Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He presided over the end of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States as well as the dissolution of the union of socialist republics. In the West, he is commonly seen as a towering historical figure who changed the course of history.
But Gorbachev’s legacy outside the West-Russia binary is more ambivalent. As the Soviets and Americans repaired their rift on Gorbachev’s watch, many of Africa’s political and intellectual elites were full of foreboding. As I’ve documented in past research, the Cold War was a period that provided African nations with considerable international leverage.
