Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president who brought down the Iron Curtain, dies

RIA Novosti added that Putin will send a message on Wednesday to Gorbachev’s family and friends.

Gorbachev was also praised by other leaders on Tuesday, with US President Joe Biden describing him in a statement as a “man of remarkable vision.”

“As the leader of the USSR, he worked with President Reagan to reduce the nuclear arsenals of our two countries, to bring relief to people around the world who are praying for an end to the nuclear arms race,” Biden said, adding that Gorbachev’s reforms led to a “safer.” world and greater freedom for millions of people.”

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, wrote on Twitter that Gorbachev’s role in ending the Cold War “opened the way for a free Europe. This legacy will not be forgotten.”

With his outgoing charismatic nature, Gorbachev broke the mold for Soviet leaders who had hitherto been icy remote figures. Almost from the very beginning of his leadership, he sought important reforms, so that the system would function more efficiently and democratically. Hence the two main phrases of the Gorbachev era: “glasnost” (opening) and “perestroika” (restructuring).

He later said, “These reforms began and my guiding stars were freedom and democracy without bloodshed. So people are no longer a herd led by a shepherd. They will become citizens.”

According to the RIA Novosti news agency, citing the Gorbachev Foundation, he will be buried next to his wife at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

From working on the farm to the rising star of the party

Gorbachev’s beginnings were humble: he was born into a peasant family on March 2, 1931 near Stavropol, and as a boy, along with his studies, he worked in agriculture, working with his father, who worked in a reaper. Later in his life, Gorbachev said he was “especially proud of being able to spot a gasket malfunction on the spot, just with her voice.”

He became a member of the Communist Party in 1952 and completed his law degree from Moscow University in 1955. Here he met and married fellow student Risa Titarenko.

In the early 1960s, Gorbachev became the head of the agricultural department of the Stavropol Region. By the end of the decade, he had risen to the top of the party hierarchy in the region. He caught the attention of Mikhail Suslov and Yuri Andropov, members of the Politburo, the main policy-making body in the communist part of the Soviet Union, who elected him to the Central Committee in 1971 and arranged foreign trips for their rising star. .

In 1978, Gorbachev returned to Moscow, and the following year he was selected as a candidate member of the Politburo. His management of Soviet agriculture was not successful. As he realized, the collective system was fundamentally flawed in more ways than one.

A full member of the Politburo since 1980, Gorbachev became even more influential in 1982 when he succeeded his mentor Andropov, Leonid Brezhnev, as the party’s general secretary. He built a reputation as an enemy of corruption and incompetence, and finally rose to the top of the party in March 1985.

‘A man who can handle it’

Hoping to divert resources to the civilian sector of the Soviet economy, Gorbachev began arguing in favor of ending the arms race with the West.

However, throughout his six years in office, Gorbachev always seemed to move too fast for the party establishment—which saw its privileges threatened—and too slow for the more radical reformists, who hoped to do away with the one-party state and command economy.

In a desperate attempt to stay in control of the reform process, he seemed to underestimate the depth of the economic crisis. He also seemed to have a blind spot for the strength of the citizenship issue: Glasnost made consistently louder calls for independence from the Baltic states and other Soviet republics in the late 1980s.

He has been successful in foreign policy, but mainly from an international perspective, taking note of other world leaders. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called him “a man to work with”.

In 1986, Gorbachev came face to face with US President Ronald Reagan at a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, and made an astonishing proposal: Eliminate all long-range missiles maintained by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

Received the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize “for his pioneering role in the peace process that today characterizes important parts of the international community.”

The agreement that resulted in, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, held as a pillar of arms control for three decades until the United States formally withdrew in 2019 and the Russian government said it was put in the trash.

Hardcore Rebellion

While Gorbachev’s arms control agreements with the United States can also be seen in the Soviet interest, secession from some Eastern European countries, followed by German unification and NATO membership for a new united Germany (West Germany was previously a NATO member), Old school communists angered.

In August 1991, the hardcore had had enough. With Gorbachev on vacation in the Crimea, they made a revolution. Boris Yeltsin, head of the largest Soviet republic – Russia – and a fierce critic of what he saw as Gorbachev’s half-way reforms, however, came to his rescue, as he confronted and defeated the coup plotters.

But across the Soviet Union, republics – one after another – were declaring independence and on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned from the presidency of the Soviet Union. While reading his resignation letter, Gorbachev outlined what would likely be his legacy: “The country was freed, liberated politically and spiritually, and that was the most important achievement.”

The red flag that was flying over the Kremlin, the symbol of the USSR, was lowered. Soviet Union – finished and Yeltsin was in control. “We live in a new world,” Gorbachev said.

In 1996, Gorbachev ran against Yeltsin for the presidency of Russia but received less than 1% of the vote.

Speaking out after the presidency

Three years later, Gorbachev lost the love of his life – his 46-year-old wife Raisa – to cancer. The couple had one daughter, Irina. “In the worst moments I was always very calm and balanced. But now that I’m gone – I don’t want to live. The central point of our lives is gone,” he said.

But Gorbachev has continued to talk about nuclear disarmament, the environment, and poverty — and in memory of his wife, he and the family created the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation to Fight Children’s Cancer.

Previously, he had founded the Green Cross – to deal with environmental issues – and the International Foundation for Social, Economic and Political Studies, or Gorbachev Foundation. In 2011, Gorbachev also launched the annual “Gorbachev Awards” to celebrate “those who changed the world for the better.”

Gorbachev’s involvement in Russian politics also continued. He was Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Russia from 2001 until his resignation in 2004 due to conflict with the party’s direction and leadership.

In 2007, he became the head of a new Russian political movement – the Union of Social Democrats, which in turn created the opposition Independent Democratic Party of Russia.

mixed legacy

In an interview with CNN in 2019, Gorbachev said that the United States and Russia should strive to avoid the development of a “new Cold War” despite rising tensions. “This could turn into a hot war that could mean the destruction of our entire civilization,” he said. “This should not be allowed.”

“All the agreements that are there are preserved and not destroyed,” he said. “But these are the first steps towards destroying [that which] In no case should it be destroyed.” He added that the ultimate goal of arms control should be the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev’s post-Soviet life included some surprises as he worked to raise money for his causes with his appearances in Pizza Hut and Louis Vuitton ads. In 2004, Gorbachev won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for “Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/Bentus: Wolf Tracks,” which he recorded with former US President Bill Clinton and actress Sophia Loren.

Other awards include the 2008 Freedom Medal from the US National Constitution Center and Russia’s highest honor, the Order of Saint Andrew, awarded to him on his 80th birthday in 2011 by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

But to the end, Gorbachev was a leader who was more respected in other countries than at home. In Russia, he was insulted by some for destroying the Soviet empire and by others for moving too slowly in liberating his nation from the grip of communism. However, in the West, he is still a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who helped end the Cold War.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect Gorbachev’s death at the age of 91.