Hacker Cinema
Meeting Gorbachev
2019 · Film · documentary · 95 min
Directed by Werner Herzog, André Singer
Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, sits down with filmmaker Werner Herzog to discuss his many achievements. Topics include the talks to reduce nuclear weapons, the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of his country.
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4 comments on Hacker News
> but Gorbachev seemed like a fundamentally decent man
I caught this movie at the Tribeca Film festival: https://tribecafilm.com/festival/archive/meeting-gorbachev-2019
It was very sympathetic toward him. And I don't think it is a "great" film in any sense. But I did feel like I got a taste for who he was. And I also felt he was a fundamentally decent person.
Anyone interesting in learning more about Gorbachev's life, I recommend watching Werner Herzog's Meeting Gorbachev.
There's a documentary called Meeting Gorbachev that's worth watching for anyone interested in learning more about the collapse of the USSR. Gorbachev was the leader of the USSR prior to its collapse.
While some saw the downfall of the USSR as the end of communism and a triumph for the west, others might say it was just another round of the revolving door of dictators and corrupt politicians that has plagued eastern Europe for decades (maybe centuries?).
Utter rubbish.
I recently saw a Werner Herzog feature-length interview documentary called "Meeting Gorbachev". In it Gorbachev describes in his own words how and why the USSR dissolves. The USSR was always an unequal political union with Russia as its command centre. The other republics were always jostling either for a more equal union and frequently nationalist sentiment overrode pan-Slavic sentiment. If the USSR had managed its internal economy better and if they weren't cut off from the outside world it could have survived indefinitely. In the end Gorbachev made a series of moves (perestroika and glasnost: anybody who lived through this period knows these terms and what they mean in practice) that brought about the impending dissolution. Garbachev would have been the leader of an independent leader of a now independent Russia but he was politically outflanked.
It is typical US arrogance to think that they have their hands always and every time directly on the levers that make and break nations and political entities. It is a prime example of the mentality of US exceptionalism. Many many factors interweave and interplay in every geopolitical landscape: internal politics, internal economics, internal resource allocation, external pressure, military strength, alliances, the list goes on.
Yes, oil/dollar moves may have had some impact. How much of an impact, that would be difficult to say. But it was in no way as impactful as you make it out to be and in now way as directly instrumental. And besides, when you look at the history of Federal Reserve policy you can see that US economic reasons (recession, interest rates) prompted Volcker's actions.