Highlights
- Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet President died aged 91.
- As per Russia media reports, a long fatal illness led to his demise.
- He was responsible for producing reforms that led to the end of the Cold War,.
Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet President responsible for producing extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died of a long illness aged 91, reported to Russian media on Tuesday. He managed to end the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union. The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.
Though in power for less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination, and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.
Waht led to Mikhail Gorbachev's decline?
Mikhail Gorbachev's decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991. He spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on December 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.
A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.
"The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war," he said. Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985. By the end of his rule, he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.
"I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world," Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office. "I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination," he said.
Nobel Peace Prize for ending Cold War
Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.
Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union, a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country's troubles.
(With AP Inputs)
