Mikhail Gorbachev — "I came to power to save the country, not to destroy it."
I came to power to save the country, not to destroy it.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"I am not interested in power for power's sake. I am interested in serving the people."
"The Soviet Union will continue to exist."
"I still believe in the ideals of the 1917 revolution."
"I believe in the future of Russia."
"The Soviet Union needs democracy like the air it breathes."
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.