Mikhail Gorbachev — "I'm not a pessimist. I'm an optimist."
I'm not a pessimist. I'm an optimist.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"I consider myself a lucky man. I have lived to see a new world."
"The United States has become arrogant and self-confident. This is dangerous."
"The Soviet Union was a great country. But it had to change."
"I regret that I could not prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union."
"Perestroika was not a betrayal of socialism. It was its salvation."
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.