{"id":83255,"date":"2022-08-31T09:06:42","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T14:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=83255"},"modified":"2022-08-31T09:06:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T14:06:42","slug":"mikhail-gorbachev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=83255","title":{"rendered":"Mikhail Gorbachev"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died yesterday at 91. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The media has been eulogizing him as the person who led the way in ending the Cold War &#8211; the coverage lists Reagan almost as an afterthought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A quick remiinder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In 1980, literally nobody was predicting the fall of the USSR.   Everyone claiming in 1992  that they knew all along it was inevitable was full of s**t.  The Left thought Reagan in particular was insane for believing it could fall.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gorbachev was not selected by the Politburo to dismantle the Soviet Union.  He was brought in to preserve and update it &#8211; think &#8220;China&#8221;.  It didn&#8217;t work.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or, to put it in a pithier vibe:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"171\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-83256\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3.png 600w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-300x86.png 300w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-500x143.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Still and all, it could have been much worse.  The disintegration of the USSR could have been a bigger disaster than it&#8217;s actually been (and that&#8217;s been bad enough). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RIP, Mikhail Gorbachev. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died yesterday at 91. The media has been eulogizing him as the person who led the way in ending the Cold War &#8211; the coverage lists Reagan almost as an afterthought. A quick remiinder: In 1980, literally nobody was predicting the fall of the USSR. Everyone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making","category-memoriam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83257,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83255\/revisions\/83257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}