Gorbachev's dreams for reform died long before he did
By Clara Ferreira Marques / Bloomberg Opinion
Mikhail Gorbachev was a man who hoped for the best and got the worst.
The legacy of the last Soviet leader, who died Tuesday at 91, was largely undone by two decades of Vladimir Putin. Now a grinding war in Ukraine is its grim and bloody requiem.
Gorbachev had an aversion to violence, a desire to work within the system, a curiosity about the West born of state-sponsored trips abroad, and lofty ideals. All of these, together with ill-conceived economic reforms, eventually led to his downfall. When Gorbachev left office in 1991, he called on Russians to preserve the democratic freedoms he had introduced. But the chaos he left in his wake allowed a kleptocracy to take root instead; one that will now weaponize his death.
A complex and flawed man, Gorbachev has long been something of a political Rorschach test. For many, especially outside Russia, he is the reformist the West found it could “do business with,” in British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s phrase, the statesman who ended the Cold War. Few had expected this turn of events when he came to power in 1985, at a youthful 54; he was a party man who turned out to be more like a Western politician than any of the gray figures that preceded him.
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