Mikhail Gorbachev — "The Soviet Union is not an empire. It is a multinational state."
The Soviet Union is not an empire. It is a multinational state.
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More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"We are building a new society, a society of humanism and democracy."
"I'm not a man of many words, but I'm a man who means what he says."
"I'm a democrat, that's what I am."
"We cannot build socialism with empty stomachs."
"The greatest achievement of perestroika is freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of choice."
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.