s publicly. Many Jews wanted to emigrate, others wanted to stay and construct viable Jewish life in the USSR, and a large number were unconcerned with anything but antisemitism which limited their life chances and made them fe

he major reformers of the Soviet system, Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, have very different reputations outside the former USSR. Khrushchev is often regarded as an uncouth buffoon, while Gorbachev, who died on Aug. 30, is seen as a courageous reformer who destroyed European Communism and presided over the breakup of the Soviet Union. He was credited with partnering with the United States to end the Cold War and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Westerners tend to overlook the fact that Gorbachev's aim in the late 1980s was not to dissolve the Soviet Union or abolish Communism but to rescue them by reforming both. The breakup of the USSR and the fading of Communism were unintended consequences of his efforts. Nevertheless, it is the consequences and not the intentions that have been (rightly) embraced.

Khrushchev is largely forgotten or regarded with faint bemusement in most states that had been part of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, in Russia, Central Asia and Belarus, Gorbachev is reviled as the man who destroyed a superpower, promoted chaos, and, in the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was responsible for the "greatest geo-political tragedy of the 20th century."

Jewish media and prominent leaders have hailed Gorbachev as the liberator of Soviet Jewry, though some have pointed out that he was not especially concerned with the Jews. He had bigger fish to fry: the Armenian-Azerbaijani war, nationalist dissidence in Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Baltics, and even Russia itself. But his policy of glasnost' (openness) allowed Jews to voice their aspiration

el marginalized.

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There had not been a single Jewish organization or institution for over two million Soviet Jews since 1948 when the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was dissolved, but perestroika (reconstruction) made possible the sudden and spontaneous rise of some 500 "Jewish cultural associations" from the Baltic to the Far East in 1988-89. This astonishing Jewish activity culminated in the founding congress of a national Jewish organization (the Va'ad) in December 1989. It aimed to spur Jewish public life throughout the USSR and reconnect Soviet Jews to world Jewry. The change in the Jewish situation was not specifically due to any policy directed only toward Jews, but was part of the general liberalization of thought, expression and action Gorbachev had instituted.