Mikhail Gorbachev — "The main thing is to trust the people. To give them freedom. To let them decide."
The main thing is to trust the people. To give them freedom. To let them decide.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"One day I went to the Kremlin and forgot to put on my pants."
"We need to create a new world order. Based on trust and cooperation."
"The most important thing is to avoid war. Everything else is secondary."
"The Baltic states were annexed under Stalin. That’s a fact."
"I'm not a politician. I'm a statesman."
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.