Best Leader of the Soviet Union
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  Best Leader of the Soviet Union
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Poll
Question: Who was #1?
#1
Vladimir Lenin
 
#2
Joseph Stalin
 
#3
Nikita Khrushchev
 
#4
Leonid Brezhnev
 
#5
Yuri Andropov
 
#6
Konstantin Chernenko
 
#7
Mikhail Gorbachev
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 53

Author Topic: Best Leader of the Soviet Union  (Read 14684 times)
JohnFKennedy
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #50 on: December 28, 2008, 02:03:52 PM »

I wonder how such a poll conducted in Russia would go. Probably a dead heat between Stalin and Brezhnev and Gorbachov last.

Look's like it would be Stalin to me.
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Jacobtm
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« Reply #51 on: December 28, 2008, 02:25:58 PM »

Read up some history before you write such nonsense. As late as April 1991, most Soviet citizens wanted to keep the Union in some form. It was the August coup which brought the decisive change, and even then, the Ukraine was the only republic were there was actually a referendum on secession.
Gorbachev's idea was to create a democratic and prosperous Soviet Union. That instead of this there was a collapse, which led to nearly a dozen civil wars and that the economy of almost all republics collapsed into a depression from which many have yet to recover, shows just what a monumental failure he was.
[/quote]

I wasn't claiming the citizens of the USSR voted for dissolution of the Union; obviously that was a decision taken by Russian, Ukranian and Belerusian representatives on their own. What I am claiming is that when power was devolved to the regions and local representatives began wielding real power, their interests were different from the interests of the central leadership of the USSR. This conflict of interests among the different centers of power is what led to the collapse of the soviet union.

The baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, seceded once legislatures were elected and political elites saw that to maintain their power it was more important to placate the citizens of their Republic than to placate soviet leaders.

Many other Republics who didn't secede passed laws declaring their own supremacy over their own territory and assuming many duties that the central government used to be responsible for, stripping the central government of its authority.

All the "autonomous oblasts" in the USSR, such as South Ossetia and Chechnya, were given full Republic status, which severely irked nationalists in the proper Republics that had contained these oblasts.

Groups (ethnic minorities, republics, oblasts) who felt like they'd been given a raw deal in the USSR demanded more from the system, wheras ones who felt like they'd been supporting the poorer ones wanted to keep their resources for themselves.

All these problems didn't exist when there was a central power structure. When power was devolved, the new political elites who relied on local support for their power, in an effort to keep their power, could not conform to the old standards.

That's not the ONLY reason the USSR broke up, indeed the coup was very important, as was the Chernobyl disaster, as were lots of other things. But the coup wouldn't have happened without Gorbachev's radical reforms. And without Gorbachev's reforms these problems could've been kept from exploding just as they had for decades past.

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Pravda
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« Reply #52 on: December 30, 2008, 02:26:33 AM »

Lenin probably, simply because he got the whole thing started, led the revolution, and left what used to be a quagmire on good footing.  In terms of overall accomplishments, I'd say Stalin.  No other Soviet leader came close to matching the huge accomplishments of industrializing the formerly agricultural Soviet Union, defeating Nazi Germany practically single handedly, liberating Eastern Europe from the yoke of Western imperialism, and making the Soviet Union a world super power.

If subsequent leaders were more like him.
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RosettaStoned
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« Reply #53 on: December 30, 2008, 01:39:43 PM »

Lenin probably, simply because he got the whole thing started, led the revolution, and left what used to be a quagmire on good footing.  In terms of overall accomplishments, I'd say Stalin.  No other Soviet leader came close to matching the huge accomplishments of industrializing the formerly agricultural Soviet Union, defeating Nazi Germany practically single handedly, liberating Eastern Europe from the yoke of Western imperialism, and making the Soviet Union a world super power.

If subsequent leaders were more like him.

I couldn't have said it better myself.
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Pravda
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« Reply #54 on: December 30, 2008, 07:51:45 PM »

Also, in regard to Gorbachev: 

I just don't see how anyone could consider him to be a good leader.  I can understand liking him for his distastrous policies which in the end destroyed the Soviet Union, but that simply doesn't make him a good leader.  His job was to LEAD, not to destroy the Soviet Union.  Let's say someone gets in a car and accidently runs over someone you hate.  Would you be glad he ran over the person?  Perhaps.  Would you call him a good driver?

No.  It would be patently absurd to do so.
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Rild
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« Reply #55 on: December 30, 2008, 08:05:42 PM »

Khrushchev, for his shoe slapping, 'We will bury you' antics.

you toady of american imperialism!

He was an endearing, amusing bumpkin, who also managed to keep the economy moving at a decent clip, got rid of the Stalin personality cult and relaxed much of the brutality seen during Stalin's reign, as well as loosened up the political and artistic atmosphere.
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