“The contradiction between Gorbachev’s loud speeches and empty shelves in stores was especially explosive”
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The death of Mikhail Gorbachev has become one of the most discussed news in the world. Speaking about the role of Mr. Gorbachev in the defeat of communism, the liberation of the Eastern Bloc and the collapse of the USSR, the authors of obituaries and editorials of leading newspapers call him a hero. They note that the attitude towards the figure of the last leader of the Soviet Union in Russia and abroad is fundamentally different.
Der Spiegel (Hamburg, Germany)
He wanted to renew the Soviet Union and caused its collapse. He first praised the GDR and at the same time went down in history as the initiator of German reunification. He dreamed of new, friendly relations between states and peoples and could not prevent the emergence of new lines of division in Europe. He wanted to breathe new life into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and ended up advertising pizza. He was never able to overcome the tragedy of these contradictions …
At that time, many Soviet citizens hoped for a better future and felt relieved when the fear of the authorities slowly disappeared. However, the new policy did not bring visible success in the daily lives of citizens. Between the leader of the party and ordinary citizens again there was an abyss. Particularly explosive was the contradiction between Gorbachev’s loud speeches and empty store shelves. The unexpected offer of freedom was combined with a shortage of everyday goods. Long queues in front of shops nullified only the nascent confidence of citizens in the main politician of the country. Added to this was the fact that national selfishness in the Soviet Union split the multinational state. Gorbachev was not ready for this … Gorbachev compensated for the domestic political catastrophe with foreign policy successes in the issue of disarmament, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and the recognition of German reunification in the same year … But while the world glorified him as a peacemaker and reformer, he increasingly lost support at home. His domestic policy increasingly seemed devoid of a common idea and concept…
Hatred of Gorbachev made it difficult for many Russians to see that the leader of the party was often more of a follower than a leader. His ever-increasing helplessness reflected Soviet society, the core of which was already dissolving under a still hard shell. For all his pragmatism, Gorbachev was above all a political romantic.
The Independent (London, Great Britain)
Mikhail Gorbachev will go down in history as he deserves: as the man who loosened the shackles of the Soviet Union and thereby hastened the collapse of communism in Europe. In this capacity, he looks like the complete opposite of Vladimir Putin. Gorbachev, who refused to follow the example of his predecessors and did not use force to keep the Soviet bloc in check, is clearly not the same person as Putin …
His legacy – and rightly so – is that he helped change both Europe and the world for the better. Millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe, and some in Russia, thank him for drastically transforming their countries and their lives. And they are right.
It is difficult to sharpen the contrast between the Soviet Union in 1985, when Gorbachev became general secretary of the CPSU, and Russia in 1995. Within a decade, the reality of those gray and repressive times was erased by the colors and cacophony of sounds that burst into the country. However, the most significant and hopeful change was the disappearance of fear.
By the time he stepped down as president of the USSR and signed the document that ended the existence of the USSR, the fear that enslaved Russians and kept half of Europe behind a wall was gone. Whether out of weakness or wisdom, Gorbachev avoided using force to maintain his power. And therefore, the bloodshed that stained the Soviet empire at every stage of its evolution practically did not occur during the period of its collapse …
The greatest merit belongs to Mikhail Gorbachev as a leader who accepted the disintegration of his country with dignity, and did not try to keep it by force.
Few leaders of the 20th century, and indeed of any other century, have had such a huge impact on their time. In a little more than six tense years of his reign, Gorbachev removed the iron curtain, decisively changing the political climate in the world …
He was hounded by both conservative communist conspirators and disillusioned liberals. The former feared that he would destroy the old system, while the latter feared that he would not.
In recent years, Gorbachev was able to participate in the discussion of current issues, but his voice has lost its influence. He has warned against eastward expansion of the EU, has spoken publicly of the growing possibility of a new Cold War, and hailed a vote in the Russian parliament on the annexation of Crimea. He had a very different attitude towards Putin … an antagonist to almost everything that he represented himself.
In the beginning, he praised Putin for restoring stability even at the cost of authoritarianism. But he criticized Putin’s crackdown on freedom of speech and his change in electoral laws in Russia’s regions. According to him, Putin never asked his advice and saw himself as “second only to God.”
Toronto Star (Toronto, Canada)
He was born during the Stalinist terror. His relatives were dragged out of their beds and tortured on trumped-up charges. During his brief tenure in office, he led the country away from authoritarianism, causing a geopolitical earthquake.
It engulfed the Soviet Union, and its echoes were felt throughout the world. When he left the post, he was rejected by his country, which only wanted to forget him. Mikhail Gorbachev was an outstanding figure in world history, but a prophet not understood in his own country.
In the West, he was honored for lifting the Iron Curtain, but in Russia, Gorbachev was blamed for the chaos caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union. His legacy has been overshadowed by a resurgent authoritarianism coupled with aggressive expansionism.
Le Monde (Paris, France)
In Europe and the USA, it will always be associated with détente, the rapprochement of the West and the East, the end of the Soviet-Afghan war, the unification of Germany, the breath of freedom that swept over the “prison of peoples”.
In the post-Soviet space, the attitude is completely different. The collapse of an empire? He. The chaos that followed? He too. Pickled in its own nostalgia for a lost empire, Russia… perceives the collapse of the USSR… as the result of Gorbachev’s capitulation to the West.
Le Temps (Geneva, Switzerland)
Mikhail Gorbachev … showed incredible courage, putting the USSR before the fact that it was an economically ruined superpower. Communist totalitarianism destroyed the country for decades. In Russia, he paid a heavy price for this, finding himself isolated and considered … as a gravedigger of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe greatness of Russia.
It is easy to blame a reformer who is faced with a problem too great to be overcome. Of course, Mikhail Gorbachev himself did not know what his perestroika was … which he sometimes gave very contradictory definitions. But not a single ruler of the last century had such a great influence on the course of history …
The death of the Nobel Peace Prize winner comes symbolically and tragically at a time when Russia and Europe (and the West as a whole) once again view each other as outright enemies.
The Daily Telegraph (London, Great Britain)
In the West, he is hailed as the man who helped bring down the Berlin Wall and stop the Cold War without bloodshed. However, at home, Mikhail Gorbachev was despised by many as the man who buried the communist Soviet Union.
The former Soviet president… set out to revive the sclerotic communist system through democratic and economic reforms; it was not his intention at all to destroy it.
But he unleashed forces over which he had no control, and found himself occupying an ever-shrinking island between hardliners seeking to maintain centralized power and separatists determined to destroy it.
The Daily Mail (London, Great Britain)
Many of the changes, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, had nothing to do with the transformations he envisioned when he became Soviet leader in 1985. And by the end of his reign, he was already powerless to stop the storm that he himself had sown. Nevertheless, Gorbachev had more influence in the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.
“I consider myself the person who started the reforms that were necessary for the country, and Europe, and the world,” Gorbachev said in an interview given to the AP news agency in 1992 shortly after leaving office. “People often ask me, would I start all over again if I had to repeat? Oh sure. And with even greater perseverance and determination, ”he said …
His tragedy is that, in trying to rebuild the ossified monolithic structure to preserve the Soviet Union and save the communist system, he ended up at the head of the death process of both.
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