ESSENTIAL, CONTROVERSIAL AND MELANCHOLY
No history of the past century would be complete without recognizing Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, who has now passed into history. Moreover, he was the last of the prominent world leaders who responsibly guided the profound, remarkable and historic transition that ended the Cold War, Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact without violence. Among his essential colleagues in pragmatic transformation were Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl, in addition to St. John Paul II, Lech Walesa and Václav Havel. Although Gorbachev was uniquely essential to helping courageously change the world, his reputation is also inappropriately controversial and sadly melancholy. Furthermore, as his sunset came, Gorbachev reportedly was proud to have accomplished so much with special and improbable comrade Ronald Reagan and the others. However, he died regretting that Russia led by Vladimir Putin has scorned the promise and purpose that he had boldly helped achieve.
WE CAN’T CONTINUE TO LIVE LIKE THIS
Upon following a rapid succession of old communist leaders to become secretary general of a decrepit Soviet Union, Gorbachev told his wife Raisa, “we can’t continue to live like this.” Then, after meeting him, Margaret Thatcher called Ronald Reagan and said, “he’s different. We can work with him.” However, no one could then foresee that within a decade, everything they knew would completely change. Gorbachev confounded friend and foe. Entrusted with absolute power, his reforms destabilized the broken communist system. But he helped end the Cold War without either side firing a shot. Therefore, he and his western partners saved the world from a long-feared and probably nuclear conflagration. Paradoxically, hailed worldwide, he is widely despised in Putin’s revisionist and medieval Russia. Furthermore, as he ruthlessly assaults Ukraine, the despotic Putin unequivocally maintains that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century.”
PRAGMATIC ARCHITECT OF CHANGE
Gorbachev was a pragmatic architect of change. Firstly, his visions of restructuring, or perestroika, and change, or glasnost, were not undertaken with the objective of turning the Soviet Union into a liberal democracy. But he knew that the dilapidated “evil empire” was losing the Cold War. Ronald Reagan had rejuvenated America and western leaders supported him. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and other assertive steps ultimately convinced the Soviets that they could no longer compete. Meanwhile, as the Soviet grip loosened, Gorbachev’s reforms unleashed long-simmering aspirations at home and nearby. The enslaved Warsaw Pact nations, including Walesa’s Poland and Havel’s Czechoslovakia, broke free. Moreover, Gorbachev refused to quell the rebellions with force. Furthermore, Reagan and later Bush built positive relationships with Gorbachev to manage the transition peacefully, allowing Kohl to reunify Germany. Likewise, the occupied Baltic states, Ukraine and others eventually broke free of Russia.
TRUE LEGACY OF FREEDOM
As the Soviet Union split into fifteen separate countries, Russians soured on Gorbachev. He barely survived a coup. Consequently, he stepped aside when the hammer and sickle was dramatically lowered from the Kremlin on December 26, 1991. Putin has expressed “sorrow” for Gorbachev’s passing but his state-controlled media and political puppets stridently deride the departed ex-Soviet leader. Someday Russia may resume a sane democratic trajectory. If that happens, Gorbachev will deserve to be honored as the Russian leader who was present at the creation. In conclusion, this is because the real winner of the Cold War was actually freedom, and this will always remain Mikhail Gorbachev’s unquestionable and eternal legacy, even for today’s confused Russians.
Discover more about the American and Soviet relationship during World War II, the Cold War and beyond in my book America Ascendant, the Rise of American Exceptionalism. Among my recent related articles are Ameria Adrift, American Renewal, the Biden Doctrine, Cold War II, Defiant Ukraine and NATO Reborn.