Death of Gorbachev: Adored in the West, unloved in the East

Mikhail Gorbachev has died at the age of 91. At home he opened up Soviet society with perestroika and glasnost, but above all in the West he was acclaimed by the masses as “Gorbi”: A look back at the eventful life of the last Soviet leader.

He was a tragic hero: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the last head of the Soviet Union. Revered in the West, but unloved at home – to the end. As a farmer’s child, he grew up with his grandparents – in the midst of Stalin’s terror. His grandfather was also arrested. Little Mischa had a particularly close relationship with him.

Eyewitnesses say he got the courage and ambition from his grandfather. He needed both: Mischa was the first from his village to go to Moscow to study in the 1950s. He enrolled at the famous Lomonosov University. He met his great love Raissa here. And it was here that he made the contacts that would later take him to the top.

“Gorbimania” in the West

And one day it was the man from the provinces who inspected the parade in Moscow. The images flickered in every Soviet living room. Gorbachev was now the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. The young new head of state opened up Soviet society: he ventured cautious democratization with perestroika and glasnost. This triggered true “Gorbimania” in the West: in Bonn, the masses cheered him on. A young Soviet leader who no longer fit the old enemy images.

And: He showed the woman at his side. That was new too. Raisa Gorbacheva was also there when her husband wrote history in the mountains of the North Caucasus and negotiated German reunification with Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

Yeltsin replaced him after the putsch

But Gorbachev was only a hero for the West. At home, many resented perestroika. Because that was the beginning of the end of the giant empire, the beginning of a chaotic time for many.

The criticism that made it possible for Gorbachev to express it hit him first and foremost. In 1991, opponents of his policies staged a coup, and suddenly tanks rolled up in Moscow. Gorbachev and family were trapped in their vacation home in Crimea. The coup failed, but not Gorbachev but Boris Yeltsin had put it down. He was the new strongman in Russia.

Gorbachev returned to Moscow – although the coup had failed – a defeated man. His wife Raissa never recovered from the hardships of that time.

Gorbachev changed his huge country – and with him the whole world. In the end he was more popular abroad than at home. But his great merit remains: Mikhail Gorbachev opened the door to freedom for his people.