Thirty years ago, on December 8, 1991, the U.S.S.R. was declared defunct by the leaders of its Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian constituent republics during a hastily convened meeting. On December 25, Gorbachev resigned […]
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The 9th Pushkin House Book Prize was awarded to Archie Brown, Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford, for “The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan and Thatcher and the End of the Cold War,” published by Oxford University Press.
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How important was the true-believing communist son of Stavropol peasants, the actor son of a Midwestern traveling salesman, or the staid, provincial daughter of a Lincolnshire shopkeeper? […]
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Thirty years on, The Moscow Times spoke to surviving participants in the events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of a new Russia. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Felix Light – Aug. 18, 2021) In the center of Moscow, hidden behind two lanes of heaving traffic on the New Arbat commercial thoroughfare, stands a […]
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MOSCOW. Aug 18 (Interfax) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev blames the organizers of the coup attempt of August 1991 and the signatories to the Belavezha agreements for the collapse of the Soviet Union, calls for defending the principles of democracy, and believes that Russia can develop and solve any problems only on a democratic path. “I believe that the […]
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The historic 1986 Reykjavik summit between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan will be the backdrop for a new satirical film […]
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(The Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Maxim Trudolyubov – June 20, 2019) Maxim Trudolyubov is a Senior Fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large of Vedomosti, an independent Russian daily. Mr. Trudolyubov was the editorial page editor of Vedomosti between 2003 and 2015. He has been a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times since the fall […]
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“Werner Herzog says there’s a ‘subversive message’ to his new documentary ‘Meeting Gorbachev’: Talk to your geopolitical enemies. Herzog interviewed former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev three times in a six-month span to make the new film. He highlights … the reunification of Herzog’s native Germany as well as the groundbreaking 1986 arms control summit with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. […]
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“… [In the recorded speech] Yeltsin … assails the slow pace of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms … unabashedly criticiz[ing] … party elite. … Yeltsin’s expressive face and exaggerated hand gestures hint at the magnitude of the speech that, many believe, marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin … [became] the first democratically elected president of […]
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“Over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and I signed in Washington the United States-Soviet Treaty on the elimination of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles. For the first time in history, two classes of nuclear weapons were to be eliminated and destroyed. …”
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“The United States and … allies are increasingly frustrated over malign activities by Russia. Moscow wages war in Ukraine, abets brutality in Syria, interferes in elections, and poisons opponents. … Washington has imposed sanctions and closed Russian consulates … and vacation estates in Maryland and New York, all believed to be used by … Putin’s government for intelligence purposes. This […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 14, 2018) Fifty-three percent of Russians say that neither those who launched the August 1991 putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev nor those who defended the legitimate government were in the right, a figure that has remained more or less constant over the last 12 years, the Levada Center reported today. The polling […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Justin Lifflander – December 13, 2017) Tuesday’s event at the Gorbachev Foundation was supposed to be a typically mundane book launch. But the presentation of the Russian language version of Suzanne Massie’s “Trust But Verify: Russian Lessons for Reagan” turned out to be an unofficial meeting of the multi-generational club of peace-makers and optimists. Ronald […]
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“Thirty years ago last week, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, resulting in the elimination of some 2,700 U.S. and Soviet ground-launched intermediate-range missiles. …”
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“Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin would seem to be polar opposites. … rejecting Gorbachev’s legacy has provided Putin with the main planks of his political platform. ….”
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“… Perhaps Russia’s dire straits, with an imploding economy overseen by a corrupt oligarchy, could have been avoided if Mr. Gorbachev had engineered a smoother transition from dictatorship to democracy, from communism to capitalism. But the dissolution of every great empire has been a messy, bloody business. …”
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 20, 2017) Force structures have invariably played a key role in all revolutions, revolts, or palace coups, either by supporting the incumbent regime or supporting its challengers, Gennady Gudkov says; and August 1991 was no exception because in his view, the attempted coup failed because it did not have the backing […]
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“Former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev has issued a call to the leaders of the United States and Russia to stay away from the attempts to outmaneuver each other and to conduct dialogue instead. He said it on Wednesday in a comment on the results of November 8 presidential election in the US. “Presidents are capable of resolving the problems that […]
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Twenty-five years ago, an unsuccessful coup attempt, known as the August Coup, was launched by a group of hawkish Communist Party members and security elites against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, in what was widely seen as one of the key moments that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. * * * A keen student of history, Vladimir Putin […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Ron Synovitz – August 19, 2016) Eleven hard-liners in the Soviet government, military, Communist Party, and #KGB were named in a Russian court as the organizers of the failed August 1991 coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. They included the so-called “Gang of Eight” that had placed Gorbachev under house arrest — a short-lived, self-declared provisional […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – July 9, 2016) Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has accused NATO of preparing for a “hot” war against Russia and says rhetoric from alliance’s leaders is pushing the two sides toward a military confrontation. “NATO has begun preparations for escalating from a Cold War into a hot one,” Gorbachev was quoted by the Interfax news agency […]
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… Gorbachev told Russian radio RSN that he was among those who voted for the Soviet Union not to be dissolved and instead seek internal reform. ‘I was of the position that the union should be democratised,’ Gorbachev said …. ‘Centralised government was in the way of everything that was going on in each republic. It was necessary to give […]
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MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has expressed grief over the death of former U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan. “It was with deep sorrow that I learnt the sad news and I can rightfully say: well done, Nancy! She said to Ronald Reagan: when you quit the post of U.S. president, you need to go as […]
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On March 2, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR and the man who began perestroika in the Soviet Union, turns 85. RBTH presents a selection of quotes about the Soviet leader by his contemporaries. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ALEXEY TIMOFEYCHEV, RBTH – March 2, 2016) Hans-Dietrich Genscher, German Foreign Minister, 1974-1992: Mikhail Gorbachev opened a […]
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(Interfax – January 20, 2016) The Russian and U.S. presidents should meet to speed up the settlement of the crisis in eastern Ukraine, says former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Negotiations between Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in Kaliningrad last week could mark the beginning of preparations for a bilateral summit dealing with […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 22, 2015) Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that problems inherited from previous eras are holding Russia back and urged Western leaders to restore ties with Moscow instead of trying to “provoke” it during a book presentation Tuesday, Russian media reports said. “Many are trying to provoke Russia now,” Gorbachev said […]
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(Interfax – May 28, 2015) Russia can return to a sustainable development path provided that it revives democratic institutes and political competition and rids of excessive centralization of power and dangerous confrontation with the West, says a report on perestroika values in the contemporary Russian context. The document drawn up by the Gorbachev Foundation and the Civil Initiatives Committee will […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – May 15, 2015) Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that his massive anti-alcohol campaign in the 1980s was too swift and sweeping, and combating heavy drinking – which remains a major problem as Russia’s problem 30 years later – should have been handled more patiently, according to a recent interview. Speaking on […]
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(Interfax – May 7, 2015) Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev believes that the refusal of the leaders of some European countries and the United States to come to Moscow to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II on May 9 comes as a sign of disrespect toward the people of the former Soviet […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Des Brown – April 21, 2015) Just over 30 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The next day, The Times of London ran an editorial entitled “Mr Gorbachov’s Hour” – the British media had yet to learn to spell his name – saying that he could […]
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(Interfax – February 28, 2015) Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has expressed confidence that Friday night’s assassination in the center of Moscow of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is a scheme to “provoke aggravation, and maybe even destabilization, of the situation in the country, increase the confrontation.” “It’s hard to say now which side is responsible for this. One mustn’t hurry […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, January 29, 2015) The USA has already draw Russia into a “cold war”, one cannot rule out that they may “take the risk” of taking further steps towards a real war, former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev has said. “Now one keeps hearing about sanctions against Russia from America and the European Union. Have they really completely lost […]
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(Window On Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 11, 2105) Mikhail Gorbachev’s current call for the “perestroika” of the international system is just as much a “cynical political scam” as was his original one, something that led many to conclude he wanted something more than just a more effective form of “authoritarian modernization,” according to Yevgeny Ikhlov. With the […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, December 30, 2014) Former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev believes that the world was on the brink of a major disaster in 2014. In an interview with Interfax he said this concerned not just relations between Russia and Ukraine, Russia and the European Union, but events in global politics as a whole. As for relations between Ukraine and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – November 21, 2014) [Video interview here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/mikhail-gorbachev-nobody-will-shut-my-mouth-video/511564.html] Many people who send letters to the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, still write on the envelope: “To the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Kremlin.” The Russian postal service is used to this and redirects the mail to the […]
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(Interfax – November 19, 2014) Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev believes that Russia and the West should find a compromise on the Ukrainian crisis or they will lose. “It [a compromise] has not been found yet, but it is quite possible. I think Russia and the entire Europe will lose if that doesn’t happen. The responsibility will then rest with […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, October 26, 2014) The first president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, thinks that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Valdai [Valday] speech was one of the strongest of his period in power. On Friday [24 October] the head of state gave a speech to participants in the Valdai discussion club in Sochi, in which he criticized the West’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 16, 2014) Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev has called on Russia and the West to put an end to their war of words and retaliatory sanctions over Ukraine and discuss a practical solution to the crisis. “How can you conduct a dialogue if you ‘punish’ the people in power who influence politics?” Gorbachev said […]
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MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told RIA Novosti on Friday that he has left hospital and is back at work. “Now I am out of hospital,” Gorbachev said. Answering a question about how he is feeling, the former Soviet leader stated that “well” would be an overstatement. “If I could reach the party assessment […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 16, 2013) Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said he was concerned with the high number of armed conflicts around the world and that he proposed the creation of a global peace movement. “Something is not working in the world, the arms race is on again. Either protest movements or conflicts between tribes and entire nations are […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 11, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-russia-needs-radical.html) Mikhail Gorbachev’s call for a new perestroika has sparked a discussion which rests on the idea that “if the medicine (perestroika) would kill the cancer patient (Russia in its current state), then it is necessary to put up with the cancer as long as possible,” according to […]
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(Interfax – November 19, 2012) Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev is pessimistic about the future political situation in Russia in the short-term perspective. When asked how he believes the situation will be developing in the country in an interview with The New Times, a Russian political magazine, Gorbachev said: “Difficult.” “I think there will be no mass repression. It won’t […]
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