We should remember Mikhail Gorbachev for his courage

Editorial: Unlike Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev recognised, in the end, that the will of the people was more important than the outcome of its expression

(Dave Brown)

Mikhail Gorbachev was a genuine colossus of global politics in the 20th century. What Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks began in 1917, he wound up a little more than seven decades later. As leader of the Soviet Union from 1985, Gorbachev made decisions – to follow a policy of perestroika (reform) at home and peace abroad – that ultimately created the conditions in which the Cold War could conclude and the Soviet Union would cease to exist.

He helped, in the words of Francis Fukuyama’s famous thesis, to bring about the “end of history”, although in the event that “end” proved to be only a hiatus. Vladimir Putin is trying to reverse the tide of history that Gorbachev surfed alongside. Indeed, today, Gorbachev is a prophet spurned in his own land.

As a child, Gorbachev witnessed at close quarters the centralised brutality of the communist regime. Both his grandfathers spent time in hard labour camps or prison cells; one was tortured for months over allegations that he was involved in a counter-revolutionary organisation.