Mikhail Gorbachev's unique contribution to the final balance of the Cold War and to the

process that culminated simultaneously in the implosion of the Soviet Union and the

failure of Soviet communism has motivated and continues to motivate scholars to think

about the impact one man can have in the course of certain political processes. In the

case of the Soviet Union and its disruptive process, the decisive influence of the political

leader, Gorbachev, on the tragic outcome of the attempt at economic, social, and political

reform seems evident. It is clear that a number of other factors, namely structural ones,

influenced the events of 1985-1991, both inside and outside the Soviet Union. However,

this reflection will focus on Gorbachev's role, his choices, and the limits imposed on him

by the very nature of the regime he had tried to reform since 1985.

who, to free the Soviets and East Europeans from fear, let a country and an ideology fail.

However, and despite this dichotomy, there seems to be some consensus among scholars

about the importance and the protagonism played by Gorbachev for the Cold War to end

when and as it did. Compared to any other Soviet leader, he was the first and only one

to transform a country and system that was enormous but too small for his worldview

and innovative mindset. In his homeland, however, Gorbatchev is rather seen as a

presumptuous utopian, betrayed by his own overconfidence, and responsible for the

extermination of a seventy-year-old people and nation.

Before any further considerations about the role of this leader in the process that

culminated simultaneously in the breakup of the Soviet Union, the demonstration of the

failure of an ideology and the end of the Cold War, it is necessary to underline the

pertinence associated with the exercise of looking at the human factor as one of the

explanatory elements of these events. The narratives of major historical events and

elements are related, on the one hand, to the constraints inherent to the Cold War and,

on the other hand, to the characteristics of the Soviet regime itself. The bipolar balance

of power in the second half of the 1980s, as one of these major structural elements, was

responsible for the gradual strangulation of Soviet capabilities, mainly economic ones. In

measuring forces with the rival superpower, the depletion of these capabilities would

eventually lead to the Soviet system no longer being able to respond to military,

technological, and space competition. At the same time, the rigidity and centralism

typical of this totalitarian regime, as well as its status as a multinational state and its

chronic inefficiency, also largely contributed to the tragic outcome that followed the

implementation of a plan to reform the country.

that of the individuals listed by Park. Nor is it the intention to demonstrate that all political

processes are equally influenced by the leaders who spearhead them. Rather, it is about

showing how a leader can have a crucial impact on a given political process and, in

particular, how Gorbachev was so important, even decisive, in the historical-political

process that reflects both his unusual courage and strategy, for some, and the exhaustion

mind. Still, this was not the most important sign of the change that Gorbachev would

implement in the Soviet Union (and in the world): the most important was the way he

tried to implement that change, the paths he chose to take, and those he did not choose,

to make that change possible. Unlike his predecessors, he did not seek to transform the

Soviet system overnight, just as he did not seek to continue the old practice of the total

uniformization of Soviet society in search of a "single Soviet people” – Sovetskii Narod

(Smith, 1992: 9-10).

As much or more than for his ideas, Gorbatchev distinguished himself by the way he tried

to implement them, by the way, somewhat strange for a Soviet leader, he proved to

always put himself in the other's shoes. These ideas, together with the way in which they

The great transformations made possible by this leader became historic not only because

they reoriented the course of history at the end of the 20th century, but mainly because

of the peaceful and gradual way in which they were made. Not all leaders are responsible

for these kinds of transformations; some are not responsible for any transformations. All

leaders therefore have what Joseph Nye classified as "varying degrees of impact on

history" (Nye, 2008: 8). When working under the dome of a totalitarian regime, such as

the Soviet one, the weight that a particular political leadership can have is further

enhanced. As British expert Archie Brown has observed, "the incentive for a leader to be

the big decision-maker is even greater, and its consequences even more dangerous,

the negotiation for a denuclearized world. Perhaps the main consequence of his reformist

project was not the disappearance of the Soviet Union, but the disappearance of fear,

which he managed to replace peacefully by a set of opportunities, once belonging to a

sphere of impossible things for both Soviets and East Europeans.

When he comes to power, Gorbatchev is a reformer, but a reformer within the limits of

the system itself. This is why his intention to reform Soviet communism cannot be

confused with a plan to replace it. For the same reason, one should also not overly

romanticize the project of this leader, whose main purpose was to recover the purity of

the Marxist-Leninist nature of the Soviet system. Despite his unequivocal admiration for

certain Western values, such as freedom and democracy (although we must observe

these within the understanding of one who was brought up in Soviet structures),

Gorbachev is a man who grows up inside communism and it is by his devotion to

communism that he comes to power. It is therefore not possible to say that his reform

project reflected an attempt to replace the prevailing system in the USSR. Rather, this

The generation of politicians from which Gorbachev emerges goes back to the

considered since World War II as the "Soviet political backyard” (Brown, 2020: 276-277)

– Eastern Europe. The controversy attached to this leader's name lies precisely in this

paradox: in order to reinvigorate Soviet communism, Gorbachev had lost the reins,

allowing everyone, inside and outside the Soviet Union, to choose their own way, even if

it meant the failure of all his ambitions and the naive belief that it would be possible to

these processes: he could have had the first publicly critical Perestroika arrested; he

could have given orders to kill everyone who tried to cross the Berlin Wall; he could have

prevented the rise of Boris Yeltsin; he could have used force to put down the first

nationalist demonstrations in the Baltic Republics. The most striking decisions of this

leader were, as Anne Applebaum noted, those that he did not make (Applebaum, 2011).

The recognition due to him is mainly justified by these decisions never taken and the way

in which an authentic product of the Soviet regime chose to distance himself from the

Within the Soviet Union, and strangely enough, Gorbachev seems never to have been

truly recognized for the unprecedented possibilities he offered the Soviets, allowing them

deepening of his country's legitimacy and power, but rather in its erosion, which finally

culminated in its ultimate demise. As emphasized at the beginning of this reflection,

several external forces actively contributed to this outcome - first of all, the successive

loss of means to maintain the level of competition with the rival superpower. But it was

the domestic forces that made such a rapid implosion possible: Gorbachev created more

to transform a totalitarian regime, and therefore it can only be done by trial and error”

(Zubok, 2007: 313-314). Only after a first attempt at reform - Perestroika - was it

possible to realize that, in addition to a transformation of its economic model, the Soviet

Union needed to be transformed culturally and socially. The shift from Gorbachev's

reformist project to a system-level transformation results not from the leader's

incapacities, but from the chronic deficiencies of the regime itself. What this means is

that the plan to reform this regime only became radicalized as the regime itself

Only those who have the ability to see in Gorbachev the figure of a liberator, responsible

for progress that no other Soviet leader has ever been interested in, understand how the

Brown, Archie (2014). The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern

Age. New York: Basic Books.