Mikhail Gorbachev – The former Soviet leader who brought the Cold War to a peaceful end

Mikhail Gorbachev – The former Soviet leader who brought the Cold War to a peaceful end

Mikhail Gorbachev was a charismatic politician and leader of the Soviet Union. He was the general secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party from 1985-1991. Mikhail Gorbachev passed away on 30th August 2022 at Central Clinical Hospital, Moscow after suffering from a prolonged illness.

The former Soviet leader whose reforms led to the unlooked for break-up of his own country, and to the demise of communism across central and eastern Europe. Celebrated abroad as the saviour who delivered freedom to millions of Soviet citizens, he was often blamed at home for the chaotic years that followed, and survived long enough to watch Russia return to autocracy under the rule of Vladimir Putin.

Gorbachev, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1990, had died after a “difficult and protracted illness”, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying on Tuesday. Recent reports suggested he was suffering from a kidney ailment.

Gorbachev was the the first and last president of the Soviet Union. He became the general secretary of the communist party in 1985, aged just 53, a post he held until the party was itself dissolved in 1991, with the Soviet Union vanishing soon afterwards. His decision not to use force to prevent the toppling of the Berlin Wall, he later claimed, may have averted a Third World War.

US president Joe Biden said he was a man of “remarkable vision”, and that he was held in high esteem for leading his country on the path to reform.

“These were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it,” Biden said in a statement. “The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”

António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, described Gorbachev as a “towering leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace”.

A spokesman to Putin, with whom Gorbachev said he had a strained relationship, said that the Kremlin leader expressed his “deep condolences” on his death and would send a telegram to his family in the morning. Gorbachev will be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife, Raisa,