He did not achieve popularity in his country
Gorbachev played a complex and unique role in world history
Thatcher understood the nature of the Gorbachev regime and was ready to establish relations with Moscow.
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Putin openly represents the sentiments of Russians who considered the end of the Soviet Union unworthy of a great power.
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Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at the age of 91, was the last leader of the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union, a position he held for a few years, from 1985 to 1991. During his last speech in power, he lamented that the Soviet Union had been torn apart, but emphasized the achievements The character he achieved, including the promotion of religious and political freedom, the introduction of democracy and the market economy, and of course this was the end of the Cold War.
All politicians take pride in their accomplishments when they conclude their tenure in power.
But in Gorbachev's case, what he said was not bragging but belittles him.
The most terrifying dictatorship
A few years before that, the Soviet Union was one of the most terrifying dictatorships in history, sending its soldiers everywhere in order to rule nearly a third of the planet's surface and control hundreds of millions of citizens through terror.
Although the Soviet opponents (and I was one of them) were telling the world that the Soviet system was weak from within, our expectations of its collapse were dismissed as wishful thinking by some, especially those Western experts fascinated by the seemingly indomitable power of the Soviet Union.
However, the Soviet Union collapsed, and without a single shot being fired.
From the point of view of the West, this is a direct result of decisions made by one man, Gorbachev.
Not surprisingly, this man is so respected in the free world that he was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1990, and terms he introduced into the political lexicon, such as glasnost (opening) and perestroika (reconstruction), helped define the era.
Gorbachev's popularity
Surprisingly, however, Gorbachev did not achieve this kind of admiration in his country.
In a 2017 poll, 8% of Russian citizens voted positively for Gorbachev, and the vast majority of Russians had a negative opinion of him.
The reason for this is that many Russians consider the end of the Soviet Union to have been catastrophic, as their country has lost its status as a fearsome superpower.
These days, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly represents the sentiments of these Russians.
Meanwhile, we opponents, and other intellectuals who did not believe in the system and wanted change, and who fought for decades for Gorbachev's reforms, held more complex views of the last leader of the Soviet Union.
For example, Gorbachev was a true believer in the ideas of Marx and Lenin, and the original intentions of his pioneering reforms were to make communism more humane.
In addition, at the moment when it became clear that the people's desire for freedom could eventually lead to the undermining of the regime, Gorbachev did his best to rein in the forces he had unleashed.
During his first visit to the Western world, before becoming head of the Politburo, Gorbachev discovered that the Soviet Union had paid a diplomatic and economic price for its poor treatment of dissidents.
As a result, during his first year in power, he began releasing political prisoners and allowing Jews to immigrate to Israel.
But when it became clear that such a policy could lead to mass immigration out of the country, new restrictions were imposed.
Iron Curtain collapse
The Iron Curtain only began to collapse when about 250,000 people demonstrated in Washington in 1987, in support of Soviet Jews, welcoming Gorbachev during his first visit as Russia's president, and demanding that Jews be allowed to emigrate.
Free immigration from the Soviet Union quickly led to demands by religious and nationalist groups in the Soviet Union for self-determination.
Gorbachev resisted this idea, sending the army to Georgia, Lithuania, and elsewhere, killing dozens of protesters in the process.
Russian dissident Andrei Zakharov, who was released by Gorbachev in 1986, spent the last days of his life resisting Gorbachev's attempts to salvage the one-party system and avoid contesting Soviet elections.
Shortly before Zakharov's death in 1989, he called me in Israel to tell me that he could not visit me because he would not allow himself to leave Moscow for one day, missing the opportunity to obstruct Gorbachev's absolute power.
Factors of the collapse of the Soviet Union
I was the first political prisoner to be released by Gorbachev, at the beginning of 1986, and when I got out of prison I was asked at once if I wanted to thank him for being free.
I said that I am very grateful to everyone who contributed to my release, because I understood that without them I would not have been released.
A decade later, the circumstances of the collapse of the Soviet Union changed.
One day I was participating with Gorbachev in a press conference in Poland, and someone asked me what forces led to the collapse of the Soviet Union?
I explained in my answer three factors.
I said the opponents Zakharov and other opponents who resisted to burn the flame of freedom, Western politicians, US President Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who understood the nature of the regime and was ready to establish relations with Moscow, and finally Gorbachev, who understood the movement of history and responded to it.
Gorbachev's anger
Immediately after the conference ended, I approached Gorbachev to thank him for having released me.
I was surprised when I found out that he was angry with me and said to me, "I released you in spite of all the advice that you asked me not to do, and you mention my name in the last factors you spoke of?"
Although I sympathized with his reaction, I felt that it was more important to amplify the voices of the opponents whom the West ignored, and then focus on Gorbachev's role.
However, if we look at the 20th century, not through the prism of political conflict, but from a historically insightful angle, we will see how unique Gorbachev's role was.
It is well known that in every dictatorship there are opponents, and from time to time there are Western leaders willing to risk their political future in order to support human rights abroad.
But Gorbachev was a product of the Soviet system, a member of its ruling elite who believed in its ideology and enjoyed its privileges, yet decided to destroy it all.
That is why the world can be grateful to him for what he did.
Natan Sharansky is a human rights activist and former political prisoner during the Soviet Union.
In a 2017 poll, 8% of Russian citizens voted positively for Gorbachev, and the vast majority of Russians had a negative opinion of him.
If we look at the 20th century, not through the prism of political conflict but from a historically insightful angle, we will see how unique Gorbachev's role was. It is well known that in every dictatorship there are opponents, and from time to time there are Western leaders willing to risk their political future in order to support human rights abroad.
The original intentions of Gorbachev's pioneering reforms were to make communism more humane.
During his last speech in power, Gorbachev lamented that the Soviet Union had been torn apart, but emphasized his personal accomplishments.
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