Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,who helped end the Cold War,dies

The passing of Mikhail Gorbachev,the last leader of the Soviet Union and for many the man who restored democracy to then-communist-ruled European nations,was mourned Wednesday as the loss of a rare leader who changed the world and for a time gave hope for peace among the superpowers.

But the man who died at age 91 was also reviled by many countrymen who blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union and its diminution as a superpower. The Russian nation that emerged from its Soviet past shrank in size as 15 new nations were created.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev waves from the Red Square tribune during a Revolution Day celebration,in Moscow,Soviet Union,Tuesday,Nov. 7,1989.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev waves from the Red Square tribune during a Revolution Day celebration,in Moscow,Soviet Union,Tuesday,Nov. 7,1989.AP

The loss of pride and power also eventually led to the rise of Vladimir Putin,who has tried for the past quarter-century to restore Russia to its former glory and beyond.

Gorbachev died after a long illness,according to a statement issued by the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow. No other details were given.

“After decades of brutal political repression,he embraced democratic reforms. He believed in glasnost and perestroika – openness and restructuring – not as mere slogans,but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation” President Joe Biden said.

He added that “these were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement that President Putin offered deep condolences over Gorbachev’s death. Putin had previously said he would reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union if he could and in 2005,called it the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the former Soviet leader had changed the world for the better and began to “restructure a political and economic system deeply resistant to any such attempts”.

“Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of warmth,hope,resolve and enormous courage,and in a world that was profoundly divided,he was driven by an instinct for cooperation and unity.”

Former prime minister Paul Keating described the former Soviet leader the most significant person in the world in the second half of the 20th century.

Mikhail Gorbachev,the last president of the Soviet Union before its dissolution,has died aged 91.

Though in power for less than seven years,Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state,the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.

His decline was humiliating. His power was hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991,he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on December 25,1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.

A quarter-century after the collapse,Gorbachev said that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.

“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.

Many of the changes,including the Soviet break-up,bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.

By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.

“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.

“I am often asked,would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes,indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world.

In one of the low points of his tenure,Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.

The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.

Chief among them was his former protégé and eventual nemesis,Boris Yeltsin,who became Russia’s first president.

Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.

His run for president in 1996 was a national joke,and he polled less than 1 per cent of the vote.

Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for current Russian President Vladimir Putin,who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.

While he said Putin did much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse,Gorbachev protested growing limitations on media freedom,and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers,Novaya Gazeta.

Gorbachev also spoke out against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. A day after the February 24 attack,he issued a statement calling for “an early cessation of hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations.”

Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.

Soon after taking power,he began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation,using “glasnost” – free speech or openness – to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.

In his memoirs,he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources,tens of millions were living in poverty.

On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985,aged just 54,he had set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms,but his reforms spun out of control.

Glasnost allowed previously unthinkable criticism of the party and the state,but also emboldened nationalists who began to press for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia,Lithuania,Estonia and elsewhere.

The official news agency Tass reported that he will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.

Reuters,AP

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