He considered the effects of seven decades of Communist rule and set a new course, adopting the glasnost and perestroika principles. As a result, he presided over the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
Mikhail Gorbachev passed away at the age of 91
Mikhail Gorbachev, who avoided violence to end the Cold War but was unable to save the fall of the Soviet Union, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91, according to hospital officials in Moscow.
Mikhail Gorbachev Cause of death
State news sources in Russia reported on his passing on Tuesday, citing the principal clinical hospital of the city. According to the sources, he passed away following an unnamed “long and deadly illness.”
Few leaders in the 20th century, or even in any century, have influenced their era in such a significant way. Mr. Gorbachev removed the Iron Curtain in a little over six turbulent years, fundamentally transforming the global political landscape.
President Putin expressed his deepest condolences on Mikhail Gorbachev death
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Putin conveyed “his profound sympathies.” He remarked, “He will send a telegraph of sympathy to his family and friends tomorrow.”
Putin reportedly declared in 2018 that if he had the power, he would try to stop the collapse of the Soviet Union.
World leaders quickly expressed their gratitude. Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, claimed that Gorbachev, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, had paved the path for a free Europe.
In reference to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated that Gorbachev’s “tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all.” The White House and the American State Department made no immediate comment. Gorbachev was referred to as “a giant who drove his enormous nation towards democracy” by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
Western partnerships of Mikhail Gorbachev
Gorbachev pushed the Soviet Union closer to the West than at any time since World War Two, ending decades of Cold War hostility and conflict.
Grigory Yavlinsky, a former leader of the liberal opposition in Russia, said: “He provided freedom to hundreds of millions of people in Russia and around it, as well as half of Europe.” Few historical figures have shaped their era with such force.
Late in his life, however, when Western sanctions against Moscow were imposed following the invasion of Ukraine and politicians in both Russia and the West started to discuss a potential new Cold War, Gorbachev saw his legacy destroyed.
When Putin essentially destroyed Gorbachev’s life’s work, freedom, he “died in a symbolic way,” according to Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He will be buried next to his wife Raisa, who passed away in 1999, in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, according to Tass, which cited the foundation the former Soviet leader established after leaving power.
Trubulent reforms by Mikhail Gorbachev
The chief of Gorbachev’s protocol office during his time as Soviet leader said, “We did not know our country well. The era of Gorbachev is the period of perestroika, the era of hope, the era of our entry into a missile-free world.
According to RIA news agency, he stated that “our union fell apart, that was a tragedy and his tragedy.”
He had intended to revitalise the system by allowing some political and economic freedoms when he was appointed general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, at the age of just 54, but his changes spiralled out of control.
“He was a decent man and a good man. He was, in my opinion, tragically too decent for the nation he was in charge of “William Taubman, an emeritus professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts and a Gorbachev biographer, made this statement.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of “glasnost”
Gorbachev’s “glasnost” (free speech) policy encouraged nationalists to push for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and other places by allowing hitherto unthinkable criticism of the party and the state.
Many Russians never forgave Gorbachev for the unrest his reforms caused because they believed the following decline in their standard of living was too great a price to pay for democracy.
In a region of Ukraine currently controlled by pro-Moscow forces, Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official, accused Gorbachev of betraying his country by “deliberately leading the (Soviet) Union to its destruction.”
After visiting Gorbachev in the hospital in june, liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg told the military news site Zvezda, “He gave us all freedom, but we don’t know what to do with it.”
Grieves of Russians on Mikhail Gorbachev’s death
But the changes Mr. Gorbachev had made were seen as a catastrophe by many people inside Russia. The demise of the Soviet Union was dubbed the “biggest geopolitical calamity of the century” by President Vladimir V. Putin.
The fall of the U.S.S.R. was a source of embarrassment and loss for Mr. Putin and his fellow K.G.B. veterans who now make up Russia’s inner circle of power. The invasion of Ukraine this year was intended to help undo this.
Mikhail Gorbachev Biography
The last leader of the Soviet Union was Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev[f], a politician from Russia and the Soviet Union who lived from 2 March 1931 to 30 August 2022. He presided over the Supreme Soviet’s Presidium from 1988 to 1989, then the Supreme Soviet itself from 1989 to 1990.
He also held the positions of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 and President of the Soviet Union from 1990 until the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev initially supported Marxism-Leninism, but by the early 1990s, he began to support social democracy.
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