"Few Soviet citizens lamented Gorbachëv’s going. His policies had ruined the economy and smashed the state into fragments. His critics showed him no mercy. This was ungenerous of them since without his introduction of glasnost and perestroika they could never have had the opportunity to calumniate him. Abroad, he was better respected. His disinclination to halt the decommunisation of eastern Europe by force was widely admired. His primary role in the ending of the Cold War was rightly esteemed. There had been many times when a different General Secretary would have called upon the armed forces and the KGB and reversed the reform programme. Yet the verdict on him has to take account of his inability to understand the nature of the Soviet order. He had genuinely believed that the USSR could be reformed and still remain communist. He had a passion for a democratic, humanitarian Lenin who had never existed in history."
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Academics from RussiaPoliticians from RussiaHeads of stateNobel Peace Prize laureatesGeneral Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Original Language: English
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Sources
Robert Service, Comrades!: A History of World Communism (2010)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev
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Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, IPA: [gərbəˈtɕof], commonly anglicized as Gorbachev; 2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was General Secretary of the Communist Party and served as leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. His attempts at reform helped to end the Cold War, but also ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and dissolved the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
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