"Thus within three years the former Andropov protege had totally transformed Soviet foreign policy, replacing its messianic Marxist creed with a radical internationalism. Among the strongest reactions was the New York Times, whose December 8 editorial stated: "Perhaps not since Woodrow Wilson presented his Fourteen Points in 1918 or since Franklin Roosevelt has a world figure demonstrated the vision Mikhail Gorbachev displayed yesterday at the United Nations." A number of scholars believe that the Cold War ended in December 1988 with neither a winner nor a loser. According to this view, one of the Superpowers simply called off the ideological rivalry that had begun in 1917, withdrew from the post-1945 arms race, and relinquished control over regimes dependent on Soviet force and economic subsidies for their survival. Although not everyone agrees, it is certainly reasonable to assert that without Gorbachev's bold international agenda the world may well have remained divided into two armed camps, and the events that followed would have had entirely different outcomes."
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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
Carole C. Fink, Cold War: An International History (2017), p. 231
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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