Offered below are links to four views the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on Aug. 31; they are from the Berkshire Eagle, Consortium News, and Open Democracy. — MCM
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Gorbachev was the anti-Putin, by James Brooke | The Berkshire Eagle Mikhail Gorbachev, who died Tuesday in Moscow at age 91, will be remembered for his reluctance to use military force. Aside from a few skirmishes, he let the Soviet empire collapse with barely a shot fired. His legacy is that he freed 100 million Central Europeans from communist rule. By contrast, Putin has installed an absolute dictatorship at home and has embarked on a war of choice with Russia’s western neighbor Ukraine. As a child, Gorbachev listened to Ukrainian lullabies sung by his Ukrainian grandmother. Before Putin’s attack on Ukraine, Gorchev told . . . READ MORE . . .
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Mikhail Gorbachev, a vector of change, by Scott Ritter | Consortium News This is the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev. He presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union which was prompted — and accelerated — by his own arrogance, which blinded him to the need to change direction when it became clear that Perestroika, at least how it was originally envision, was not, and could not, succeed. But there is another legacy. From the ashes of failure, a new world order is arising some 30 years after Gorbachev and the Soviet Union entered the history books as has-beens. The multi-polar challenge to U.S. singularity that is being mounted . . . READ MORE . . .
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Gorbachev: A very Russian contradiction, by Jeremy Morris | Open Democracy / Consortium News Poor Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev. Condemned to a thousand obituaries, some bleating about freedom and celebrating his part in the end of the Soviet Union and as a towering figure in international affairs, others condemning him for repression of secessionists at home. Imagine how he feels now, wherever he is – lauded by non-Russians for his greatest mistake: destroying a mighty state. Hated by his countrymen despite precipitating the emergence of the Russian nation itself after many centuries of Empire! Many ordinary Russians . . . READ MORE . . .
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Gorbachev’s legacy is lauded by the West. The reality is more complicated, by Thomas Rowley | Open Democracy It was in 1984, Mikhail Gorbachev recalled, that he met Margaret Thatcher at Chequers. The relationship between the pair has since been romanticised, with Thatcher famously referring to Gorbachev as “a man one could do business with”. In his recollection of the trip, Gorbachev . . . READ MORE . . .