Mikhail Gorbachev

[Pretty Boy]

Passes away at 91.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62732447

A period of history that is a bit before my age of awareness but he always seemed a widely respected statesman. Would be intersted to hear the opinions of others on him.

[Stairway 2 7]

Meeting Gorbachev documentary by Warner herzog is a great insight into his thinking.

[hibby rae]

Passes away at 91.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62732447

A period of history that is a bit before my age of awareness but he always seemed a widely respected statesman. Would be intersted to hear the opinions of others on him.

There's two main historiographical arguments surrounding the end of the Cold War.

The first, the top down argument argues change came from the top and external forces. Places heavy emphasis on people like Reagan.

I've always ascribed more to the bottom up argument thag change came through large-scale organisation and protest by the people. Key to this is Gorbachev and Glasnost and Perestroika as they created conditions for the fall of the Iron Curtain e.g. Gorbachev made it known the Soviets wouldn't intercede in Warsaw Bloc politics in the way Brezhnev did, for example, during the Prague Spring.

So although he never intended the USSR and Warsaw Bloc to end, he created the conditions for it to happen.

[wookie70]

Thatcher said she could do business with him. Little did we know it would ultimately be washing Russian mafia cash. He was certainly a more honourable premier than those in the US or UK at the time.

[Stairway 2 7]

Blot is his massacre of Lithuanias and Kazakhis after he knew the game was up for the Soviet Union

[Hibernia&Alba]

A great man, ahead of his time in the USSR, but his reforms crated huge suffering for millions after its break up post 1991. Essentially, as far as I have read, he failed to see that political reform without the required economic reform would create growing resentment. If you allow people to air their political grievances in a totalitarian political system without the analogous economic right to do the same, the eruption can be enormous after decades of repression. That doesn't make me a capitalist, rather an advocate of both political and economic democracy. All forms of totalitarianism, left or right, are unacceptable. The likes of James Connolly and Rosa Luxembourg eloquently analyse this.

[NORTHERNHIBBY]

Always intrigued me that some Western leaders take credit for the demise of the Soviet Union but take no responsibility for the foreseeable carnage that was always likely. Anyone "defecting " was treated like a Champion of Democracy,but those were facile gestures when it was one or two. Completely underplayed in the Soviet break up in my opinion, was the Chernobyl Disaster when the groundswell to get to the truth was overwhelming. People power changed things.

[Mibbes Aye]

Always thought the boy showed true class when he stood up to clap Rocky, after he put down Ivan Drago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuuNCYqC6Ao

[Keith_M]

I was watching an article about him on the German news this week and it was interesting that, although he was widely admired in the West, he was very unpopular with vast swathes of Russians.

The general sentiment was that he was largely responsible for Russia losing it's control and influence over so many other countries.

These are the same type of people that now support Putin in his attempts to regain control in Ukraine, and it's interesting that Putin himself didn't even attend Gorbachev's funeral.

[Stairway 2 7]

I was watching an article about him on the German news this week and it was interesting that, although he was widely admired in the West, he was very unpopular with vast swathes of Russians.

The general sentiment was that he was largely responsible for Russia losing it's control and influence over so many other countries.

These are the same type of people that now support Putin in his attempts to regain control in Ukraine, and it's interesting that Putin himself didn't even attend Gorbachev's funeral.

Putin hated him for the reasons you said. Gorby was privately disgusted with the war according to friends