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Final Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev Dies at 91

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Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying.

Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany.

When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force—unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

But the protests fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion.

Gorbachev struggled in vain to prevent that collapse. (Read more from “Final Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev Dies at 91” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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See Which 1 Nation Put Soviet Union in a Class as ‘Global Power’

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Guess which single nation, during the years 1941-1945, sent the Soviet Union $146 billion (in current dollars) worth of equipment, queries a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Making up a superpower’s shopping list of 3,770 bombers, 11,594 fighter planes, 5,980 anti-aircraft guns, 2,000 railway engines, 51,000 army Jeeps, 361,000 trucks, 56,445 field telephones, 600,000 kilometers of telephone wire, 22 million artillery shells, 15 million pairs of army boots. Almost a billion rifle cartridges.

And which nation provided technology through the decades that built up the regime’s military-industrial complex? Which nation bailed out millions of people and saved their lives when famine hit? Which nation came through with $16 billion in aid when the empire collapse and individual republics emerged?

The United States. The United States. The United States. And the United States, says a commentator.

That all makes for an interesting love-hate relationship in Russia toward the United States, as described in a recent post from Liliya Shevtsova, who formerly headed the Carnegie Foundation Moscow Center, was a cofounder of the Davos World Economic Forum Global Council on Russia’s Future, and is a prolific writer on Russian politics. (Read more from “See Which 1 Nation Put Soviet Union in a Class as ‘Global Power'” HERE)

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