socialmedian: Letters: 1989 – after the wall came down

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Letters: 1989 – after the wall came down

Source: guardian.co.uk Society

Nov 09, 2009

Summary

Timothy Garton Ash covers a broad canvas of post-1989 issues (Comment, 5 November), but the key failure was to leave Mikhail Gorbachev without economic support at the crucial moment.

In 1989, unlike in 1945, the west lacked a George Marshall with a plan to pay for transition and stability in Europe. The Soviet Union imploded dramatically, rather than by stages, the Russian people found themselves at the mercy of the oligarchs and the mafia, and soon came to blame Gorbachev for all their ills. As George Soros agrees, the rouble should have been underpinned and guaranteed, not just to prevent severe hardship for former Soviet citizens but also to ensure the early erosion of east-west barriers.

Helmut Kohl shrewdly saw the political need to exchange the East German mark at parity with its West German counterpart, even though it was probably worth only a quarter of that figure. For years the West Germans paid a substantial extra tax to pay for a much smoother integration than would otherwise have been possible. It's "the vision thing" and, on the broader scene, it

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