Russian President Putin: The USSR Could Have Been Reformed

RT: Putin: USSR could have been reformed, there was no need to destroy it

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union should have transformed the bloc into a democratic entity rather than see it collapse, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

“You know my attitude towards the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was no need to do it. Reforms could have been undertaken, including those of democratic nature,” the Russian president told the leaders of the parties which won seats in last week's general election.

“But I want to point out that the Communist Party was in charge of our former homeland, the USSR, not any other,” Putin added.

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Update: Putin Says Soviet Union’s Collapse Wasn’t Inevitable (Bloomberg)

WNU Editor: Russian President Putin is forgetting how people felt at the time. Within Russia itself I would estimate that 80% of the population (if not more) wanted the system to be overthrown .... and since the system was the Soviet Union .... it had to go. In the non-Russian Republics .... many Russians wanted the Soviet Union to exist in order to protect their language and cultural rights .... but for those who were native (i.e. Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc.) .... the sentiment was overwhelmingly to break the USSR apart. As for Putin's remarks that the USSR could have reformed .... sorry .... I was there at the time and much of the leadership (with the exception of Gorbachev and a few others) .... had no interest in reform .... none. And even Gorbachev's push for reform was too little and far too late. What's my take .... I hated the Soviet Union and the communist system that it represented from the day that I became sensitive to politics .... and I know that Russia is in a far better place today than if the Soviet Union was still around. As for the chaos in some of the former Soviet Republics (Ukraine, the Central Republics, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, etc.) .... this is something that in the end they will have to settle and work out .... a process that I predict will probably take a few more decades.