Mikhail Gorbachev — "The biggest mistake was that I did not go to the people and explain everything."
The biggest mistake was that I did not go to the people and explain everything.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"I don't know what kind of God I believe in, but I believe in something."
"I'm a man of peace."
"I am a convinced communist. This is my main credo. I will never renounce it. I am a convinced Marxist-Leninist. I will never renounce it."
"I am a man who is always looking for a fight."
"I am a man of my word."
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.