Mikhail Gorbachev — "History is a harsh mistress."
History is a harsh mistress.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"We cannot live in the past. We must look to the future. We must build a new society."
"The past is a good teacher, but a bad master."
"We are building a new society, a society of humanism and democracy."
"Democracy is not anarchy. It is order and discipline."
"I am not a dictator. I am a democrat."
About Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022)
Final General Secretary of the Soviet Union whose glasnost and perestroika reforms led to the USSR's dissolution and the end of the Cold War. Closely associated with Boris Yeltsin (his domestic rival and successor as Russian leader) and Ronald Reagan (Cold War counterpart and arms-control partner). For an intellectual contrast, see Vladimir Putin, Russian president (2000-2008, 2012-) — Putin has publicly called the Soviet collapse 'the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century' — Gorbachev's signature achievement. Putin's two-decade political project has been organized around reversing Gorbachev's liberalization.