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A legacy of destiny - 7th September 2022

The death of former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985 until 1991, closes a chapter in world history. The 91 year old created the thaw in East-West relations which ended the decades-long Cold War.

His efforts included spearheading a landmark nuclear disarmament treaty with US president Ronald Reagan. In 1990, the Gorbachev achievements earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Gorbachev was lauded by Western democracies for this, and for resisting calls to quash popular dissent across the Eastern bloc with Soviet tanks. However, these actions led to the Berlin Wall falling in 1989, making him a polemic figure within Russia.

Only 54 when unanimously elected by the Politburo, Gorbachev was the antithesis of the idealogue leaders who'd preceded him, championing economic and social reforms under the banner of 'glasnost' and 'perestroika' – openness and restructuring – shaking up the command economy.

These reforms deepened economic and political difficulties, precipitating the dissolution of the Soviet Union through independence movements. On 25th December 1990, Gorbachev bowed out and the hammer and sickle fell.

Mikhail Gorbachev: "I resign with a feeling of anxiety, but also with hope and faith in you, in your wisdom, in your strength of spirit."

Gorbachev joined the international lecture circuit, supporting educational and humanitarian causes and providing funds to help bankroll the first independent newspaper in post-communist Russia.

On the political periphery for the last three decades, he made intermittent calls for Russia and the US to mend their relationship but kept his own counsel on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.