quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
He saw the writing on the wall. Most Russians have a very low opinion of him, mainly due to the belief that he 'allowed' the West to destroy what they had. A misguided belief, that what was once a glorious and proud nation, was really a bankrupt and hollow shell of a nation, surviving on its own mythology and self crafted image.

quote:

Originally posted by Joel9507:
He truly believed that communism didn't need violence/force to stay in control. He acted on that belief, and the wheels came off.

On purpose or not, his actions (and inactions) freed Eastern Europe and a host of others from Russian control.

Below is an excerpt from a 2011 opinion piece originally posted in a Russian language newspaper, and later translated and published in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But Gorbachev did not want to repeat the bloodshed of the Prague Spring. He gave the Germans a chance to reunite as one country (against the fervent wishes of Paris and London) and the former USSR satellites a chance to return to Europe. Today, in response to accusations that he has “handed over” Eastern Europe, he says, with a touch of sarcasm: “But we gave Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia back to the Poles, Germans, and Czechs!”

This is a long but well written opinion piece, at least worth considering when evaluating Mikhail Gorbachev's contributions and impact on world history.

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This website is a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment’s global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C.

Gorbachev: History Will Be a Fairer Judge

LILIA SHEVTSOVA

Mikhail Gorbachev is a rare leader who changed not just the history of a single nation, but the history of the world by dismantling the Soviet Communist system and ending the Cold War.


Mikhail Gorbachev will turn eighty next week. His birthday is an occasion to look back and ask ourselves questions not only about his contribution to Russia, but also about what happened to us after he left the Kremlin.

The answers to both questions actually come from the Russian leaders who succeeded him. Not long ago, another eightieth birthday—the late Boris Yeltsin’s—was celebrated with great pomp and circumstance as a national event with the participation of the ruling tandem. The official celebrations were meant to demonstrate the continuity of the Vladimir Putin-Dmitry Medvedev regime with that of Yeltsin’s, and to present the latter as the leader who had liberated Russia. It was a brazen attempt to borrow democratic legitimacy from Russia’s first president. For a few hours, the narrative that Putin had saved Russia by rejecting Yeltsin’s “evil 1990s” was dropped; projecting a more civilized image was instead the order of the day. However, the very fact that Yeltsin’s anniversary was turned into a Kremlin-choreographed ballet—with Putin in the solo role preaching on “the ideals of freedom and democracy”—only reinforces doubts about the democratic legacy of Russia’s first president.

By dint of transforming Yeltsin into the official, Kremlin-endorsed reformer, his polar opposite—Gorbachev—automatically gets kicked out of the system. And it’s just as well: though they do not know it, the powers-that-be are doing Gorbachev an invaluable service. It is unlikely that Gorbachev would be interested in providing legitimacy to a regime with repressive tendencies. Having changed the course of world history, this man can watch the rat-race in Russia’s backyard without any qualms. And the further away from Kremlin he gets, the more significantly his figure looms in the space of history.

There are many celebrated names who have shaped the course of recent history: Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Ronald Reagan, Vaclav Havel, and Lech Wałęsa. All are leaders who in decisive moments determined the course of their countries’ history. But only one leader—Gorbachev—determined the long-term history of the global order. What did he actually do? He concluded that force is dangerous as a means of doing politics, both domestically and internationally, particularly when nuclear weapons are at play. “What an idealist!,” skeptics will exclaim. And, indeed, if Gorbachev were to try today, he would probably fail, and fail badly. The political world has become utilitarian, pragmatic, fixated on the status quo, and on traditional ways of thinking. Back then, in the late 1980s, the world was consumed by the hope of renewal and was ready to experience something incredible. Gorbachev came to embody the incredible.

He developed his own “triad” that not only contradicted Soviet principles but was also unusual in terms of Western democracies. First, Gorbachev recognized that the arms race was condemned to failure and that nuclear war was pointless. It was Gorbachev who came up with the idea of a “nuclear-free world” as early as 1986, well before President Obama. Gorbachev’s second major breakthrough was his conviction that every nation is entitled to the freedom of choice. He arrived at this evident truth at a time when the Western community was happy to implement Henry Kissinger’s Realpolitik, which justified the division of the world into “spheres of influence.” And last but not least, by proclaiming glasnost, Gorbachev laid the foundations for the birth of civil society in Russia, for the first time in Russian history.


THE STATESMAN WHO UNLEASHED THE AVALANCHE

What happened was one of those unusual social breakthroughs when the endeavor of a single man launches an avalanche of events that changes the global trajectory (how many similar events in history can we recall?). Gorbachev was the man who launched the avalanche. He was destined to become the leader who dismantled a bellicose civilization—global communism. And it has to be noted that he did it at a time when this civilization seemed likely to live on, fight, or rot indefinitely. Or indeed, it was just as likely to end its life in mad convulsions.

When Gorbachev turned the chessboard, it was not just the Russian elite who were not ready. The happily slumbering West—used to functioning in a bipolar world—was not ready either. Gorbachev’s actions caused consternation and even shock in the Western establishment, disrupting the customary rhythm of life and raising challenges for which the West was not prepared. No wonder U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright once said, sarcastically: “The USSR ... provided us with excuses for our failures.”

Let us look at what Gorbachev accomplished from 1985 to 1990. His “New Thinking” resulted in the Soviet-U.S. dialogue on nuclear disarmament and the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987. Two opposing parties decided to destroy an entire range of nuclear arms capable of unleashing an apocalypse at any time. He then proceeded to negotiate the reductions of strategic offensive weapons and conventional arms, and the ban on chemical, bacteriological, and biological weapons.

The Gorbachev-Reagan dialogue on security issues stemmed not only from Moscow’s recognition of its inability to compete with America in the arms race. A different Soviet leader in his place could have continued playing Russian roulette with the Americans for a long time. He could have blackmailed the West, as North Korea’s leaders have done quite successfully. But Gorbachev decided to voluntarily break with the Soviet paradigm of survival at the expense of keeping up the nuclear threat. The present-day Moscow-Washington dialogue on strategic nuclear force is just a return to Gorbachev’s times, as well as an admission that neither party has been able to come up with anything new since then.

Gorbachev decided to loosen the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe. At the start of the velvet revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, some local leaders were hoping for the Kremlin’s “sympathy.” Gorbachev responded with a firm “Nyet!,” although Soviet troops were still stationed in these countries and all Moscow needed to do was to give the order to attack.

But Gorbachev did not want to repeat the bloodshed of the Prague Spring. He gave the Germans a chance to reunite as one country (against the fervent wishes of Paris and London) and the former USSR satellites a chance to return to Europe. Today, in response to accusations that he has “handed over” Eastern Europe, he says, with a touch of sarcasm: “But we gave Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia back to the Poles, Germans, and Czechs!”

Thanks to one individual, the communist system crumbled to dust. It was the end of the Cold War and of the confrontation between two hostile systems competing for global leadership. In terms of its impact, the peaceful disintegration of totalitarian communism was perhaps the most significant event of the twentieth century. Just think about it—all of this is owed to one man! The world has entered the post-Gorbachev era, which has not ended yet, perhaps because that generation of leaders is gone and their place has been taken by political pygmies.

His attempt to reform the basic tool of totalitarianism—the Communist Party—and to turn it into something more human was a logical extension of Gorbachev’s New Thinking. However, by loosening the iron hoop that had held the Soviet empire together, and by rejecting the “besieged fortress” ideology, he inevitably brought about a dismantling of the empire.

Gorbachev himself clearly was not expecting what he himself had unleashed. He desperately hoped to preserve the USSR under the umbrella of a Commonwealth of Allied States. But the process of national republics pulling away from the center was too powerful and the disintegration could no longer be halted. Who knows, perhaps he might have slowed down the process through a market economy. However, Gorbachev did not have the time to create a market economy.

The motives that had driven Gorbachev to launch his perestroika are a topic in their own right. Was he dreaming of a “socialism with a human face,” as many assume? When he claimed that “more democracy means more socialism,” he clearly meant it. At that point the historical experience proving this was impossible was not yet available. In any case, he knew (and had to know) that perestroika of the Soviet system would not cement his power. He understood the risk of his endeavor.


CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

However, as has now become obvious, neither Gorbachev nor his comrades-in-arms foresaw that perestroika would cause a total collapse of the regime. The leader who started as a reformer ended up as a terminator. It was he who triggered the law of “unintended consequences”: any step, however cautious, toward making the Soviet space less hermetic would only speed up its collapse. Gorbachev created new institutions and enabled society to develop its own forms of activities. All of this contributed to the disintegration of the system that could exist only in a hermetically closed space.

When did Gorbachev realize he was heading toward the dismantling of the USSR? That is for him to say, should he ever feel the need to tell. I believe that at some point he must have realized everything, and must have understood the dilemma he was facing: the USSR could be preserved only at the expense of immense bloodshed. And he was not prepared to go there. Gorbachev destroyed the Soviet leader within himself well before the decline of the Soviet state.

Of course, he did risk an implosion. After all, he had intended to rebuild the system and ended up eliminating the state. What leader would consciously make a decision of this kind, even if he were aware of the state’s shortcomings?

But there is destruction and then there is destruction. Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction,” i.e., one that prepares the foundations for constructive development. This is precisely what Gorbachev did by becoming the great “creative destroyer.” Yes, he did not manage—and did not have the time—to free himself completely from Soviet institutions (some he even tried to preserve). But he created an anti-system realm within the old system. The new institutions helped to avoid the chaos that usually goes hand in hand with disintegration. Gorbachev has brought “the street” into the congress of national deputies and let passionate discourse in. It was Gorbachev and not Yeltsin—as many people claim today—who prevented the Yugoslav scenario as the Soviet Union was disappearing into oblivion.

At the same time, Gorbachev’s actions facilitated the emergence of new forces and a new political atmosphere. In particular, for the first time in Russian history, the head of the regime communicated directly with the nation, even though initially he was astonished and visibly irritated by the consequences of his own doing—the relentless criticism and attacks. But he was no longer able to slam shut the window he himself had thrust open. He set new standards for himself. He gave the country an opportunity to learn to speak out and to argue, and he had to learn this art himself, along with society. He has engendered in us a longing for freedom and gave us an opportunity to learn how to live with it. But he did not have enough time to safeguard the irreversibility of his own transformations. In fact, this is something he could not have done. He was destined to play a less rewarding role—that of clearing the field for new rules of the game.

Gorbachev has been criticized from all quarters. Some have condemned him for having destroyed the customary order of things. Too many people have not yet been able to adjust to a new life in a new country. Others, mainly the intelligentsia, have accused Gorbachev of having moved too slowly and not letting his foot off the brake (I was one of those voicing this objection). We did not understand that the logic of disintegration was at play here, hoping—as Gorbachev hoped—that we were involved in a reform process. That is why we thought it necessary to act more quickly, more boldly, and more forcefully! Only now has it become clear that, had he taken his foot off the brake, the country could have tumbled into an abyss.

Accusing Gorbachev of indecisiveness is, to a large extent, a way of justifying our own uselessness. After all, he gave society free rein and allowed it to come up with solutions and look for alternatives. When the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians found themselves in a similar situation, they started building a new system. In Russia, the politically active part of the population (which includes you and me) turned out not to be ready to devise or even to articulate its aspirations. We were expecting the leader to find the solution for us. After becoming disenchanted with Gorbachev, we pinned our hopes on Yeltsin, thus proving we were not capable of making use of the freedom that had suddenly fallen into our laps.

Another thing that has been held against Gorbachev is that he did not call a general election that would have bestowed on him the same legitimacy Yeltsin enjoyed. Only later did it become clear that it was pointless to demand such a thing from Gorbachev. It would also have been extremely dangerous. Seeking a democratic mandate for president of the Soviet Union at a time when the Soviet empire was beginning to crumble would only have made this process more painful and would have most likely resulted in bloodshed.


A BASIC TEST

By creating a space for glasnost, Gorbachev created an opportunity to take steps toward institutional political pluralism. But after some hesitation, Russia under Yeltsin started turning back. The shelling of the discontented parliament—Gorbachev also had his fair share of problems with the Russian parliament but somehow managed to get along with it!—the authoritarian constitution that put the leader ahead of society, the unfair privatization, the Chechen war, the manipulation of the 1996 election, and, last but not least, the handing of power to a successor—these were the landmarks in the formation of a system that can hardly be called democratic. “But we did have freedom of speech under Yeltsin! He did let his enemies out of prison! He did tolerate criticism!,” the Russian president’s liberal supporters will object. And I will say: “You’re right!” But how did it end?”

“You idealize Gorbachev!,” my opponents will no doubt exclaim. “What about Karabakh, Baku, Tbilisi, Vilnius? It all ended in bloodshed!” In trying to explain these tragedies, the human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov used to say that perestroika was by no means perfect, if only because its leaders functioned within a “totalitarian system that had not yet not completely collapsed.” I concede the point: Gorbachev did not manage to fully come to grips with the agony of the totalitarian system. But he passed the basic test—he refused to use force in Moscow. And that was a decisive blow to the totalitarian logic. But what could possibly justify the Chechen war waged by Yeltsin, the man who followed a democratic logic?

Gorbachev gave us a chance to create what we considered necessary. Some nations—the Baltics and Eastern Europe—made use of this chance. They are Gorbachev’s true legacy. For a very brief moment, in the autumn of 1991, Yeltsin also had the chance to make use of the Gorbachev impetus. At that point there was a national consensus in Russia for devising a new constitution and a new system. But Yeltsin—like most of us—did not even notice this moment.

For a long time we continued to perceive the remaining freedoms (freedom of the media, freedom to criticize powers-that-be, and freedom to fight for the monopoly of power) as evidence of a path to democracy. In fact, these freedoms went hand in hand with a turn in the opposite direction. What Yeltsin did was not only create a new autocracy; he has discredited liberal democracy (and he did it with our participation). Under its banner, he proceeded to take Russia—maybe unconsciously at first—back to the past. Putin did not appear out of the blue; he has not distorted Yeltsin’s legacy. Putin became the stabilizer and the first manager of the system Yeltsin created. So the officially proclaimed continuity between Yeltsin and the current tandem is actually fully justified.


LIFE AFTER THE KREMLIN

Today Russia has returned to the pre-Gorbachev era, complete with vertical power, a decorative constitution, and a superpower imperial identity, striving for technological modernization and even political prisoners. Again, we face the necessity of starting from scratch. And we have to ask ourselves again: can autocracy be reformed or do we have to follow Gorbachev and start by dismantling it? Gorbachev and his fate provide an unambiguous answer to this question.

Gorbachev emerges as a dramatic personality: he has transformed the world order, yet his own country sees him as a destroyer. Yet the world has never known and will never know a leader capable of playing a dual role—that of dismantling the old system and of starting to build a new one. Leaders hurt their popularity as soon as they begin to destroy ordinary life. This is true particularly as these two roles call for different methods and different forms of legitimacy. Moreover, no society in the world has ever perceived the leaders who dared to break the norms—no matter how horrific they were—as heroes in their own lifetime. Recognition comes to great leaders who have threatened the status quo only once they have passed away.

What makes Gorbachev’s leadership so dramatic is that he was swept off the Russian scene by the wave he himself had unleashed. He was destined to suffer loneliness, hostility, and a lack of understanding. Those who rose under Gorbachev’s perestroika could not forgive his greatness and his daring. Those who came to power thanks to him would exact petty and foul revenge.

Gorbachev experienced profound personal grief when he lost the person dearest to him—his wife and companion Raisa. And at some point, it was this human grief that brought Gorbachev closer to Russia: by understanding the suffering of Gorbachev the man, people started to realize the significance of Gorbachev the politician.

Gorbachev’s legacy is not only a new world and a new country, to which we have not yet grown accustomed. He has created precedents that might form the basis of a new life, if we turned them into a tradition. Gorbachev was the first leader in Russia’s history who left the Kremlin without clinging to power and without trying to appoint a successor. So far there has been no demand for instituting the tradition of leaders’ voluntary exits from the Kremlin.

Gorbachev has made one other important thing evident for Russia—he demonstrated that it is possible to live a normal and full life after laying down power, and in one’s home country at that. He has not left Russia even though any Western country would be honored to make Gorbachev its honorary citizen, offering him a far more comfortable life than the one he leads in Russia. Gorbachev has nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of. He has no need to hide or to hide anything.

Gorbachev’s “post-Kremlin” life provides further proof of his incredibly democratic character. One can tell by his circle of friends—journalists, writers, and musicians. One can tell by the fact that he has created his own social environment and managed to remove the distance dictated by his former office. Not even Western leaders can afford the degree of openness and human interaction that this Citizen of the World has created around him. To experience this, one only need attend any meeting at the Gorbachev Foundation in which he participates.

Gorbachev is the first Russian leader to have desacralized power, becoming a symbol of a new era. And it is not his fault that in Russia, this era has yet to dawn.

In Russia's political life, which is currently undermining moral authority and standards, Gorbachev remains the only person whose words the world listens to. The fact that we are trying to ignore him says more about us than about him. Of course, more time will pass before history can fully appreciate the impact this man has had on the world scene.

Right now Gorbachev has to cope with another ordeal. This vivacious and fascinating man has become a monument in his own lifetime. Gorbachev has become History. Thomas Carlyle was right in saying that history was the biography of great men. Having booked his place in eternity, Gorbachev remains an incredible man. To be a human being and history at the same time, while remaining down to earth and not losing one’s sense of self-irony—Gorbachev can be incredibly funny!—requires one to be an outstanding individual.

Gorbachev has not been lucky with us. But we have been lucky with him—even though we have yet to realize it.

This translation originally appeared on openDemocracy. The original article was published in Russian in Novaya Gazeta.


Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

I was surprised to know he's been alive all this time. With Reagan dead, I figure he was also since I've not heard his name since.

He did have a strange title: Last Soviet leader.

A very good video about Gorbachev

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkIajR1RMkY

A longer video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L53pebMuBKs

Here is an article that offers a slightly different take on Mikhail Gorbachev for those interested. WARNING... Read at your own risk. It might not share the same opinions as MSM and Hollywood Celebs.


Mikhail Gorbachev: Globalist Super-Star
By Kerry R Bolton | Apr 3, 2011 | Asia Pacific, Essays, Europe

https://www.foreignpolicyjourn...lobalist-super-star/

"Gorbachev also founded the Club of Madrid, and Green Cross International. The Club of Madrid focuses on bringing together former heads of state, currently comprising 79 former presidents and prime ministers from 56 countries.[61] Green Cross International (GCI) was founded by Gorbachev in 1993.[62] Again, this has a series of programs advancing the globalist agenda on the pretext of environmental concerns".

Okay, so Gorbachev was a committed communist who never would have turned off the road to the world of communism, and also a globalist who brought about the collapse of the superpower ideologically committed to communist world revolution because ... ?

^^^^^^^^^
These same globalist fucks are the same ones that are destroying this country. The same ones that control over almost everything you see and hear in the media. The same ones that fund Black Lives Matter, Antifa, etc.. Sorry, I can't give the Fucktard a pass.

Well I did gather from your linked article that Gorbachev was a stooge for the globalists who had tried to subvert the USSR through American policy for 40 years because the Soviets were aware of the danger presented by the Zionist capitalists. I can see it now - Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II. and all the other Jewish globalist puppets conspiring over whiskey and cigars how to finish that pesky Soviet Union once and for all.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
Well I did gather from your linked article that Gorbachev was a stooge for the globalists who had tried to subvert the USSR through American policy for 40 years because the Soviets were aware of the danger presented by the Zionist capitalists. I can see it now - Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II. and all the other Jewish globalist puppets conspiring over whiskey and cigars how to finish that pesky Soviet Union once and for all.

Who said he was a stooge?
You forgot to mention George Soros, Ted Turner, Maurice Strong, Bilderberg Group and the Who's Who of other P.O.S. that have been working to destroy the middle class in countries around the world.

I never knew that he was reviled in Russia as the man who let it all collapse, he’s always been highly regarded here in the West.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
Who said he was a stooge?
You forgot to mention George Soros, Ted Turner, Maurice Strong, Bilderberg Group and the Who's Who of other P.O.S. that have been working to destroy the middle class in countries around the world.

You're funny, but not unusual these days in that you claim, and possibly even believe, that you're denouncing left-wingers while spouting thinly-revamped classical communist propaganda. You're linking to an article that is essentially Stalinist in ideology, declaring American policy to counter the Soviet Union to be "Trotskyist", complete with anti-Semitic under-, over- and middletones against Zionism, capitalism, the Rothschilds, Soros, etc. The only modernization is that it substitutes "globalism" for "imperialism". That it makes Putin the heir of the USSR's brave fight against American Zionist globalist capitalism is completely congruent with Putin's statement that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.

I've come to refer to your type as neo-commies, basically the reverse of the neocons who started out as leftists which became disillusioned over leftist positions towards the USSR and Israel. If you refer to proponents of spreading Western liberal democratic values as "globalists" the same way classical communists called them "imperialists", you're a neo-commie. If you believe the West is in cultural decline because of decadent music and movies, because it's full of homosexuals and drug addicts like the classical communists did, you're a neo-commie. If you believe the fascist warmongering US government and its Zionist capitalist puppetmasters are the real threat to world peace like the classical communists did, you're a neo-commie. If you ever wonder how the Soviets recruited their useful idiots, fellow travellers and fifth columnists in the West, look in the mirror.

LOL... All this time I thought I was a Trump supporting conservative that cared about the working/middle class of this Country.

Usually folks on Sigforum don't resort to name calling, even when they disagree. I must have really hit a nerve.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
Here is an article that offers a slightly different take on Mikhail Gorbachev for those interested.

I'm not sure if you realize this, but citing ANYTHING written by Kerry Bolton as support for your argument will automatically make anyone who's ever had the misfortune of reading his garbage assume you're as fooked-in-the-head as he is.

Unless your argument is "Kerry Bolton is insane." Then, citing Kerry Bolton is actually fantastic support for your argument.

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
Here is an article that offers a slightly different take on Mikhail Gorbachev for those interested.

I'm not sure if you realize this, but citing ANYTHING written by Kerry Bolton as support for your argument will automatically make anyone who's ever had the misfortune of reading his garbage assume you're as fooked-in-the-head as he is.

Unless your argument is "Kerry Bolton is insane." Then, citing Kerry Bolton is actually fantastic support for your argument.

The motives of Mikhail Gorbachev are undeniable to anyone who's paying attention. Here is an article released today from "The New American".
I know "The New American" is what you might call right wing but it's been used as a source a number of times on this forum.



Gushing Eulogies Hide Gorbachev’s Role in the Globalist-Communist “Great Reset”
by William F. Jasper September 1, 2022

https://thenewamerican.com/gus...mmunist-great-reset/

“Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of remarkable vision,” declared President Joe Biden, who also extolled the “courage” of the former Soviet dictator, whom he described as “a rare leader.”

According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Mikhail Gorbachev was “a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history. He did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War.” “The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace,” Guterres said.

“Gorbachev wrote world history. He exemplified how a single statesman can change the world for the better,” said former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed Gorbachev’s “humanitarian” side. “I will especially note the great humanitarian, charitable, and educational activities that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev has been conducting in recent years,” Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin.

Former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III averred that Gorbachev was “a giant” and “an honest broker” whom he could trust. “History will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as a giant who steered his great nation toward democracy,” Baker said. “The free world misses him greatly.”

So it has gone with the garish gushings for Gorby from the great and the good of the globalist chorus since it was announced that the sainted communist leader had passed to his eternal reward on August 30. The media-driven Cult of Gorby reached its zenith in the 1980s and 90s, but then continued with impressive spurts in the early 2000s. The Gorbachev cult far exceeded the infamous cult of personality campaigns of mass-murdering dictators Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, which were directed by their respective communist parties and carried out by their state-owned-and-controlled media/propaganda organs. The Gorby cult phenomenon is different in that it is global and is shamelessly nurtured and promoted by free world politicians, academics, think tanks, and — especially — the media.

But not everyone has joined the adulation. “Lithuanians will not glorify Gorbachev,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis. “We will never forget the simple fact that his army murdered civilians to prolong his regime’s occupation of our country. His soldiers fired on our unarmed protestors and crushed them under his tanks. That is how we will remember him.”

Comments like those of Landsbergis by the victims of Soviet atrocities and Soviet occupation are dismissed by the Gorby adoration choir as the bitter rantings of zealots still stuck in the Cold War mentality. However, the effusive, reverent panegyrics to Gorbachev by the globalist elites are providing a major clue to millions of awakening people around the world regarding Gorbachev’s real role in the decades-long joint effort by communists and globalists to bring about “convergence” of the communist and non-communist nations under a world government.


Gorbachev and UN: Pushing Enviro-Leninism

Gorbachev has played a starring role in this extended drama to create a communist-style global regime, the most recent expression of which is the Great Reset announced by the billionaires’ club known as the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2020. Their Great Reset intends to “reset” the planet and all humanity — economically, politically, socially, biologically, morally, and spiritually — along communist lines, with central planning, control, and regimentation of every aspect of human life.

Klaus Schwab, the croaky, guttural-voiced James Bond villain who runs the WEF from Davos, Switzerland, has been a key Gorbachev promoter among the Western business and banking elites for decades. Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong, a co-founder with Schwab of the WEF, became Gorbachev’s boon companion. United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed Strong to be Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit, which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

The globalists used the Earth Summit to stoke the fears of environmental apocalypse and promote the idea that only global governance could save us. Out of the Earth Summit came a slew of UN treaties to implement a Soviet-style global green regime to respond to the “existential crises”: global warming, acid rain, deforestation, ozone depletion, biological diversity, etc.

To deliver on these objectives, Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev became a globalist lobbying tag team. Together with Steven Rockefeller they drafted the UN’s Earth Charter to be a spiritual/environmental guide for humanity. “My hope is that this charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond,” Gorbachev stated in a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Not that the Earth Charter is in any way compatible with orthodox Judeo-Christian understandings of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Quite the opposite; the Earth Charter is intended to replace the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount with a new, pantheistic, “green” spirituality, which was telegraphed in the Earth Summit’s “Declaration of the Sacred Earth” that endorsed “the superior laws of Divine Nature.”

Following the Earth Summit, Gorbachev launched Green Cross International and Strong established the Earth Council, which the dynamic duo jointly used to propel the schemes for global control.

To truly grasp the seminal role Mikhail Gorbachev has played in the global Deep State’s convergence game plan, one must read the works of Soviet KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn: New Lies for Old (1984) and The Perestroika Deception (1998). We have written about Golitsyn and his warnings to the West many times over the years. For a summary of the Golitsyn theses, we recommend reading the three-part interview The New American conducted in 1995 with Christopher Story, publisher of the U.K.-based Soviet Analyst and official publisher of Golitsyn’s works:

Part One: Dispelling Disinformation

Part Two: Leninists Still Leading

Part Three: Red March to Global Tyranny

As a researcher and journalist, I have over the decades covered Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise, speeches, writings, official actions, and global peregrinations. I have also seen him up-close and personal at the United Nations and, particularly, at his high-level State of the World Forum events (sponsored by the Gorbachev Foundation), which have drawn glittering constellations of presidents, prime ministers, potentates, princes, poohbahs, and celebrity poseurs. At two of his State of the World Forums (San Francisco in 1995 and New York City in 2000), I was one of only five journalists admitted into the inner sanctum, where I could mix freely with the Gorby glitterati. (And I confess that, under the circumstances, I did even shake the hand of the Exalted One).

As we have documented at The New American many times over the years, Gorbachev has been an unstinting and explicit proponent of a “New World Order” and “world government” under an empowered United Nations.

He also remained, as far as we know, a committed atheist and Marxist-Leninist. On December 23, 1989, Gorbachev declared to the Congress of People’s Deputies assembled in Moscow, “I am a communist. For some that may be a fantasy. But for me it is my main goal.” During a trip to Byelorussia on February 26, 1991, Gorbachev said, “I am not ashamed to say that I am a communist and adhere to the communist idea, and with this I will leave for the other world.”

Well, he has left for that “other world,” and it is not likely that he was received by God Almighty and the Heavenly Host with the same hosannahs that were lavished on him by earthly sycophants and fellow conspirators.

For a better understanding this “great humanitarian” and the pivotal role Gorbachev has played in the globalist-communist scheme to push humanity into the abyss of Orwellian totalitarianism, we suggest reading the following articles:

I saw that Jane Fonda has cancer and is undergoing treatment. You may go 2 for 2 on you celebrity death list this year.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
He was on my celebrity death list, so now I’m tied with my wife and FIL with 1 so far this year….here’s to hoping my least favorite traitor Jane Fonda gets her wings this year.

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
I'm not sure if you realize this, but citing ANYTHING written by Kerry Bolton as support for your argument will automatically make anyone who's ever had the misfortune of reading his garbage assume you're as fooked-in-the-head as he is.

Unless your argument is "Kerry Bolton is insane." Then, citing Kerry Bolton is actually fantastic support for your argument.

I had to look this guy up. Good grief, he's like a sheep-shagging budget version of Russian nationalist Nazi occultist Aleksandr Dugin, who has been sensationalistically hyped as "Putin's chief ideologue" for his works on an "Eurasian empire" and recently made the news again when his daughter was blown up in his car, blamed on "Ukrainian terrorists".

quote:

In 1980, Bolton co-founded the New Zealand branch of the Church of Odin, a pro-Nazi organisation for "whites of non-Jewish descent".[5] He has published and edited newsletters such as The Watcher, The Flaming Sword, The Heretic, The Nexus, Ab Aeterno (assistant editor) and Western Destiny. He founded the national-socialist Order of the Left Hand Path (OLHP) in 1992,[4][5] following a quarrel with other members of the Temple of Set.[6][dubious – discuss] Two years later it was renamed the Ordo Sinistra Vivendi ("Order of the Left Way"), and in the same year created the fascist Black Order.[4][7][8] It claimed to have a network of national lodges in six European countries plus Australia and the U.S.[4] It was intended to be an activist front promoting an "occult-fascist axis" by mobilising political groups and youth culture elements such as industrial music.[4] Bolton created and edited the Black Order newsletter, The Flaming Sword, and its successor,[discuss] The Nexus, a satanic-Nazi journal with special attention given to figures such as Savitri Devi, Julius Evola, and Ezra Pound, and which especially catered to the black metal movement.[discuss] It later changed its name to Western Destiny.[4] In 1996, Bolton formed The Thelemic Society which blended rightist politics with the teachings of the English occultist Aleister Crowley and the philosophy of the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche.[9]

Bolton was a co-founder of the Nationalist Workers' Party,[4] and was briefly secretary for the New Zealand Fascist Union in 1997,[10] in which he promoted the 'patriotic socialism' of 1930s Labour hero John A. Lee.[11] In 2004 he was the secretary of the New Zealand National Front[12][13][14] and spokesman[discuss] for the New Right group.[15][16] He was also involved with the New Zealand National Front but resigned because of disputes with neo-Nazi and white supremacist factions.[17] In 2021, Critic reported that Bolton is in regular contact with the white supremacist organisation Action Zealandia.[18][19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Bolton

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
I had to look this guy up. Good grief, he's like a sheep-shagging budget version of Russian nationalist Nazi occultist Aleksandr Dugin, who has been sensationalistically hyped as "Putin's chief ideologue" for his works on an "Eurasian empire" and recently made the news again when his daughter was blown up in his car, blamed on "Ukrainian terrorists".

Boy...you really have a hard-on for Gorbachev.
VERY INTERESTING!



Since this thread is about Gorbachev, tell our viewing audience everything that's not true in the Bolton and "The New American" articles.
Here's your chance to defend him. Go for it Champ!

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Bolton

By the way... since you like to use Wiki as your to-go source, maybe folks would also like to know more about the founder of Wiki.
You can find his profile at the World Economic Forum website.
https://www.weforum.org/people/jimmy-wales

He looks pretty cozy with Klaus and Gates don't ya think?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jupiter,