Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:He swallowed his pride and helped dismantle the Soviet Union. I thought he was a great man for this reason.
RIP.
Gorbachev sought to reform the USSR through perestroika and other means in the hope of salvaging the crippled economy. He wasn’t seeking to dismantle the Communist Party of the USSR itself.
Exactly. Gorbachev never wanted to abolish either the Soviet Union or the Communist Party. He merely meant to reform them. But the failed coup in 1991 left Gorbachev badly weakened and Yeltsin, originally loyal to Gorbachev but by then his enemy, greatly strengthened. Later that year, without informing Gorbachev, Yeltsin, along with the Presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, declared the Soviet Union abolished and pulled the Soviet Flag down from the Kremlin. Gorbachev never forgave Yeltsin. Gorbachev was internationally popular but was unpopular in Russia. When Gorbachev ran for President of the Russian Federation in 1996, he received only 0.51% of the vote.