated he could trust. Evidently the stars were aligned, but the man in office saw an opening to achieve his vision and took the chance...........and won.

I am not a Reagan fan , I thought his domestic politics were ruinous and he , like many older people will be, out of touch with his constituency. One of my most prized possessions is a T-shirt with a picture of Reagan and a bottle of Heinz Ketchup, asking "Which one is the vegetable?". This was in his 2 yr. in office and refereed to his statement that ketchup was considered 1 serving of vegetables for kids on the school lunch program and not to his ultimate malady.The same can be said for Nixon , a despicable man who's foreign policy set forth the idea of Détente that Reagan could capitalize on and the opening of China.

 

[ceo_esq]

Then again, as Mark Steyn wrote in the Telegraph earlier this week:

The intelligentsia persist in believing [that the fall of Communism] had nothing to do with Reagan or Thatcher: they maintain that the Soviet empire would have collapsed anyway, their belated belief in the inevitable failure of communism being in no way inconsistent with their previous long-held belief in the inevitable triumph of communism. And anyway, they continue, if anyone was responsible, it was Mikhail Gorbachev.

In fact, it was Reagan who was responsible for Gorbachev. The Politburo would have gone on rotating the same old 1950s waxworks - Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov - for another decade or three, had not Washington's military build-up so exposed the old guard's inability to keep up that, in 1985, it turned in desperation to someone new.

And of course, as Gorbachev himself acknowledges, there's another world leader who deserves a major share of the credit for bringing down Communism. Hint: it wasn't Margaret Thatcher. It was Karol Wojtyla.

 

[phildonnia]

..."Cold War Strategies on the Highway, or Outspent to Oblivion"?...

On a related note,

It's commonly said that Mutually Assured Destruction was responsible for the fact that we went 50 years with no WWII-sized conflict between the Russians and the Americans. Ed knows it wasn't human decency.

In my old age, this former liberal thinker is beginning to buy it too. Of course, we have nothing like a controlled study to find out for sure. Anyone care to debunk this as well?

 

[CFLarsen]

Reagan was gambling that the USSR would collapse from the economic pressure of keeping up an insane arms race.

Unfortunately, we, in Europe, were at the receiving end, no matter what the outcome would be. If any side had chickened out, we would be dust.

It was a gamble in which we had very little to say. Don't blame us for not indulging in the current Reagan-fest.

The guy is dead. Peace be with him. Bury him with the honors that bestow a US President. Have sympathy for his loved ones. Just don't hail him as a savior of the free world. He played poker with our lives without ever asking us if it was OK.

Don't get me wrong: Nobody deserves the fate he got. Being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I would have killed myself instantly - I could not face the prospect of my brains turning to goo. Just don't try to rewrite history. Especially not at the expense of those who faced certain annihilation, had his plan gone wrong.

 

[Shane Costello]

Umm, how come Cuba and North Korea haven't been collapsing under their own redundancy and irrelevance lately?

 

[Number Six]

What receiving end was Europe on? It seems to me that the only thing Europe received was the dismantling of an empire with bad intentions that was on its doorstep (and actually in the door in some cases). Yeah, if a nuke war would have came about Europe would have taken some bad stuff but that's because the advancing empire was right on Europe's doorstep to begin with, not because Europe just happened to be caught between two warring parties. Europe wasn't an innocent victim getting caught in the crossfire of two belligerents but rather it was a participant in the Cold War that happened to be on the front lines of it due to geography.

As far as Reagan's role in the whole thing, while he probably did his share I think the notion that he's the one that brought down the USSR is fallacious. The Cold War was a battle between two systems and it went on for decades with the West ending up winning because it had a better system. It's not like the USSR was proving superior to the western model before 1980 and suddenly Reagan turned things around. Saying that Reagan won the Cold War because the beginning of the end occurred under his watch is like saying that Bush Sr. brought down the Berlin Wall because it fell during his watch.

 

[hammegk]

Hummer 1 is now on road by itself, driving next to man and girl on bicycles
1: "Finally! The roadways are safe for us!"

If my family is in the SUV & it's you on the bike, I'm happy.

Or more to the point, if the USA is the Hummer ....

 

[Sundog]

If my family is in the SUV & it's you on the bike, I'm happy.

Or more to the point, if the USA is the Hummer ....

Hope it's one they remembered to put armor on...

 

[corplinx]

The lengths people go to, to be intentionally obtuse, are amazing. For anyone that thinks the soviet union would have fallen apart, I present to you North Korea.

When Reagan went face to face with the Soviet Union's last big play play of the cold war, and refused to let the deployment of nukes to eastern europe go unanswered; this pivotal event took away the Soviet Union's only weapons left: fear and intimidation.

The Soviets could not outproduce us in the event of a war and could not keep up in the arms race, all that was left was direct intimidation with what they did have: and Reagan refused to be punked out.

 

[Jocko]

The Soviets could not outproduce us in the event of a war and could not keep up in the arms race, all that was left was direct intimidation with what they did have: and Reagan refused to be punked out.

There seems to be a few common denominators in Reagan's character that continue to befuddle the likes of Shemp and his bumbling Australian hitsquad: integrity, vision and most of all guts. As president, Reagan reminded us that those are the traits every American should have, and he led by example.

All this straw-grasping in an attempt to diminish the man and his achievements are born of the inability by some to grasp the value of working for something more than their own insignificant gain - and they look all the sillier for trying.

 

[Mike B.]

Reagan was gambling that the USSR would collapse from the economic pressure of keeping up an insane arms race.

Unfortunately, we, in Europe, were at the receiving end, no matter what the outcome would be. If any side had chickened out, we would be dust.

It was a gamble in which we had very little to say. Don't blame us for not indulging in the current Reagan-fest.

The guy is dead. Peace be with him. Bury him with the honors that bestow a US President. Have sympathy for his loved ones. Just don't hail him as a savior of the free world. He played poker with our lives without ever asking us if it was OK.

Don't get me wrong: Nobody deserves the fate he got. Being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I would have killed myself instantly - I could not face the prospect of my brains turning to goo. Just don't try to rewrite history. Especially not at the expense of those who faced certain annihilation, had his plan gone wrong.

Hello Claus,

I am not sure I understand you here. That central Europe would have been a battleground had it ever come to blows is more about geography than Reagan isn't it? The borders were set up essentially in 1945.

I think that the Soviets in the late 1970s/early 80s were placing SS-20 missles in eastern Europe aimed at western Europe in hopes of "Finlandicizing" the NATO countries.

What would have been the proper response?

The US deployed Pershing II cruise missles in western Europe in response. It had the support and permission of governments in Europe as diverse as Thatcher and Helmidt Schmidt, so I am not sure about nobody asking you.

The IMF treaty removed all those missles. (Having a missle that can hit Moscow in a few minutes is a big bargaing chip.) It seems this is a clear case where Reagan was right. As much as I disagreed with Reganomics I believed this was a clear and unqualified success.

(And yes I recall at the time he was "simplistic" a "cowboy" etc.)

 

[crackmonkey]

Even Gorbachev credited Reagan - and SDI - with bringing down the Soviet empire. As many have noted, Reagan outspent the USSR, and they went broke trying to keep up.

 

[UserGoogol]

North Korea has survived because North Korea is small and Russia is big. Small countries are easier to control. Also, the Soviet Union spent a buttload of money on military stuff, although the vast majority of this was not spent as a result of Reagan's actions.