Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Mikhail Gorbachev, who enabled the Cold War to come to a peaceful end during his astonishing tenure as the leader of the Soviet Union, has died. He was 91.<\/p>\n
Coming to power after a dispiriting succession of elderly, hardline Soviet leaders, Gorbachev brought a fresh approach to both internal and international politics. He shook up a nation that had never fulfilled most of its promises to its people and created a seismic shift in international relations, altering a world that been locked in a nuclear stare-down for four decades. <\/p>\n
He introduced \u201cglasnost\u201d (openness) and \u201cperestroika\u201d (restructuring) into the Soviet Union, rocking a stagnant and fearful society to its core. Then, he made it clear that the Soviets would not keep the nations of Eastern Europe under their grip, setting off a chain of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and of communist regimes through the region. Finally, much more awkwardly, he oversaw the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, as it split into 15 nations. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now living in a new world,\u201d he said as he stepped down in December 1991. \u201cAn end has been put to the Cold War and to the arms race, as well as to the mad militarization of the country, which has crippled our economy, public attitudes, and morals. The threat of nuclear war has been removed.\u201d <\/p>\n
One can debate, as historians and politicians have in the ensuing decades, how much of the change was Gorbachev\u2019s doing and how much was forced on him by the tide of history, as well as leaders like Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, and President Ronald Reagan. Certainly, the events of the 1980s \u2014 including the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan \u2014 had already made it harder for any Soviet leader to continue the nation on its existing path. <\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no doubt Gorbachev demonstrated a willingness to accept a much-different Soviet society and a much-different world order, even at the cost of his nation\u2019s power and prestige. Unlike his predecessors, Gorbachev did not cling to a failed dream. <\/p>\n
“The selection of Gorbachev was arguably the most revolutionary act in the history of the party since 1917,\u201d wrote historian Orlando Figes in “Revolutionary Russia 1891-1991.” \u201cHad the Politburo known where he would lead the party in the next few years, it would never have allowed him to become its General Secretary.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite their initial mistrust, Reagan and Gorbachev came to be partners in arms control, reversing course on a decades-long arms race. Those international efforts helped Gorbachev\u2019s popularity overseas, at the expense of his reputation back home. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was politically active at a time when my country and the whole world were ripe for colossal changes,\u201d he wrote in his book What Is At Stake Now in 2020. \u201cWe took on the challenges. We made mistakes and misjudged some things. Yet, we initiated changes of historic dimensions, and they were peaceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in an agricultural region. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a law degree and then launched a career within the Communist Party, rising fast.<\/p>\n
He was heavily influenced by Nikita Khrushchev\u2019s denunciation of Josef Stalin and his efforts to bring the party back to the early days of the revolution, under Vladimir Lenin. Nikolai Bukharin, a victim of Stalin\u2019s purges, was another one of his heroes.<\/p>\n
Gorbachev also looked to the outside world for ideas. According to Andrew Burstein\u2019s book \u201cDemocracy\u2019s Muse,\u201d Gorbachev said during a 1993 visit to Thomas Jefferson\u2019s Monticello in Virginia \u201cthat he had returned often, and at critical times, to a college text he had mastered that laid out Jefferson\u2019s political principles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Soviet leadership saw promise in Gorbachev. \u201cThe party spotted his talent and clutched him in an embrace,\u201d wrote Victor Sebestyen in Revolution 1989. \u201cThe party made him \u2014 and he was a true believer.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sebestyen said Gorbachev had another valuable trait: “Often, people who met Gorbachev came away thinking about him whatever they wanted to believe.”<\/p>\n
In 1979, he became a nonvoting member of the Politburo; a year later, Gorbachev was a full member. <\/p>\n
In March 1985, Gorbachev ascended to the top spot in the Soviet government, general secretary of the Communist Party\u2019s Central Committee. The nation was badly in need of vigorous leadership, having buried three aged rulers (Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko) in a span of 2 1\/2 years. Its military was bogged down in Afghanistan, its populace was impoverished and oppressed, and much of its leadership thoroughly corrupt. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe tragedy of the Stalin era and the farce of the Brezhnev period represented for Gorbachev not the failure of ideology, but rather its perversion,\u201d wrote David Remnick in \u201cLenin\u2019s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gorbachev was 54, a mere pup compared to his wizened comrades on the Politburo. <\/p>\n
\u201cMany political observers,\u201d wrote Chris Cviic in the 1986 World Book Year Book, \u201csaw the ascension of Gorbachev as an indication the Soviet ruling class no longer could stand the tension and uncertainty of having frail, elderly individuals at the top.\u201d <\/p>\n
Gorbachev, as Figes wrote, was the first Soviet leader to have no connection to Stalin\u2019s monstrous crimes; in fact, members of Gorbachev\u2019s family had been victims of Stalin\u2019s purges. \u201cHe sincerely thought that Lenin\u2019s revolution could be made to work through moral and political renewal,\u201d Figes wrote. <\/p>\n
American leaders were intrigued by the new leader with the port-wine birthmark on his head \u2014 but skeptical. \u201cHe will package the Soviet line better for Western consumption,\u201d Vice President George H.W. Bush told Reagan, according to Sebestyen\u2019s book. <\/p>\n
The Warsaw Pact nations were also wary, particularly when he told them he wanted them to stand on their own feet. In April 1986, Gorbachev\u2019s government was defensive and secretive about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, leading many to assume that everything was the same in Moscow. <\/p>\n
But change was in motion. <\/p>\n
In January 1987, Gorbachev said he wanted history\u2018s \u201cblank spots\u201d filled in, including an examination of the nation\u2019s bloody past. \u201cHistory must be seen for what it is,\u201d he told the Central Committee. Truth replaced propaganda.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe return of history,\u201d Remnick wrote, \u201cto personal, intellectual and political life was the start of the great reform of the 20th century and, whether Gorbachev liked it or not, the collapse of the last empire on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February 1988, Gorbachev called for an overhaul of the Soviet political system. Contested elections were held in March 1989, another awkward new wrinkle. \u201cIn place of the Stalinist model of socialism,\u201d he told his nation, \u201cwe are coming to a citizens\u2019 society of free people.\u201d <\/p>\n
In the name of perestroika and glasnost, the economy was decentralized. \u201cGlasnost has begun to tear the veil that concealed incompetence and a lack of initiative,\u201d wrote Eric Bourne in the 1988 World Book Year Book. Though the KGB was still watching everyone, society began to open up.<\/p>\n
Many of Stalin\u2019s victims posthumously had their good names restored, and dissidents regained their rights, including Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Some of these former dissidents pushed further than Gorbachev and his fellow reformers were ready to go in changing society. \u201cDay by day, the people of the Soviet Union were developing minds of their own,\u201c Remnick wrote.<\/p>\n
Internationally, Gorbachev and Reagan were able to establish a productive rapport, hammering out the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 1987 agreement that eliminated medium-range nuclear weapons. The superpower treaty led to the scrapping of thousands of missiles and warheads, a first. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith patience, determination and commitment, we\u2019ve made this impossible vision a reality,\u201d Reagan said at the signing, which featured the two leaders joking over a Russian proverb. Western doubters became believers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis changed Soviet line was no ruse to disarm us,\u201d national security adviser Colin Powell<\/a> recalled later of the negotiations. \u201cThis man meant what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n On Feb. 15, 1989, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan, ending a brutal and expensive 10-year occupation. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the push for change accelerated across the Warsaw Pact nations. On June 12, 1987, by the Berlin Wall, Reagan memorably urged: \u201cMr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.\u201d But at this point, it was more a matter of Gorbachev declining to hold it up. <\/p>\n Speaking to the United Nations in December 1988, Gorbachev disclosed he was cutting the size of the Soviet military and also intended to pull soldiers and tanks out of Eastern Europe. He also spoke of \u201ca truly revolutionary upsurge\u201d within his country. \u201cUnder the badge of democratization, restructuring has now encompassed politics, the economy, spiritual life, and ideology,\u201d Gorbachev told the General Assembly. And he praised Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz<\/a>.<\/p>\n Writing years later in his book, “Learning from Experience,” Shultz said: “For my money, the real news was the clear tone in which he announced, without really saying so, that the Cold War was over.”<\/p>\n It soon became evident that Gorbachev meant what he said \u2014 he had no intention of propping up any satellite regimes. That only served to embolden opposition leaders like Walesa in Poland and Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia. <\/p>\n Change came fast. First, Hungary opened its border with Austria in May 1989, then Poland held free elections. Rapid-fire change followed in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and, finally, reluctantly and violently, in Romania. As the world watched and marveled, the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. (Serving the KGB in East Germany, a young Vladimir Putin was dismayed by the turn of events.)<\/p>\n In the span of a few months, the unthinkable had become reality, democracy had started to emerge in Eastern Europe and the Cold War had essentially ended. There was no reason to think Gorbachev was unhappy about these developments; he was subsequently awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. <\/p>\n \u201cThe common assumption that the West forced the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus won the Cold War is wrong,\u201d wrote<\/a> former ambassador Jack Matlock Jr. in the Washington Post in 2014. \u201cThe fact is that the Cold War ended by negotiation to the advantage of both sides.\u201d <\/p>\n In his visits to Eastern Europe, Gorbachev had been widely cheered. He hoped these old allies, once they underwent their own reforms, would embrace his nation as a kindred soul. They did not. \u201cGorbachev failed to see,\u201d wrote Sebestyen, \u201cthat the demonstrators were hiding behind him as a way of protesting against their own rulers.\u201d <\/p>\n Amid these startling changes, some in the Soviet Union wanted to turn back the clock. Disgruntled Kremlin bigwigs allied themselves with KGB leaders, top generals, old monarchists and other reactionary elements to undermine Gorbachev. Their plotting then took a sinister turn.<\/p>\n On Aug. 18, 1991, citing unspecified health problems for Gorbachev, Vice President Gennady Yanayev and an emergency committee announced they had assumed power. \u201cHe grew very tired over these years, and he will need some time to get better,\u201d Yanayev said of Gorbachev. <\/p>\n It soon became apparent that this was a full-blown coup by remnants of the old power structure. Gorbachev was out of sight, under house arrest at his vacation retreat in the Crimea. <\/p>\n The plotters \u2014 whose public face was the consistently inebriated Yanayev \u2014 hadn\u2019t counted on widespread public anger fueled by the spirit of glasnost. President Boris Yeltsin led the resistance on Gorbachev\u2019s part in Moscow, and supporters flocked to Yeltsin\u2019s side. The people weren\u2019t willing to accept the old ways. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s terrible. When I heard the news, I fell on the floor,\u201d the Associated Press quoted a \u201cwhite-haired old woman with weathered hands\u201d in Moscow. <\/p>\n Within 72 hours, the coup had collapsed. \u201cThis group wanted to push the people onto a path which would bring our entire nation to a catastrophe,\u201d Gorbachev said on his return Aug. 22. But that same week, he resigned as general secretary of the Communist Party, effectively severing it from the government after more than 70 years. <\/p>\n That final split further emboldened those in the republics who wished to break from the Soviet Union, and soon it was 1989 all over again within Soviet borders. This time, Gorbachev wasn\u2019t pleased \u2014 he tried to stymie independence movements in the Baltics and elsewhere.<\/p>\n By the end of 1991, it was clear there was no holding everything together \u2014 one nation split into 15. <\/p>\n \u201cAt least in public, Gorbachev seemed to have no idea of where events would lead,\u201d Remnick wrote.<\/p>\n He stepped down Dec. 25, 1991. Gorbachev turned over power \u2014 and the Soviet \u201cnuclear button\u201d \u2014 to Yeltsin, calling Bush to tell him: \u201cMr. President, you can spend Christmas evening in peace.\u201d <\/p>\n Years later, Gorbachev would describe his actions as regrettable but necessary. He had hoped that all Soviet citizens would freely choose the Soviet way of life, and they had not. “We were well on the way to a civil war, and I wanted to avoid that,” he told<\/a> the BBC in 2016.<\/p>\n As Figes would later write: \u201cHe was a political Columbus, setting off to find the promised land, only to discover something else.\u201d <\/p>\n Gorbachev became increasingly unpopular, a scapegoat, as Russia continued to evolve under Yeltsin. The loss of empire was disorienting, and the rise of what came to be called “bandit capitalism” demoralizing. The subsequent expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe left Russians feeling humiliated by the West.<\/p>\n In 1996, Gorbachev ran for president against Yeltsin and others across the political spectrum. In the first round of voting, he finished seventh, drawing less than 1 percent. Periodically, he would attempt a comeback; he never got anywhere. <\/p>\n “Russians felt they had lost not an empire or an ideology, but the very essence of their identity,” wrote Shaun Walker in “The Long Hangover: Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past.”<\/p>\n In the era of the autocratic Putin, Gorbachev was seen as a weakling.<\/p>\n