According to A. Fedyashin
The Western image of Mikhail Gorbachev as the victor of communism is not wrong, but it lacks accuracy in at least two respects. First, its original goal was to reform and save, not destroy, both the Communist Party and the USSR. Second, the Cold War ended before, not because of, the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Gorbachev's internationalist "new thinking" in foreign policy influenced Gorbachev's perestroika as a step towards a new world order that replaced the Marxist messianism of Moscow, to create a system of multipolar collective security. He articulated this vision before the UN General Assembly in a 1988 speech in which he called for "de-ideologizing relations between states" and comparing "everything original that each nation independently created" in order to discover "the advantages of their social systems, lifestyles and values." While Reagan argued that the "march of freedom and democracy" would "leave Marxism-Leninism in the dustbin of history," Gorbachev saw the new era as a period of mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and experiences between capitalism and socialism. Gorbachev's UN speech ended the Cold War but did not condemn socialism.
Even before President George W. Bush spoke of a "whole and free Europe" in May 1989, Gorbachev was already promoting the UN as a platform for discussing world problems and expressing his vision of a "common European home." On May 21, 1989, a New York Times editorial began: "Imagine an alien spacecraft approaching Earth and sending a message: 'Take me to your leader.' Who would it be? Without a doubt, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev. By the end of the year, Gorbachev's rejection of the use of force led to the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
Self-confident and endlessly optimistic that the forces of history are good and reasonable, Gorbachev did not demand written guarantees to prevent NATO expansion and did not take constructive steps to conclude a new collective security treaty. Blinded by his own messianic message of ridding the world of bipolarity, he failed to grasp the effort that would be required to implement multipolarity in a world drifting towards a unipolar structure. Like Don Quixote, Gorbachev was heading towards an existential tragedy, although he had already transformed his country and the world beyond recognition.
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