Thank you for your sympathetic commentary on what Gorbachev wrought. As at best an interested observer of the USSR and the Russian Federation, I can't say whether Gorbachev was a 'success' or a 'failure.' nor whether what he wrought was intentional or not. What I do know is that he - and even Raisa - helped banish my fear. As I child, I conflated the Bolshevik execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family with the "We will bury you" threats of Khrushchev and feared that the Russians would storm our house and execute me and my family. I - a middle-school child - used to lie awake nights trying to figure out how to save us. So, in contrast, Gorbachev seemed almost cuddly, not monstrous. And his working with Reagan to limit nuclear arsenals spared children from the 'duck and cover' drills I knew.
In an odd way, the pop-culture fast-food icon - McDonald's - seems to bookend the period of possibility that Gorbachev ushered in. My childhood self would not have imagined Ronald McDonald in Moscow; my now elderly self views the withdrawal of that franchise as pounding nails in the coffin of the possibility that Gorbachev represented.
Perhaps some fragment of that possibility remains, if only as a distant echo. I was heartened to read that thousands of Russians stood in line for hours to get a few seconds to pay their respects at the House of Unions. That Putin did not attend and did not support a full state funeral for Gorbachev is just one more indication of what a pathetic little man he is.
Thank you for your sympathetic commentary on what Gorbachev wrought. As at best an interested observer of the USSR and the Russian Federation, I can't say whether Gorbachev was a 'success' or a 'failure.' nor whether what he wrought was intentional or not. What I do know is that he - and even Raisa - helped banish my fear. As I child, I conflated the Bolshevik execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family with the "We will bury you" threats of Khrushchev and feared that the Russians would storm our house and execute me and my family. I - a middle-school child - used to lie awake nights trying to figure out how to save us. So, in contrast, Gorbachev seemed almost cuddly, not monstrous. And his working with Reagan to limit nuclear arsenals spared children from the 'duck and cover' drills I knew.
In an odd way, the pop-culture fast-food icon - McDonald's - seems to bookend the period of possibility that Gorbachev ushered in. My childhood self would not have imagined Ronald McDonald in Moscow; my now elderly self views the withdrawal of that franchise as pounding nails in the coffin of the possibility that Gorbachev represented.
Perhaps some fragment of that possibility remains, if only as a distant echo. I was heartened to read that thousands of Russians stood in line for hours to get a few seconds to pay their respects at the House of Unions. That Putin did not attend and did not support a full state funeral for Gorbachev is just one more indication of what a pathetic little man he is.