XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   XPost: soc.culture.nordic, soc.culture.baltics   
   From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com   
      
   In article ,   
    Anton  wrote:   
      
   > James A. Donald kirjoitti:   
   > > David Friedman   
   >   
   > >> Does that explain the timing? It had been not working   
   > >> as a socio-economic model for a very long time before   
   > >> it fell. The point at which its failure resulted in   
   > >> mass starvation was many decades before the collapse.   
   > >   
   > > My guess is that Gorbachev's decision to allow people to   
   > > doubt and criticize had a lot to do with the fall of   
   > > communism in Russia, but military defeat had a lot to do   
   > > with the satellite countries dumping communism.   
   >   
   > Communism did not suffer a military defeat, let alone that it fell   
   > because of such. The unarmed civilian pupulations1 defeated communism -   
   > not armies with guns.   
      
   The Soviet Union suffered a pretty direct military defeat in Afghanistan   
   (as the U.S. did in Vietnam, of course). It also lost some of its proxy   
   conflicts elsewhere.   
      
   How important that was to its fall I don't know. I would suggest that   
   the immediate cause was both the unarmed civilian populations rising   
   against it and the armed military population being unwilling, or   
   believed unwilling, to use its arms against the civilian population that   
   was doing the rising.   
      
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    http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
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