Gorbachev dies at 91

[Lemon Drop]

https://www.reuters.com/world/mikhail-go...022-08-30/

Memories of a saner time in Russian leadership.

I got to shake his hand in 1989 (i think) whem he jad come to DC to meet with Reagan (or Bush I guess)
. He stopped his limo on the way to the White House and got out and shook hamds with the crowd. I worked nearby and ran out in time to get close.

This guy had rock star appeal and the atmosphere was so hopeful for a better relationship with the West and better life for former soviet peoples and eastern bloc countries.

And for a while it did get better.

[hal]

The situation of his funeral should be interesting. Putin HATED what gorby did to the USSR...

[GGD]

hal wrote:
Putin HATED what gorby did to the USSR...

When I heard he died, two things went through my head.
1) I thought he died years ago, didn't realize he was still alive.
2) How did he die, did he "accidentally fall out of a window".

[gabester]

Rest in peace, architect of the modern free world.

It is more than unfortunate that the same kind of opportunists who engage in high frequency trading, cryptocurrency pyramid schemes, and monopolistic market domination in the west leveraged the lack of institutional authority after the USSR to entrench oligarchy, corruption and cybercrime instead of individual rights, common sense, and rational expectations.

We can all be thankful that Mikhail's leadership bought humanity another 34 years before MAD.

[Speedy]

Only he and Raisa along with Yeltsin could have pulled off the dissolution of the USSR. Perhaps if Bush, Clinton and Bush were smarter towards Russian development we wouldn’t have Putin.

[vision63]

I'm so glad you got to shake his hand.

[Ombligo]

Gorbachev was much more popular in the west than he was in Russia. Russians blamed him for every difficulty the country had after the USSR collapsed. When he ran for president of the federation in 1996, he polled less than 1%.

nevertheless, he possibly saved the world from nuclear annihilation but not contesting the Warsaw Bloc countries pulling away or the collapse of the Soviet government.