Given how poorly things are going in Russia and the former Soviet Republics, Gorbachev will often be remembered in a positive light, despite agreeing with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. He also represented some major shifts over there which hadn’t happened since Kruschev de-Stalinized the country other than being the first (and last) leader who was born and raised in the Soviet system. I always thought he did some time in the KGB but all biographies said no. I guess I was a sucker via a joke Dennis Miller made on SNL long before Miller became Putin’s bitch.
As this is my site, I’ll write about his indirect effect on my life and memory, you’re all free to comment.
Gorbachev was and wasn’t a surprise when he was named head of the USSR in 1985. Was: after Brezhnev died, he was replaced by two old farts who were contemporaries that both died within a couple years. The average American didn’t think the Soviets were going to change course until they ran out of the old guard. They had become a pretty intransigent bunch in the Eighties due to St. Reagan’s saber rattling. Wasn’t: experts whose job it was to observe the USSR beyond the daily news already knew Gorbachev was in the line of succession once Chernenko got the job. His ascension had the world tease the US a little given that for once, America had the older guy as the boss instead of the Russians.
In 1985 I was in high school and my knowledge of “our mortal foe” was about average. I didn’t think the new guy was going to make a difference. I would continue fearing the sight of ICBMs leaving their silos a la The Day After, figured their occupation of Afghanistan would proceed and the Warsaw Pact states were going to remain their pawns. When I got to university and took a philosophy class about Karl Marx in 1989, before the Berlin Wall’s fall, the professor said Gorbachev had been instituting reforms/changes because the USSR had run out of money in the Seventies. It explained why the Russians were experimenting with market-based solutions to fix their supply-chain issues and letting Western stuff in like McDonald’s. He was definitely brave (and powerful) enough to finally tell the govern-ment, “Hey, we’ve stagnated since the late Sixties. Let’s open up, try other ideas and not dismiss them if they weren’t originally ours.” How I wish the assholes running the US into the crapper were pushed aside for those who share this thinking. Those who promote American Exceptionalism are tools.
He was still a dictator. I have no delusions about his overall record. Gorbachev didn’t come completely clean on how disastrous Chernobyl was and he allowed the blame-throwing trial to happen afterwards. The Afghanistan conflict continued for another four years. The KGB and GRU carried out their missions without fail. He never brought Soviet allies or clients to heel in Latin America, Africa or the Middle East. Gorbachev wasn’t a very strong dictator though, the brief coup which made Yeltsin a hero proved it.
What I will give him a high five for was showing how St. Reagan was the war monger by a couple of his actions. Firstly, he was reasonable enough to discuss disarmament which he needed to get more economic reforms; Amerika’s strategy since Truman was to outspend the USSR into bankruptcy…we’re not too far from such a fate today. The second move was during a visit to DC. He insisted on getting out of his limo and shaking hands with all the Americans he encountered, a Secret Service/KGB nightmare. I read how much this pissed off St. Reagan and his thugs. Their years of painting the USSR as the (sole) evil empire was evaporating in a brilliant PR move. Somehow, I think Mikhail was sincere too.
Farewell Mr. Gorbachev. Your legacy will remain complicated since all human beings of all stripers are. In the West, you’ll probably get a whitewashing because it works with the lies promoting St. Reagan as a POTUS on par with Lincoln and FDR when he should be flushed down the crapper with Jackson and Hoover. In Russia, you were already being blamed for everything going wrong and until the Russian people can break free from Putin and the oligarchs, it’s where you will remain.