After becoming the head of the Soviet Communists in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated changes to reform the communist system and give new strength to the Soviet Empire. But the opposite has become true. The Soviet Union disintegrated and the communist regime collapsed until Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91 after a serious illness, admitted he had not even tried reform.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev | Source: Reuters
The 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner became a favorite of the West and the hope of the East, but he was never respected back home. For many people, more than the desired return of freedom, his reforms meant higher prices and a loss of certainty, and many Russians still cannot forget the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, eight years ago, Gorbachev supported the annexation of Crimea as a remedy for the previous mistake made by the Soviet leadership, which handed over the peninsula to Ukraine. At the same time, he condemned the actions of the West, which imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the annexation.
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He warned of the return of the Cold War, for example: “The stated goal is to punish Russia, but sanctions have only one effect: increasing mutual alienation …,” in his book published in 2019 in Germany, titled freely translated What is at stake now.
In it, he also praised the rise of Russia under President Vladimir Putin, but advised him to think ahead. Gorbachev also accused Putin of authoritarian rule in the past.
Due to illness, he did not comment publicly on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year, but his foundation had already issued a statement on February 26, two days after the start of the invasion, calling for an end to the fighting as soon as possible. as possible.
“There is nothing more precious in the world than human lives. Negotiations and dialogue based on mutual respect and recognition of interests are the only way to resolve contradictions and the most acute problems,” wrote the organization founded by Gorbachev.
54 year old young man
The former head of the Stavropol communist, Gorbachev, made his way to Moscow in 1978, and then gradually moved to the Politburo. Gorbachev’s election as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee was preceded by three deaths of former rulers in quick succession. Leonid Brezhnev died in November 1982, Yuri Andropov in February 1984, and Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985, the day before Gorbachev was elected.
According to historians, several factors helped Gorbachev to win the elections. One of them was that he had the support of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyk and the head of the feared KGB Viktor Cheprikov. He allegedly received support from an influential group of regional commission chairs.
Gorbachev also appeared as a “revelator” at the time due to his age. Although he was 54 years old, “young” was among the labels then. During the first ten months after Gorbachev took office, dozens of party ministers and regional secretaries left their high positions.
Economic modernization began, dissident Andrei Sakharov was allowed to return from exile to Moscow on Gorbachev’s instructions, and other dissidents were also released. Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, initiated historic changes in Soviet diplomacy.
In 1988, he rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine of the Limited Sovereignty of Socialist Countries, which was a step towards the demise of the socialist bloc, and Moscow stopped supporting various regimes or rebel movements around the world. In February 1989, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was completed.
Perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost began to penetrate even the former satellites of the USSR. At the end of 1986, Gorbachev spoke out against the party’s monopoly, and a year later condemned the exclusivity of any state within the socialist bloc.
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In such an atmosphere, he visited Prague in April 1987, but the visit has not yet lived up to expectations. Gorbachev did not talk about the events of 1968 as many expected.
Relations with the United States also began to warm: after meeting Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik in October 1986, the famous “Gorby” in the West arrived in December 1987 on an official visit to the USA, where, among other things, a treaty on the Convention on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range Missiles (INF). At the end of 1989, he announced the end of the Cold War during a meeting with George Bush in Malta.
Changes initiated by Gorbachev helped restore democracy to the former communist bloc and changed the political map of the world, and in 1990 the world recognized his merits with the Nobel Peace Prize.
Gorbachev received the award as the first Soviet president, but his presidency only lasted for a short time, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. For Gorbachev, whose regime the Soviet Union tried sometimes even at the cost of bloodshed, a bitter end, and the politician finally felt the truth firsthand the proverb Saying that there is no prophet in the house.
Failed return
He became one of the least popular politicians in Russia. His attempt to curb excessive alcohol consumption played a role in this as well.
In the middle of 1991, he became the sad hero of the failed coup attempt by conservative forces. At that time, the putschists were deposed in Yalta, while the hero of that day was then Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Five years later, Gorbachev attempted a comeback, but won with less than 1% of the vote in the presidential election. Then he founded some small parties and headed his own research fund. Until his old age he was also a regular participant in international conferences.
Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in the village of Privolnoye in the Stavropol Region in a peasant family. He graduated from the Moscow Law School and since 1952, when he joined the CPSU, patiently climbed the party ladder.
Since 1953, his faithful guide during the ups and downs has been his wife Boss, who created a new image of the wife of a Soviet statesman. She died of leukemia in September 1999. Together they had a daughter, Irina.
In 1999, he was awarded the Order of the White Lion by Václav Havel.
