Mikhail Gorbachev dies
The former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has died aged 91 after a battle with a longstanding illness. He is hailed for his efforts to end the Cold War peacefully.
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| Photo: rbth.com. |
Gorbachev, revered by the West and despised by the East, was
famously instrumental in the collapse of the Berlin Wall, symbolising the end
of political tensions that had built up from the Second World War. He is
regarded by many as one of the most influential politicians of the 20th
century and even won a Nobel Prize for peace in 1990 for his efforts at ending
the Cold War.
After graduating from Moscow State University in 1955,
Mikhail Gorbachev quickly rose through the ranks of the Communist Party, becoming
leader of the Young Communist League by 1961. He was part of a new generation
of party activists who were becoming frustrated by ageing leadership.
In 1980, Gorbachev was appointed as a full member of the
Politburo, the principal policy making committee of the Communist Party. In his
time here, he visited the UK to see then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with
hope to build relationships between the West and the USSR. By 1984 he had taken
the top job as general secretary of the country – the first general secretary
of the USSR to be born after the 1917 revolution. This was seen as a breath of
fresh air for many, with Gorbachev’s open, direct manner a complete contrast to
his predecessors. Most importantly, he was willing to open up the Soviet Union
to the West to fix an ailing economy, which he called ‘glasnost’ policy.
His ultimate aim was to end the Cold War, with years of
discussions with US President Ronald Reagan successfully implementing the end
of a whole class of nuclear weapons. Slowly but surely, states that had been
unlawfully annexed by the Soviet Union started to break away from Moscow, with
little to no resistance from Gorbachev. This culminated in November 1989 with
the allowance of residents of East Berlin to move freely into the west of the
city. Gorbachev’s reaction was not of violence, but to announce the
reunification of Germany, ending 28 years of separation in the country.
Such a bold move to bring peace is one that should be
heralded a success, but the Soviet Union saw it differently. In August 1991, a
coup was staged and Gorbachev was arrested, stripped of all his power, and
replaced by Boris Yeltsin.
Despite being in Russian political wilderness, Gorbachev
kept up contact with Western leaders and advocated for an open and free Russia;
one in which democracy is at the fore. This led him to be an open critic of
Vladimir Putin for what he saw as running a repressive regime. Despite this, he
defended the decision in 2014 to annex Crimea from Ukraine, as he saw the
region as unlawfully Ukrainian from a Soviet era when people could not vote on
their nationality.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s legacy will be remembered largely in
fondness as a peacemaker, especially in de-escalating nuclear tensions. Yet his
ambitions for the Soviet Union were never feasible for the country. To fully
carry out his ambition, he failed to realise it was impossible to carry out
such widespread reform to the economy without the collapse of such a large
country. Nonetheless, he will be remembered for his influence over world
politics.