Mikhail Gorbachev — "I did not come to power to destroy the Soviet Union."
I did not come to power to destroy the Soviet Union.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"We need more democracy, more glasnost, more openness. This is the only way forward."
"The market is a cruel master. But it is the only master who can teach us how to work efficiently."
"If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today."
"We must not repeat the mistakes of the past."
"I don't know what kind of God I believe in, but I believe in something."
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.