Some would say the 20th century ended at Y2K — midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. Others would say that, as a historical phenomenon, it extended until the shock of Sept. 11, 2001. And others still might cite the Great Recession or even the election of Donald Trump as the real end of the long 20th century.
Whichever one you subscribe to, Aug. 30, 2022, should be considered the end of the end — the death of the last personal link to the defining world conflict of the latter half of the 20th century. It is the day Mikhail Gorbachev, the last premier of the Soviet Union, died in Moscow. He was 91.
Gorbachev’s legacy is one of the most complicated and contested in recent history. Was it his bold initiative or Ronald Reagan’s assertiveness that really brought the Cold War to a close, or both? Was he another in a long line of brutal Soviet dictators, an authoritarian who tried to save the Soviet system by liberalizing it and lost control, or a committed democrat who admired the West and desired to align Russia with Western values?
Was he a figure of great moral strength whose openness made ending the Cold War possible, as he is largely seen in America? Or was he a weak and feckless leader who unnecessarily dismantled one of the world’s great superpowers, as he is largely seen in Russia?
The Russian answer to the last question has a very real current effect. Vladimir Putin’s bid to rebuild a greater Russian empire in Ukraine is an attempt to recover for Russia what Gorbachev lost more than three decades ago. It is also Putin’s attempt to cast himself as the anti-Gorbachev.
Putin the anti-Gorbachev repudiates his Soviet predecessor in one particular way that endangers the world: He has closed himself off from his adversaries. Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the end of the Cold War was the genuine, world-shaping warmth that developed between Gorbachev and his American counterpart, Ronald Reagan.
Their friendship showed that personal trust could overcome decades of mutual suspicion. It showed that two people could disagree profoundly, and even have wildly disparate interests and agendas, and still get along well enough to seek common ground and mutually agreeable solutions to tremendous problems.
It’s a kind of trust and maturity that’s in short supply in American politics today. Whether Mikhail Gorbachev was a tyrant who failed or a tyrant who changed, that’s one aspect of his legacy we need desperately to learn from.
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