LONDON — Mikhail Gorbachev’s death is being mourned by the United States and its allies Wednesday as the loss of a champion of freedom who helped end the Cold War. But his legacy is very different at home, with many viewing him as the man responsible for the collapse of the then-Soviet Union — and the loss of global status and economic security that followed.
Gorbachev, 91, passed away in Moscow on Tuesday at a time when his legacy of reconciliation with the West and domestic reform has been left in tatters in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine — or what the Kremlin insists on calling its "special military operation."Putin’s rule is widely seen as aimed at reversing the trends initiated by Gorbachev and restoring Moscow’s power and pride at the expense of peace in Europe.
From Washington to Brussels, Gorbachev was widely acclaimed after the news of his death.
President Joe Biden called the last Soviet leader, who was often referred to as “Gorbi” in the West, “a man of remarkable vision.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said he was “a tireless advocate for peace.”
The head of NATO, whose expansion the Kremlin considers an existential threat to Russia, said Wednesday that Gorbachev’s historic reforms led to the “possibility of a partnership” between Moscow and the military alliance, among other things. “His vision of a better world remains an example,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.
But, the reaction in Moscow has been markedly different.
Putin took until Wednesday morning to express his “deep condolences” in a telegram to Gorbachev’s family, acknowledging his status as “a politician and statesman who had a huge impact on the course of world history.”
He “realized that reforms were necessary and tried to offer his solutions to the acute problems,” Putin said.
Gorbachev was critical of some of Putin’s policies in his later years and lamented the “militarization of world politics.” Putin, meanwhile, has called the implosion of the Soviet Union, for which many in Russia hold Gorbachev responsible, “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
While Putin was reserved in his assessment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov argued that Gorbachev’s “romantic” quest for peace between Moscow and the West was a pipe dream, according to the state news agency Tass.
“This romanticism did not materialize. There was no romantic period or honeymoon,” Peskov was quoted as saying. “The bloodthirstiness of our opponents has shown itself.”
Gorbachev pursued arms control treaties and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for helping to end the Cold War, while championing economic restructuring and greater openness at home through his policies of “glasnost” or openness and “perestroika” or restructuring.
But those reforms ultimately helped weaken the USSR to the point of collapse, and it was the way he handled those events which has left many in Russia and post-Soviet countries bitter.