Mikhail Gorbachev — "We need glasnost, we need perestroika, we need democracy."
We need glasnost, we need perestroika, we need democracy.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"The market is not a panacea. It's a very cruel mechanism."
"The world needs a demilitarization of international relations."
"Perestroika was not a betrayal of socialism. It was its salvation."
"The nuclear arms race is madness. It is like two people sitting on a powder keg, each with a match."
"I am not afraid of anything. I have lived my life honestly."
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.