This is gonna be an angry nationalistic forum, with hate for Russia.

[Lvivske]

there was just too much of a split and lack of loyalty to the Union.

it wasn't a lack of military strength, but organization and defiance. the august coup would have been successful had it been done in the days of stalin.

of course, the military sided with yeltsin and we all know the rest.

[bm-21Lemko]

yes, there was a lack of union.

and then there were tanks poppin shells at the communist parlimentary building.

[Lvivske]

great picture!

[Kathy]

Gorbachev was not responsible for the collapse of the USSR. He wanted to preserve the system.

Gorbachev was hand picked by the KGB to be leader of the CPSU. He was not a democrat or a freedom lover. The policies of so called "glasnost'" and "perestroika" were developed by the analytic section of the KGB long before Gorbachev was selected leader of the Soviet Union.

The reason the coup failed was because by that time, Yeltsin was the president of the Russian republic, the Russian republic's KGB reported directly to Yeltsin, and Yeltsin rallied the media and had Muscovites take to the streets to protest the coup.

Alpha units called in to break up the protests (the same units that clubbed unarmed protesters in Lithuania and Georgia per the orders of the "democrat" Gorbachev refused to obey the orders, and that also had an effect. It was really a confluence of factors.

Personally, I think Pope John Paul II had a lot to do with the collapse of communism.

[Lvivske]

Originally Posted by Kathy

Gorbachev was not responsible for the collapse of the USSR. He wanted to preserve the system.

The policies of so called "glasnost'" and "perestroika" were developed by the analytic section of the KGB long before Gorbachev was selected leader of the Soviet Union.

he may have wanted to, but he was blamed for its failure; and the cluster**** of glasnost/perestoika basically set him up to take the fall