Quote Originally Posted by fortheether View Post
We'll never know but if Carter won again and then followed by other "weak" presidents like Obama - would you be able to freely have a discussion on the liberties of the Russian people?
Well, Misha Tal seems to enjoy the 'free' talk, so why not?

I'm not sure the reasons for the 'fall of the communism' are quite obvious. Like, look at North Korea. All the so-called 'reasons for the fall' are still there (and perhaps there are even more), but the present regime seems to be rather stable. Some people think at the August of 1991 the SU was very close to abandon the Perestroyka and going back to the roots (=the strong dictatorship).

Having said that, I remember the early '80s and all I can tell is that the SU seemed to be preparing for a big war. It was apparent the SU couldn't match the SDI and the preemptive strike was required to save the regime. Gorbachev allowed a lot of ugly things to happen, but he didn't allow the big war to start.