Mikhail Gorbachev — "The Soviet model was doomed from the start."
The Soviet model was doomed from the start.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
"I am not afraid of glasnost. I am not afraid of criticism. I am not afraid of democracy."
"We are still at the very beginning of the road. We have not yet changed our thinking. We are still prisoners of the old ways."
"I am an optimist, but I am also a pragmatist."
"The main lesson of my life is that one must never give up."
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.