Monthly Archives: January 2026

Bush set out the American demands. He pushed Gorbachev to halt assistance to Fidel Castro’s Cuba and the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. This was top of the US list of priorities. The Soviet team was surprised. Gorbachev wanted to draw … Continue reading →

I find this headline very funny.

In trying to regain his balance amid a host of problems, Gorbachev was thinking out loud in the presence of Chernyaev, as if arguing with some conservatives: “Stabilization will be the end of perestroika. Stability is stagnation. Revolution equals instability!” … Continue reading →

Maduro has apparently upped his game while in custody, so he is now a dictator rather than merely a strongman. In a way, I guess, you could compare the president of a South American country with an Iraqi ISIL leader.