is there anybody still naive enough to think ron reagan had anything to do with the fall of the USSR.?

Answer 1

Yes. That is the popular right-wing delusion and they've deified him.

All Reagan did was shoot off his mouth "Tear down this wall!" "Evil Empire" "The bombing begins in five minutes." Supposedly Communism fell by sheer force of rhetoric! All we have to do now is denounce terrorism and it will go away, too!

The REAL credit for the fall of the USSR goes to Gorbachev, who gave up on the Communist pipe dream and brought it about.

Secondarily, credit goes to Harry Truman, who started the policy of containment and who helped create a number of alliances and institutions to put it into practice.

Communism ultimately faild by its own internal incapacity. To think otherwise is to imply that communism COULD possibly have worked, and that's something right-wing Reagan worshippers will not admit. For if it indeed could not have worked, then it was inevitable it would have fallen of its own dead weight eventually. We just needed to contain it and not listen to hotheads who wanted a climactic confrontation instead, one that would have made WWII look like the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet.

Answer 2

Good grief!

Hard to believe there are so many who truly believe it!! I'm stunned.

I traveled into and out of the Soviet Union for years from way before the "wall" fell until about 5 years after... When I entered, I was usually there for from 7 to 15 days.

I can tell you with certainty that the end of the USSR was caused by the weight of the suffering of the citizenry. Communism and socialism doesn't work.....

70 years of stagnation ended the crush of communism in that country and brought an end to the USSR. Reagan had nothing to do with it. Neither did the Pope or anyone else.

The PEOPLE ended it....it died under it's own weight.

When the fence was first cut, by a citizen, and Gorbachev permitted others to go, that was the beginning of the end.

Oh, and by the way, the Reagan administration was one of the most corrupt of all....not as bad as Nixon or the current idiot but one of the top 3, for sure.

Answer 3

Some folks can easily believe a actors performance to be true. Regan looked good, he was an all-American star and
a celebrity. That's all some people need, never mind about the facts, their minds are already made up.

The USSR economy, that was already shaky before the rise of communism, collapsed ( mainly ) because of military over spending. There is nothing like overburdening an economy with war type activities and over spending until it falls.
- Just read history.

If anyone person should get the credit of abolishing the USSR it should be Mikhail Gorbachev.

The USA today cannot even "win" their illegal war with the Iraq people whom they think are barbaric Islamic little guerra terorits' and whose weapons are primitive.

I doubt any goverment at her time, could have destroyed the USSR, with it's advanced military weapons, science and technology.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics rose and collapsed because of herself.

Answer 4

Ronald Reagan contributed to the decline of the Soviet Union but he was certainly not a major contributor to its downfall. His accelerated military spending did, however, pressure Moscow to accelerate its own weapons programs spending which did buckle the Soviet economy. The United States at that time though did have an overwhelming deficit because of Reagan's budget which contributed to the recession (and real estate crash) during the Bush Sr. years. Reagan was no genius or guardian of the American economy but he did have a small hand in Gorbachev's seeing the futility of the Soviet state.

Then again, anyone who would have been president in the early '80s would be getting credit for this. I think Lech Walenza had a lot more of an impact than Reagan (or any other American politician) if you have to point out a individual. The Labor Union negotiator for the Polish dock workers turned the Polish government upside down and that exposed the Soviet's impotency when they decided to not invade Poland to restore Communist order. That was the true nail in the coffin for the Soviet Union and it was in no way directed by Reagan or the CIA.

Answer 5

Perhaps there may have been some indirect factors on Reagan's part that contributed to the fall of the USSR, but the main reason it fell was primarily caused by their poor economic management and a lack of great leadership to pull them out. To think that Reagan was totally responsible for it would be like saying Al Qaeda is responsible for the current multi-trillion dollar U.S. debt. I think that if we continue to have presidents like GW, the U.S. will fall very much like the USSR did.

Answer 6

No notwithstanding remeber that the U.S. grow to be and nevertheless is a great capacity, the place using fact the little guy from Iran is a terrorist, and we could desire to consistently in basic terms turn him and a few others into glass imho

Answer 7

There are people who will believe anything and the mythos of Reagan is a touchstone for many people, most of whom don't really know what happened on his watch, but just believe the stories.
However, for good or ill, whatever happens on a Presidents watch is what he is tagged with, just as the communist regime disintergrated while Reagan was in office so he is the one credited with it, so will Bush 2 forever be the man who let the terrorists attack us here, and the man who could n't win a war he had no plans for, even after it was won, or, the man who bankrupt the US. Or the man who let a city of four and half million disintergrate. More accurately, he will be the man who couldn't run the country.
Take your pick.

Answer 8

I'm sure there are plenty. The same for whom Reagan is the greatest American of all time, with no pedestal too high for him.

Me, I always thought Mikhail Gorbachev and the Russian people had a lot more to do with it than the Acting President. But I never believed catsup was a vegetable either.

Answer 9

Reagan had a lot to do with the fall of the USSR.

so did Thatcher and so did John Paul II.

When Reagan took office socialism was being spread around the world--Afghanistan had been invaded, Nicaragua was supporting communist guerilla's in the rest of central America.

Cuba was supplying aid to Grenada and weapons to communist in Africa.

The USA was in economic turmoil. inflation was double digit. Unemployment was over 9% in the USA. And Iran had held American Hostages for well over a year--Carter had been effectively paralylized.

By the time Reagan left--The US had introduced TWO new Strategic weapons systems, Overthrew the communist in Grenada, destroyed the communist insurgents in Central America, Obtained the release of the US hostages from IRAN. Forced the USSR to leave Afghanistan.

The inflation rate was a non factor, unemployment was lowered substantial.

The USSR was effectively shown to be a Third world economy.

The US Military had been strengthened to the point that it was effectively able to counter the USSR directly.

Iran was forced to sign a peace treaty with IRAQ--instead of taking over IRAQ and threatening the Oil fields of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the middle-east.

In truth---the USSR was doomed to failure in the future because it was a socialist Government trying to manage a socialist economy. It was unable to adapt effectively to changes in the world market because it planned it's economy by five year increments and those in charge of planning were more afraid to screw up than to take risk. This is the inherent problem with Socialism in ANYTHING.

But anybody that thinks Reagan was not instrumental to any of this --is an IDIOT!

Answer 10

Of course he did. All he had to do was to order Gorbachev to take down the wall and the wall came down. Sort of like Joshua at Jerico.

Reagan had so much power that he would order world leaders all over the place to do his bidding like any good emperor or potentate.

Now a realitiy check:

If Gorby wanted the wall up it would have remained up. Reagan really hand little or nothing to say about it. The photo op in Berlin where he made his famous speech telling Mr. Gorbecheve to take down the wall happened because Ronny learned from the CIA that the Soviet block was falling apart and that East Germany was probably going to be among the first of the Soviet satellite states to go. So to make himself look good and to look powerful he staged the wall speech. People fell for it hook line and sinker. Reagan was an opportunist.

Answer 11

I think all the Catholics praying the Rosary had more to do with the fall of the USSR than Reagan did.