Gorbachev's belated victory? By Peter Lavelle Published on March 12, 2004 This article was written for UPI - United Press International
MOSCOW, March 12 (UPI) -- Nineteen years ago this week Mikhail Gorbachev became the general-secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On March 14, President Vladimir Putin is expected to win an overwhelming re-election victory.
Gorbachev's two-famed policy to reinvigorate the ideologically and politically corrupt Soviet Union, "glasnost," meaning "openness," and "perestroika," or "restructuring," were abject failures for the communist system as well as for Gorbachev. However, under Putin, Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika are back in vogue, though for completely different reasons.
Mikhail Gorbachev has to be one of the strangest leaders in history. When he assumed power, he headed a superpower feared and respected internationally. As general-secretary of the Communist Party he was king-philosopher of a political system whose ideology found allegiance in countries in almost every corner of the world.
He attempted to fundamentally change a system that was resistant to the concept. His best efforts to purge the Soviet Union of crippling political and economic habits inherited from Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin -- while preserving the Communist Party's historical right to rule -- were untenable. Gorbachev lost everything with his glasnost and perestroika: his job, his party, his country and, most importantly, the respect of Russia's present-day electorate. However, as an historical oddity of sorts, Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika have life of their own under Putin.
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