Gorbachev Dies: Man Who Ended the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 intending to save the Soviet Union, not end it. Glasnost and perestroika — openness and restructuring — were tools to modernize a system he believed in. The system he believed in collapsed instead. He watched the Berlin Wall fall in 1989, watched the republics break away, and on December 25, 1991 resigned as president of a country that had ceased to exist three days earlier. He spent his post-Soviet years giving speeches and running a foundation. Russians mostly blamed him for everything. He died in 2022 at 91.
August 30, 2022
4 years ago
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