Sarah Paine

We're bigger than that.

And here is Edward Shevardnadze, Gorbachev's foreign minister, echoing some of these sentiments.

He said, look, the belief that we are a great country is deeply ingrained in me.

But great in what?

territory, population quantity of arms, people's troubles, the individual's lack of rights, and what do we, who have virtually the highest infant mortality rate in the world, take pride?

It's not easy answering the question.

Who are you?

Who do you wish to be?

A country which is feared or a country which is respected, a country of power or a country of kindness.

And others agreed that

Communism was essential to the survival of the Soviet Union, but it's an undemocratic ideology that fundamentally, it's a foundation that can't endure forever.

And that's the take of Vitaly Ignatenko, who's a Russian journalist.

And Oleg Ganinevsky, who's a Soviet career diplomat, is saying, look, communist ideology is associated above all with the Soviet Union.

Its rejection created a vacuum.

and it determined its ultimate fate.

And then Boris Yeltsin, who is Gorbachev's successor, said, look, no one wants a new Soviet Union.

So some would argue, this counter-argument, that human rights clauses of the Helsinki Accords and Carter's subsequent human rights campaign destroyed communist belief in communism.

Okay, another president, another counter-argument.

Those who are fans of Richard Nixon would say, no, no, no, no, no.

It was Richard Nixon who played the China card so the United States and China could gang up on the Soviet Union and overextend it financially to wreck it militarily.