Mikhail Gorbachev, the last premier of the Soviet Union, has died.
Gorbachev promised to deliver reforms that would open his insular country and spur economic growth, but domestically he received pushback from hardline members of the Communist Party and liberals who felt he was doing too much and not enough, respectively.
Outside of Russia, proposals like glasnost and perestroika received widespread praise for the perception they'd help the Soviet mindset transcend the darkest days of the Cold War.
Ultimately they did, but they also hastened the end of the Cold War, the Soviet empire and the Soviet Union itself.
The news of Gorbachev's death was first reported by Russian news agencies.
ABC News reports:
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has died “after a serious and long illness,” the Central Clinical Hospital reported.
He was 91 years old.
Gorbachev was also well-known for his unlikely friendship with President Ronald Reagan.
The illness Gorbachev suffered from was unspecified.
The New York Times has more on his legacy:
At home he promised and delivered greater openness as he set out to restructure his country's society and faltering economy. It was not his intention to liquidate the Soviet empire, but within five years of coming to power he had presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He ended the Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan and, in an extraordinary five months in 1989, stood by as the Communist system imploded from the Baltics to the Balkans in countries already weakened by widespread corruption and moribund economies.
…
When he came to power, Mr. Gorbachev was a loyal son of the Communist Party, but one who had come to see things with new eyes. “We cannot live this way any longer,” he told Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who would become his trusted foreign minister, in 1984. Within five years he had overturned much that the party held inviolable.
A man of openness, vision and great vitality, he looked at the legacy of seven decades of Communist rule and saw official corruption, a labor force lacking motivation and discipline, factories that produced shoddy goods, and a distribution system that guaranteed consumers little but empty shelves — empty of just about everything but vodka.
…
The problems were clear; the solutions, less so. Mr. Gorbachev had to feel his way toward his promised restructuring of the Soviet political and economic systems. He was caught between tremendous opposing forces: On one hand, the habits ingrained by 70 years of cradle-to-grave subsistence under Communism; on the other, the imperatives of moving quickly to change the old ways and to demonstrate that whatever dislocation resulted was temporary and worth the effort.
Gorbachev presided over the withdrawal of Russian forces from Afghanistan, an arms agreement with the United States that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons and authorized multiparty elections in Russian cities — an unprecedented decision at the time.
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This is unfortunate. I think Gorby was a good guy. Much better than Putin.
JOE BIDEN IN CHARGE OF GOVERNMENT BRAIN WASHED BUREAUCRATS ALLOWED NOW TO BE ARMED, WITH GUNS AS WELL AS GS RATINGS, BOOKKEEPERS WHO ARE LOYAL TO BIDEN MUCH LIKE WHAT HAPPENED WHEN OBAMA TOOK CONTROL OF IRS AGAINST CONSERVATIVES AND CHURCHES WHEN HE WAS IN OFFICE. WHAT COULD GO WRONG.
I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t know he was still alive. But now that he is gone, I miss him somehow. Perhaps he was the last Russian leader that cared more about the people of Russia than the party, or whatever dictator is in charge at the moment, like Putin. Pretty sure his leadership did not require the deaths of thousands of innocent people like so many before and now, after.
Gorbachev tried glasnost because Pope John Paul and Ronald Reagan backed him into a corner. It’s not like he WANTED the USSR to fall; he was just trying to loosen things so it could survive longer! But whatever his intentions, USSR is now on “the trash heap of history.” Hopefully, Senile Joe won’t allow it to resurrect!
I am sorry for his death. He was a good man. And, he was loved by the American people then. He had more acceptance by our people than Biden does.
For all the good he has done, may God forgive his every sin and receive him warmly.