collapse the soviet union. i'm not so sure about i think the important as far as to collapse the soviet union was deal was coup or the attempted coup which we can go because of position and strength and. power. in the opportunity to precipitate the breakup i don't think global political from is necessarily. how to lead to the break up of the solving i think those reforms necessarily or very likely to lead to the end of the soviet common system by don't think that society has to break up with the soviet union so richard where do you come in on that ok because i mean to this day in in the new russia there is an argument in who is responsible for the breakup of the soviet union was that boris yeltsin looking for power at any cost and he chose the russian federation or got a bunch of it and got a bunch of fending off a a political rival and that was. well i think these two are interconnected and i would also make a point perhaps is a minority point of view and the nationalities question was also played a very large

union. therefore they had no choice they had to present something to get this ratified by the various republics so it had very little legitimacy at the moment because people didn't understand what it was and kraftwerk immediately broke legally many had with yeltsin that for example there would be a united army so you severed all the relations of the union and that left the c.i.s. if it was to exist to find new ways to reintegrate or integrate that was a big mistake if you had to in the union or if it was a good idea why sever all the positive integration well you know that's interesting because i mean if i go to a province i mean that it all members of the soviet republics wanted the soviet union to end i think we have to remember that i think a lot of people definitely thought this was a wrong move and i'm thinking of the central asian republics that thought you know you know we got a pretty good gig here going with moscow they pay for everything we don't pay anything to them i mean this is

unions. a lot of times if you look at the rules, they're incredibly byzantine and a lot of hoops to jump through and bad for employers and employees and for the unions and so they're trying to streamline and reduce amount of uncertainty and waiting time and reduce the amount of litigation and things get held up for years sometimes and this is about streamlining, cost cutting and reducing uncertainty. should be things that jobs, job producers like. >> do you agree with that, toby. >> to what end? . the math says i'll use wal-mart as an example in the '90s, as they were facing unionization, two things they did, slowed down building places in the united states, throughout the united states and number two, they sped up nonunion outside the united states, china, mexico, canada. and found out historically, wal-mart, could go to 20 different corporations when they're forced with quote, unquote, more rapid way for unionization they get a way to get the heck out of dodge and build the business oiz. >>

in mind in the eurasian union whether he meant in the end the political union there may be forty one at a time gentlemen we'll see what that'll happen in ten years from many thanks my guest today and province and here in the studio and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the phoenix time. and you can. see twenty years ago the largest country in the. disintegrator to. see what had been trying. to teach began a journey. where did it take them.

a common space analogous to the european union and now his new idea for you are always in the union in itself part of this is political but i think the economic logic behind reintegrate integration is an excuse in this capable particularly of globalization actually means anything right maybe what do you think about that because one of the one of the criticisms of the c.i.s. is that it tries to be too many things at one time it focuses on trade economic security there's some elements of the military but obviously in a sense of self defense nothing like nato whatsoever and really they and they in the criticism is that it wants to be a european union want to be but probably the current commonwealth of nations you know would look again at the u.k. experience is probably more to the mark but still the criticism is it wants to be all things to all people all the time and that makes it very muddled. no doubt but that is the nature of these sorts of transnational integrative processes . if you look and put in address this in his remarks after his. article he pointed out that this is a multi-ti

the soviet union as distinct from russia. and once there was no no more any will from moscow to hold the thing together by means of the communist party then the other nationalities starting with the baltic and carrying on with georgia and armenia and so on they started to go their own way and at that point the communist party of the soviet union really lost much of its or is on that now gorbachev perhaps could get a say in the early months of one thousand nine hundred one have split the communist party and lead a kind of social democratic wing of it himself and that might have been successful but significantly he didn't do that so i think really the evidence suggests that the communist party of the soviet union was really unreformable ok vlad you want to jump in on this one you got it yeah i would i would i definitely agree there is this going collusion and i would just that the united russia party is in a sense a revival revived communist party because you know it's the party of the officials of the of the state you know som

but first let's see what russians think about him the last leader of the soviet union. is now eighteen years old his name is forever linked with attempts to reform the soviet system. and his policies have received different assessments through the years the russian public opinion research center asked russians to define his historical role fifty one percent of the respondents said his opposed to show who was thinking about the betterment of his country but made a number mistakes sixteen percent called him this honest man who must of modded the collapse of the country and another twelve percent see him as a brave man who took responsibility to oversee vital reforms in the country gorbachev attempted to create a more open and prosperous country through the paula says of glasnost and perestroika back to peter that's what russians think about the legacy of mr gorbachev well our sophie shevardnadze interviewed mr got a bunch off and this is what he said to her about what he thinks his legacy is. going to ensure i think it is a united world. we move personas a world where we

the soviet union disintegrated. was it as much of a surprise as it was for ninety percent of the russian people. when they. came to the state bank in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine prior to that so i worked my entire life. toward bank foreign trade bank were often interacted with western businesses so i realized we were moving towards a dead end. so. since my college years i've been friends with violence in public of who was the head of the pricing committee and later finance minister and later got involved to the ninety ninety one coup. so i big trouble lots of information from my conversations with him. in fact there were serious reforms in the works in this government they included three key aspects. the first the pricing reform because pricing and been wrong ever since industrialisation. i see. what then there was only government property and collective property. you know there were a few workshops in collective property producing consumer goods like clothes for example and some apartment blocks were coll

it showed how the union grew over the course of the 1970s under a pretty remarkable union leader named john ladin was able to balance various factions within the union and to protect just enough militancy to try to get the government to respond to patco's concerns without endangering the union. but the book goes on to show how over the course of the 1970s the controllers efforts to have their voices heard became increasingly frustrated for them. and they found themselves unable to negotiate over the things that mattered most to them. they were forced to fight over ancillary issues like free training flights and enemy while the faa continued to resist most other eight efforts to win reform. it was during the carter years and i did important parts of the research for this book here in the carter library, it was in the carter years the book argues that things really begin to get very difficult for patco. and patco began to lurch toward the conflict that ultimately happened under reagan in 81. patco found itself caught between restricted federal collective bargaining rules, on the one hand

anderson go to hell union carbide go to hell. for so many years who's been drinking poisonous water even today the water is still poisonous and all of our children are sick. of them and the entire community split up with a problem that is why we will keep fighting until her agreement to all demands the fine to continue. and not united for a gas leak from a union carbide corporation factory in bhopal killed up to twenty five thousand people it was one of the world's worst industrial accidents more than thirty thousand people are believed to have died from the effects of toxic chemicals released into the air from this factory the union carbide plant in the central indian city a book. on up on the contaminated water is making our lives how they're going to get even that . they're all these of thousands of stuff that we just live betty that is three forty six tons of waste that in that warehouse additives of thousands of tons of waste on the surface of the back to provide. the. it was the plant that was responsible for causing the wo

comrades in the soviet union. and he was really taken aback when people in the crowd dared to challenge him. >> that was in a top aide says gorbachev was basically blind it to. gorbachev would say, don't they mud if they lead the soviet union, there will be no an cor and no economy, and the aide comments, he doesn't get it. >> and you know, the democrats in russia at the time, from yeltsin to the intelligence ya, they were outraged by what happened in the baltics and blamed gorbachev. he surrounded himself with people -- the interior memberster and the head have kgb, who were hardliners. and he didn't condemn what was happening but he pulled back because he was going to lose his credibility in the world. ... he really did want to affect a change. >> and he does "that line that is in your book that covert tough, when pressed to get rid of those hard-liners and the old communist party and the repressive apparatus to something like, have to keep that lousy rapid dog on the leash. otherwise it will turn on us and turn

at university college london and his latest book is rulers and victims the russians in the soviet union and also in london we have lad sobel he's an analyst at yale and securities and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want stephen i want to go to you first here as got a bunch off is eighty years old today and let's talk about global legacy and then let's go to specific to russia what is his contribution to history at eighty years old remembering his rule ending the soviet union well one contribution is already recorded in history he set free the countries of eastern and central europe that's done where they go from here is up to them what's not settled or written history is the fate of democracy in russia there are different opinions about the condition of democracy in russia whether and he has very strong opinions about our positions and for good reason he wants to go down in history as the father of russian democracy in the west we attribute it to yeltsin but that's not true now if. democracy

see a lot of questions of strategy emerging are such drastic actions just what we need what even unions can't do or does it hurt the ninety nine more than the one percent and there is a brand new political party that was just launched here in d.c. this week going to take the influence of money out of politics and it's called the justice party a former salt lake city mayor and the man who wants to run for president on this party ticket rocky anderson is going to join us we'll have all that and more fit in i couldn't he does have happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so as the campaign gets more intense as we get closer to the primaries and as newt gingrich seems to be on a roll with the polls the mainstream media is going absolutely crazy obsessive lee talking about the new versus mitt that basically amounts of trash talking and making up on both sides you know there's nothing of the mainstream media loves more than a tit for tat boxing match style look at our political culture. and after a fight shaping up for the white house mitt

and the union leaders were there. the unionized contractors were there. and nixon was supposed to take a hard-line stance. he was supposed to demand that the parties come up with a voluntary plan to reduce wage pressures and price pressures in the crurks industry -- in the construction industry. and as i sat at that meeting, i kept waiting for the president to get tough. to give them the ultimatum. it never happened. he was not tough at all in the meeting. he was too easy. he never gave the ultimatum. he did ask for a plan for them to come back with a plan with -- in 30 days. and we can speculate why he wasn't tough at that meeting. but he just wasn't. and there was no political cover for the union leaders. and took more than 30 days, and did come back with a plan. it was an inadequate plan and on february 23, nixon surprised them by suspend being the davis-bacon act. davis-bacon act is an act that sets prevailing wages on federal construction projects and federally assisted construction projects. and it's administered by the labor department. and it seem

the balance of the fiscal union will give us a more stable union. we are far from the end. we have been restarted. great britain did not want to go along with the beautification of all of the member states. the answer to the situation could not be wait and see. it could not be patching the problems with the tools that we had. it would not have been responsible. the answer would have to have been different. we have decided to go for a new treaty, where the vast majority of all 27 members of the union would join. at least the 17 members of the eurozone. this is the very day where 20 years ago we created the european monetary union with the treaty. we are opening today a new path. the european monetary union will be strengthened by this treaty. the basis of this treaty should be ready in march. it will be ratified by the different member states of parliament. the institutions of the european union will have a stronger role, especially the european commission and the european court of justice. this will allow us to have a tighter operation with all 27 member states. 28 with a n

if i had done that we could have hat a union and a demille tearized, more democratic soviet union. >> probably a legitimate exercise in history, and unof gorbachev's what-ifs, what if i hadn't gone on holiday in august 1991 and allowed this to took place. he regrets he went on holiday because he had arranged with yeltsin and other leaders to sign a new union treaty. when he come back from his holiday. that's why coup took place because they didn't want this treaty. i think it was such that the soviet union was finished and these two men brought it about. yeltsin -- gorbachev by creating circumstances for socialism, couldn't survive, tried to maintain a socialist party in the country, and yeltsin, who worked on wrecking the system which he saw wasn't working. >> on the what-ifs, what if yeltsin had not had that shock therapy, immediate privatization piece? let me phrase that question differently. was it -- if gorbachev had had the same luck with oil prices that putin had over the last decade, would the republics have been so eager to depart from the center if the center was a gusher o

they were talking about replacing the soviet union with something like the european union when you spoke about gorbachev you mr medlock once said quote it's very unusual to find a leader who will risk his own leadership in order to change the system doesn't work well your boss of that time mr reagan cold called russia's soviet union the evil empire do you personally believe that russia was the evil empire and to gorbachev's wit and these power to change it or were this it you know wasn't as evil as reagan portrayed it well reagan never well he used that term in one speech and it was a speech to the domestic audience. one thing reagan understood the love that he did not conflate the soviet union with russia one thing he was very appreciative of russian history he was very respectful of the victory in world war two but we were very much aware of stalin's purges the fact that stalin killed probably as many soviet citizens as hitler did now you're going to call him or maybe more now you're going to call that about nine empire well it isn't him higher in the sense that you have various nation

union, soviet union still. .. circumstances for social was done couldn't survive. then we tried to entail socialist in the country. and the person who took a big bet on rack in the system until he saw a it wasn't working. >> and on the what is, what is -- what if yelp than have not had that shot there be an immediate privatization piece, was there a possibility for soft landing amount rephrase that question a different way. was it if gorbachev had had the same luck with oil prices that vladimir putin had over the last decade, with the republics have the center of the center was a cashier >> i don't think so because even if oil increased, the whole system on the assist was. one can look at a lot of what is. what if yeltsin had succeeded some of the close both in the russian parliament, which enabled him to become president. what if, a year after december 25th, 1991, the russian parliament, which have been elected in the days of the soviet union could count a lot of hard-line communists. what if they succeeded in im

that set up the soviet union. the soviet union was finished. in 1991, all the leaders of the republic in the soviet union, and agreed they would settle the soviet union, a commonwealth of independent states but no common center, nobody in charge of their foreign policy. it would literally be no role for gorbachev anymore. gorbachev still felt he was in the soviet union in some form, that they would see and wrote a long letter that they would all day in the kremlin as a figurehead in charge of foreign policy and -- [talking over each other] >> host: delusional. >> guest: james baker was secretary of state at the time went to see him. other foreign visitors. this was two days before the end. they saw gorbachev expanding on possibilities of the soviet union expanding on a role in the world. and with a deadpan face, not literally but figured raising eyes to the rising heavens this guy doesn't get it. >> guest: >> host: addition to the yields and/gorbachev tension you have a group of communist party functionaries leapi