Were the events of 1989/1991 good to the mankind?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Putin is also better then nearly all the Soviet leaders(Gorby s the exception ). 

I think this is a false dichotomy owing to the fact that he is in control of a system other than the USSR. We have no idea how repressive he might have been had he worked his way to the top in some alternate universe.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Putin is also better then nearly all the Soviet leaders(Gorby's the exception ).  

But if the Soviet Union didn't break up in 1991, it would be Gorby who would probably stay in power for another 5 years or so, and then maybe he will be able to hand over his position to a like-minded successor.

How do you propose this ever be accomplished, though? The USSR was doomed just as much by its multinational nature as its economy. Once restrictions on free speech and national expression were torn down, the multitude of ethnic issues that the Union had attempted to paper over came to the fore.