Remembering the Man Who Changed the World
In the long run, he failed. But he what he did was beyond belief
He would have been ninety-four today, the man who changed the world for the better, at least for a time. His name was Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, and forty years ago this month he burst on the world scene when he became head of the vast and sprawling Soviet Union, a sclerotic superpower which had been governed by a procession of sick and dying old men.
Gorbachev was young energetic and confident. I was covering international affairs at the time, and talked to some of our nation’s top Soviet experts about whether anything fundamental was likely to change. They all said no. They were all very wrong. Gorbachev stunned the world by opening up the Soviet Union, giving its citizens the freedom to read and see and say and write what they wanted.
Nobody could believe it at first, but when they did, “Gorby” became the most popular man in the world, a huge folk hero. He became pals with that old anti-communist Ronald Reagan. The stunned world was ecstatic.
But there was a problem. Gorbachev was an idealist, maybe the last man who really believed in communism. He thought if the workers were free, they would joyously work much harder to make the system work. He was dead wrong. The economy collapsed. He also did not realize how thoroughly corrupt the Communist Party was. Finally, a bunch of hardliners tried to overthrow him and restore the dictatorship. But the people had 24/7 news media then. They refused to go along and give up their new freedoms.
The coup collapsed. But so too did the USSR. On Christmas Day, 1991, Gorbachev, now a man without a country, resigned. He had at least given Russia democracy, but that lasted only a few years. When Gorbachev died in late 2022, he was a sad, reviled, lonely old man, and Russia was in the grip of a ruthless dictator again.
Nevertheless, he tried. And for a few years, he did great things. I will admire him always, and hope he knew that if there are no final victories, there are seldom any final defeats either. History may be kinder to him than we are now.
Almost forgotten but long remembered
Nice remembrance. The iron curtain came suddenly down, Eastern Europe and several 'republics' in the Soviet Union gained their independence, and a brighter(democratic) future seemed to beckon. But sadly the autocratic mindset returned--both in those rulers gaining power and in many of those willing to be ruled. And here we are.