Mikhail Gorbachev
( 1931 - 2022)Added Date: September 01, 2022
Born: March 02, 1931
Died: August 30, 2022
Country: Russia
Mikhail Gorbachev was a Russian and Soviet politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. As President, his goal was a restructuring or reformation – perestroika – of his country and people. He wanted a democratic, humane socialism with a new and revived economy.
He grew up in the south of Russia, a rich agricultural region inhabited by Cossacks who had never known serfdom, in a village called Privolnoe, which means “free-willed.” Like many of his generation, he preserved a peasant’s common sense, caution, and conservatism. He also had the physical strength of someone who had worked the land from an early age.
His political career was centered on improving life for ordinary Russians through civility, humanity, and engagement with the outside world. But in the end his aversion to violence and his belief in the Enlightenment were not enough to finish a system that was held together by repression and lies. He was ousted from the Presidency in 1991.
Friends described him as loyal, honest, self-confident, polite, and tactful. He had a happy and optimistic temperament and he often used self-deprecating humor. He was considered a remarkably decent man with high moral standards.
He loved his wife Raisa dearly and enjoyed music and singing. In 2009, Gorbachev released Songs for Raisa, an album of Russian romantic ballads, sung by him, to raise money for a charity devoted to his late wife.
By many in Europe and the West he will be remembered not as the leader that lost a country but as the man who gave millions freedom.
As Mikhail Gorbachev himself sang Lermontov’s poem, “Out on the road I go alone. The flinty track shines through the mist,” he will forever be remembered In Heaven with the Stars.
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