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?
