Soviet leader Gorbachev has died

Mikhail Gorbachev - the last leader of the USSR whose failure to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union after the Cold War is despised by Russian nationalists including Vladimir Putin - has died at the age of 91, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying.

The Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow said that the former Soviet leader died 'after a serious and long illness' but gave no other details, according to the Interfax, TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies.

Gorbachev had been suffering from long term kidney problems and was on dialysis - and had been confined to a clinic during the Covid pandemic.
Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a series of reforms that resulted in breathtaking changes, including the reunification of Germany, the collapse of Stalin's empire, the liberation of Eastern European nations including Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic republics from decades of Russian domination, and the end of the nuclear confrontation with the West.

In a statement, Putin's spin doctors said the Russian President - who has called the collapse of the USSR the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe' of the 20th century - expresses 'deep sympathies' over Gorbachev's death. Reacting to the news, Western leaders including Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the former Soviet ruler as 'trusted and respected', while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Gorbachev a 'a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history' and 'did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War'.

On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 at the age of 54, Gorbachev inherited a vast empire in decline - and set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms. His policy of 'glasnost' - free speech - allowed previously unthinkable criticism of the party and the state, but it also emboldened nationalists who began to press for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and elsewhere.


 
Too bad; he sure was better than the present "boss" they got in the Kremlin right now making war his # 1 job.

Gorbachev was a good man and an intelligent thinker. Putin, well, you can fill in the blanks: -------, -------------.
 
An amazing life well lived.
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"If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you. You haven't done much today." - Mikhail Gorbachev
 
He was more realistic & practical with the Cold War and knew the old Soviet Union could not keep up with NATO and the west. The Russian experience in Afghanistan did not help but he was paying attention. Current day Russian leaders are not. Yes he helped end the Cold War but was he a flower whiffing hippy I don't think so.

Should he be remembered for some horrific events under his watch and command probably so. During the early days of Mother Russia's kids leaving the house Lithuania the first to declare it's independence went through a Gorbachev ordered crackdown which included a massacre in which soldiers wound up being tried and Gorbachev himself being sued as late as 2019. There is no love lost between Lithuania and Gorbachev

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...-against-ussr-president-gorbachev-2022-01-13/
 
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WhatInThe said:
He was more realistic & practical with the Cold War and knew the old Soviet Union could not keep up with NATO and the west.
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Yep, I think he did his best to manage the inevitable. Most likely better than most could have done.

Probably a bit of a villain and a bit hero, like a lot of important figures in history. No debate though that he was just that.
 
Gorbachev was astute enough to recognize the U.S.S.R. was in dire trouble. He could have been like Stalin, and kept it going with purge after purge, more gulags, and more thousands of executions. He began the process of softening up the fall.
 

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