Mikhail Gorbachev — "I am an optimist, but I am also a pragmatist."
I am an optimist, but I am also a pragmatist.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"The people want change. And I will give them change."
"The world needs a new thinking. A new approach to global problems."
"The past is gone. We must look to the future."
"We are experiencing a decisive moment, a turning point in the history of our country, and perhaps in the history of the world."
"The past is over. The future is now."
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.