Analysis: Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at age 91, liked to talk. And after he took power in the Soviet Union in 1985, he wanted his country to talk, and talk openly, about its problems. It only hastened its demise.
To that end, in 1989 he created a new parliament, the Congress of Peoples' Deputies. The debates of the newly elected MPs were broadcast on national television. Gorbachev and his ministers wandered the corridors, taking questions from reporters.
The Soviet leader, like Russian President Vladimir Putin today, had direct control of the main television channels. And so, night after night, Soviet viewers saw Gorbachev — often accompanied by his striking wife, Raisa — at the top of the news, for 10, 20, even 30 minutes, addressing his ministers, conversing with people in the streets. Talking.
All through the winter and spring of 1991, his aides and allies warned him that his opponents in the Communist Party and the KGB were planning a coup. He ignored them, convinced that, once again, he could outmanoeuvre them. The coup dissolved and, in its wake, Yeltsin demanded that the Communist Party be dissolved. It was done.
When he became the leader of his party and the country in 1985, Gorbachev promoted Yakovlev to the politburo. Their economic answer to the country's problems was further centralization of the almost catatonic agricultural and industrial ministries. The result was a morass.
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