Was Reagan responsible for the fall of communism in Europe?

[maveric]

I have a RW boss who idolizes him, and constantly reminds me of the "fall", and the taking down of the Berlin wall.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. In a word

No.

[Lefty48197]

2. HELL NO!

The "Velvet Revolution" started in Poland. It was led by Lech Walesa, and then Pope John Paul II. Reagan didn't do jack sh*t.

[Whitacre D_WI]

6. The "Velvet Revolution" was Czech.

Vaclav Havel and his friends.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

36. Pope John Paul II had more of a hand

as did the structural problems of the Soviet economy.

[elperromagico]

3. No, the fact that the Soviet Union was spending money on weapons

rather than bread destroyed communism.

[maveric]

7. I was told they spent the $$$ on weapons due to Reagan's pressure

on the Soviets in their war with the Taliban.

[elperromagico]

11. They spent money on weapons because of the damned arms race,

and they had been doing it for decades before Reagan became President.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

33. Yes, But Reagan Kicked It Up to Insane Levels

And the Soviets tried to keep up, but failed.

We're still paying for Reagan's defense buildup, but in the interests of intellectual honesty and fairness, I do feel his defense policies were at least partially -- and perhaps substantially -- responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. And IMO that was a positive thing.

DTH

[alfredo]

35. Reagan wanted them to fall on his watch. We knew back in the sixties

that their system was going to fail. The plan was a slow, orderly dismantling of the USSR. We had people there helping them learn a new system, and the leadership seemed willing to let them work.

the worst thing to do was to force their hand, push them into chaos. That is what Reagan did. His ego was so huge. Russia would be a much better place if they had been allowed to reform at their own pace. Maybe we wouldn't have nuclear scientist selling Plutonium to the mafia and terrorist, just to put food on the table.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

37. It's a Debatable Point, Certainly

Who knows how long it would have taken the Soviet Union to fall, if Reagan hadn't pushed the issue? And if it had lasted long enough for the Soviet Union to fully exploit their Siberian natual resources, it could have lasted even longer.

It's a fascinating exercise in "what if" but IMO the unquestionable instability that resulted in the aftermath of the Soviet Union was preferable to the Cold War continuing for decades longer.

DTH

[alfredo]

39. Gorby saw the handwriting on the wall.

He knew they could not win the cold war. Afghanistan is what really killed them. They were handed their ass in their hands. gorby did the right thing with Glasnost and Perestroika. The reforms of Perestroika looked good, but they failed.

[forgethell]

23. Why were they doing a stupid thing like that?

These were communists, for the people. Why did they spend all that money at that time, when they hadn't before. god. A country that spends intself into extinction.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. NO!!! The Communist Centrally planned system was....

fundimentally flawed. The Soviets outdid themselves.

[moondust]

32. Centralization and unchecked militarism got 'em.

Reagan just showed up at the right time to take the credit.

[lebkuchen]

5. No.

The Pope was, and Vaclav Havel and his "Velvet Revolution."

[napi21]

8. NO, but we always blame/credit Presidents for things that

happen while they are in office.

[charlie]

9. If he wants to ignore Cold War policy

that stretches pretty much unbroken all the way back to Truman, and the untenable rot in the Soviet system, then yeah, the mighty Reagan brought down the Rooskies all by his lonesome.

[rumguy]

10. American pop culture, both high and low

played an instrumental role in the downfall of communism.

Rock 'n Roll.

American Movies.

Popular literature.

The youth under Communism began to get a taste of what freedom of speech and freedom of expression were all about. And they liked it.

This kind of stuff had more of an impact that Reagan and his missles.

Remember: it was Allen Ginsberg who got arrested behind the Iron Curtian in Czech. on May Day during a spontaneous May Day celebration.

[maveric]

12. AHHHHRRGGHH! Blitzer is such a whore!

WOLFIE JUST SAID THAT REAGAN ENDED COMMUNISM.

[never cry wolf]

38. He really said that??

Um, er, china, north korea, cuba, viet nam, laos...

[ThomWV]

13. Hell No

40 fuggin' years of the cold war did it, Reagan was just there to see the ship sink, that SOB did not fire the torpedo.

[Disturbed]

19. Hero

The Right Wing needs it's hero. Ronnie, the Red Warrior, fits the bill. We are going to hear about this hero ad nauseum.

The facts will be ignored.

(Posted by another DUer awhile ago.)

Here's a Reagan summary:

1. Fiscal irresponsibility. Ran MASSIVE deficits his entire term. We still pay interest on the bonds the government sold to borrow the money. Reagan claimed the tax cuts would generate more income to cover the deficits. It never happened--and is another Repug lie. We'll be paying interest on the $2 trillion of new debt Reagan added forever.

2. Tax burden shifted from wealthy to middle and poorer classes. Reagan cut the rates for the very highest paid, but increased the rates for those at the bottom. Contrary to Repug propaganda, Reagan signed the LARGEST TAX INCREASE in history into law. It boosted the payroll tax significantly on the lower income group.

3. Environmental setbacks. We went from progress in all areas of the environment to a standstill or worse everywhere. We still haven't gotten back on track and Bush* has made the trend very negative.

4. Social safety net for poor gutted. Reagan used the racist "welfare queen" propaganda to get even supposed Democrats to support him on this.

5. Accelerated the collapse of the union movement. Hiring scabs became the norm.

6. Supported many unsavory dictators and thugs. Got caught breaking the law illegally supporting the "Contras" in Nicaragua. The Contras were right wing goons opposed to the Socialist government.

7. Average Americans saw their standard of living decline during Reagan's two terms--in spite of economic growth. Trickle down was a miserable failure then, just like it is today under VacationBoy.

[DrWeird]

14. Yeah maybe him and Osama bin Laden.

They were buddies.

[glarius]

15. Gorbechev was responsible more than Reagan was

The right wingers like to give Reagan the credit though....

[progressivebydesign]

29. The Wall was DOWN when he uttered his now famous phrase! N/T

[FleshCartoon]

16. I don't think so.

But you can't tell his supporters that his "tear down this wall" statement was a publicity statement rather than a command that the communist leaders in Europe magically obeyed.

[scarletlib]

17. no

the system was corrupt and weak. The govt. would have collapsed and/or changed as Gorbachev was trying to undertake with or without Reagan.

[CHIMO]

42. Proposed Edit

the system "is" corrupt and weak. The govt. would have collapsed and/or changed as "the empire" was trying to undertake with or without "the world".

[H2O Man]

18. Interesting question.....

To say that Reagan was responsibile would imply that "communism," if that is the lable we want to apply to the economic system of the Soviet Union, was doing okay-to-well in 1979 ..... and then went downhill and bit the dust because of Ronald Reagan. It might be far more accurate to say that the Soviet Empire, like all empires, had over-extended in the 1960s and '70s, and was in pretty shakey shape by the time Reagan took office. Yet the Reagan Administration did play a role .... some of the older DUers may remember when McDonald's big competitor was Carol's. McDonald's did put Carol's out of business, in a sense ....Carol's had actually "over-extended" its resources.... although Burger King soon was found to inhabit the actual buildings that once housed Carol's. And, on that sad day when Ronald McDonald dies, it will likely be said he put Carol's outta business.

[AntiCoup2K4]

20. FUCK NO!

And even though the lie will be repeated endlessly over the next week, the answer will still be FUCK NO!

The only difference between the US and the USSR after the insanity of Reagan's arms race was that we had better credit than the Russians. Thus America survived another 20 years. Only to be destroyed by the Idiot Son of an Asshole.

[blm]

21. Ted Turner and INTERNATIONAL NEWS NETWORKS brought down communism.

Russian teens wanted their MTV, too.

[maggrwaggr]

24. exactly. It was those "Dallas" reruns. I'm not kidding

People wanted to live like that.

Big houses, nice cars, affairs ......

[KittyWampus]

34. Thanks BLM, That's What I Was Going To Write

TELEVISION brought down the USSR.

They were A threat but never THE threat the Neo-Cons made them out to be. They didn't have the resources.

[SheilaT]

22. No, he wasn't.

Next question?

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

25. "Was Reagan responsible for the fall of communism in Europe?"

Why, yes. The same way, and for the same reason, Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for the invention of the airplane, Dwight Eisenhower was responsible for unravelling the molecular structure of DNA, Richard Nixon was responsible for beating the Russians to the moon, and George "Dubya" Bush was responsible for decoding the human genome.

[LTR]

26. No

The Communist Block fell apart by itself, under the weight of it's own bureacracy. Gorbachev helped it along, though.

Reagan and Bush I had little to do with it.

[fishnfla]

27. No, it was Levi Strauss nt

[progressivebydesign]

28. Nope.. yet it's all over the AM radio this afternoon..

.. one guy said that Reagan singlehandedly won the Cold War, and saved all our lives. I guess stuff like that always happens when a pubic figure dies.. or anyone, I guess. We remember them much more fondly than what was reality. I also think it serves a political purpose to confer sainthood on him.. when in fact, he was at the helm of one of the biggest criminal scandals of all time in our government... The Iran/Contra affair should have earned him an impeachment... but we saved that for the blowjob.

I'm sorry that the man is dead. It's always hard for families and friends to lose a loved one. He was a president, and even though he broke the law, lied, and dessimated important social programs and hurt people doing it, I still think his death should be treated with some dignity.

[Darranar]

30. No...

the Soviet Union fell because its sort of tyrannical "communism" is unsustainable.

[JohnLocke]

31. Hell, no!

[ButterflyBlood]

40. Nope

the system simply crumbled on its own mainly, but Carter was more responsible than Reagan.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. The "fall of Communism"? No.

He outspent a corrupt regime made up of corrupt old men. Other similar governments fell in the wake of the USSR. It was no more the "death of Communism" than the fall of Enron was the "death of Capitalism.

The ridding of totalitarianism in the USSR owes a hell of a lot more to Gorbachev than it does to a reactionary like Reagan.