Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
March 2, 1931 - August 30, 2022
aged 91
A great man, the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985 - 1989), and President of the Soviet Union (1990 - 91), during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush in the U.S. I call him a “great man” because he is a good example of the right person in the right place at the right time and with the right personality to accomplish great things both in his own country, and in the world.
More than Ronald Reagan and his stupid ‘Star Wars’ nuclear missile programme, Gorbachev is primarily responsible for bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end by the way he chaperoned the unravelling Soviet Union through its destabilizing decline. Famous for his so-so nebulous policies of glasnost (“opening”) and perestroika (“restructuring”), Gorbachev was guided by realism more than by ideology. That made him an entirely new kind of Soviet politician. Ultimately, restructuring the economy didn't work, and Russians suffered, leading to declining popularity at home.
In 1990, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize. The world loved him while the Russian people began turning away from him.
Key world leaders of the time were Gorbachev (USSR), Ronald Reagan (U.S.), Margaret Thatcher (U.K.), Francois Mitterand (France), Helmut Kohl (Germany), Yasuhiro Nakasone (Japan), Zhao Ziyang (China), Brian Mulroney (Canada), Rajiv Gandhi (India), Shimon Peres (Israel), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), and P.W. Botha (South Africa). These are the men and women who dominated the news when I was a young man.
Ronald Reagan was a clumsy, lying B-movie actor, while Gorbachev was a genuine intellectual. Therefore, he won my admiration, because intelligence is what turns me on.
Or not.