After Stalin, who was the most threatening? Kruschev, Chernenko, Andropov, Brezhnev? I’m probably missing someone.
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Replying to @MichaelSlavitch @danvon1 and
That is not correct. Brezhnev was in fact an advocate of stability and "trust in cadres." I would argue that Andropov was the most dangerous of the bunch.
7 replies 4 retweets 43 likes -
Replying to @RadioFreeTom @danvon1 and
Interesting—wasn’t he (for a time) Gorbachev’s key sponsor?
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Replying to @arnonmishkin @RadioFreeTom and
I think more than for a time. He was his sponsor. Curious what Tom says. But my understanding has always been that Andropov’s dangerousness was rooted in his knowledge of the decay of the system and efforts to change that. In his own way was a reformer too.
2 replies 3 retweets 16 likes -
Replying to @joshtpm @arnonmishkin and
Yes, Andropov helped bring Gorby to Moscow. But Andropov was a rigid ideologue, and thought "reform" meant "work harder and drink less." He was also kind of paranoid about the US and the encirclement of the USSR.
4 replies 3 retweets 38 likes -
Replying to @RadioFreeTom @arnonmishkin and
My understanding was that the throughline was understanding that the economic stagnation of the Brezhnev era was unsustainable. So reformist in that sense. Find ways to build productivity that can undergird competing militarily with the west.
2 replies 1 retweet 14 likes -
Replying to @joshtpm @RadioFreeTom and
Strange but true: Eugene Genovese, shortly before his hard turn to the right, said he really regretted Andropov's early death because he seemed like a guy who could fix the system.
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Replying to @HeerJeet @RadioFreeTom and
Genovese's life arc and scholarship is one of the greatest indictments of Marxism.
5 replies 1 retweet 21 likes -
remember when some of his last public work was to argue that Southern slavery was consistent with Christian doctrine? good times
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Yeah, that's in "Mind of the Master Class" -- a very, very strange book (although, to be fair, it ends up condemning slavery although has hundreds of pages praising intellectual brilliance & Biblical learning of slave owners).
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