Moscow - Mikhail Gorbachev, (click here) who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.
The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given....
Unless one understands what it takes to secure a country, the reality of being unable to secure it no matter how hard one tries escapes many leaders. Unfortunately, the land mass of the Soviet Union was so enormous that it was impossible to maintain as one country. There were many reasons the Soviet Union was lost, but, the cost of even transportation across the entire continent added more to it's economy than it could sustain.
Putin and the communists probably saw Mikhail Gorbachev as an incompetent leader. He was not. He was provided an impossible situation and did the best he could. The world respected him. They saw him as a man of peace. Peace was the best route for the Soviet Union, no different than it was for the Post-Soviet states. No different than Ukraine and, yes, Russia.
The problem with Russia today under the leadership of Vladimir Putin is that he is still running the country as if it were the Soviet Union and Russia cannot support the war structure that was built by other Soviet leaders. Putin never stopped being angry about the loss of the Soviet Union and basically sees the Post-Soviet nations as misbehaving children. That is not at all the attitude a Russian president should take about any of the circumstances of Russia. Russia, whether Putin hates it or not, is a Post-Soviet nation.
There was no way to protect the Soviet Union and maintain an economic viability. Peace was always the way forward. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Soviet Union before Yeltsin and Gorbachev never stopped fighting the Russian Revolution. They never accepted the fact the fighting was over. WWII caused some of that general irritation with the world.
There will never be another Mikhail Gorbachev as there is no Soviet Union. While he resigned his position as leader of that enormous country; it breaking into nations as it did was the best outcome for the people. All the Post Soviet nations get along and are reasonably happy and prosperous, except, for Russia. Russia has never accepted itself as a country with the borders it has and that is due to the communists, their eternal pain with the world and a leader in Putin that indulges that anger and fosters it for his own purposes.
Mikhail Gorbachev will always be seen as a partner in peace by the American people. He will be loved for that alone.
