Russian President Vladimir Putin's telegram of condolences to Mikhail Gorbachev's family is an example of how one can pass a damning judgment on a person without saying a bad word about him.

It says that Gorbachev had a great influence on world history;

he led the country in a time of dramatic changes and great challenges: "He endeavored to propose his solutions to the problems that had been brewing." day after his death.

Opinions are divided on Mikhail Gorbachev to an extent that was hard to imagine when he retired from active politics at the end of 1991 with the dissolution of the state of which he was president.

In Russia he has been a target of contempt and hatred for years.

As a tool of the West, he is accused of being responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of a Russian sphere of influence in Europe.

He is remembered in America and Western Europe as a man of great hope and positive change: radically changing Soviet policy, paving the way for nuclear disarmament and ending the Cold War.

In Germany, people are grateful for his role in reunification.

In the states of East-Central Europe, on the other hand, Gorbachev is regarded as the last representative of the communist dictatorship who did nothing other than preserve a rotten and misanthropic system by giving it a new coat of paint.

Putin's Myths and the Illusions of the West

Condemnation and idealization of Gorbachev make it difficult to take a sober look at the complexity of his political work.

Indeed, in attempting to reform the Soviet Union, Gorbachev unleashed the uncontrollable forces that led to its disintegration.

The changes that are so highly regarded in the West arose from the realization that the Soviet system, given its weaknesses and internal contradictions, could no longer be saved without fundamental changes.

With the end of the arms race, Gorbachev wanted to free up funds for the economy of the financially exhausted Soviet Union.

Social opening should not lead to the end of communist party rule,

The contrasting assessments of Gorbachev reflect the misunderstandings and miscalculations in relations between Russia and the West on the way from Gorbachev's vision of a “common home of Europe” to today's confrontation.

Putin's regime is falsifying history when it declares the end of the Soviet Union to be an anti-Russian work of the West.

But this myth shapes the perception of Western politics in Russia.

Not understanding this was a big mistake, both in Europe and in America in relation to Russia.

In Moscow, the West's adherence to the rhetoric of partnership and friendship of the Gorbachev years was not perceived as an expression of honest endeavor, but as lies and deceit.

Admittedly, this Western policy was also based on a misperception.

This had its origins in an idealization of Gorbachev.

In 1989 and 1990, against considerable resistance from the Soviet leadership, he decided to respect the right of self-determination of the peoples in the former satellite states of the Soviet Union and to enable Germany's reunification.

In doing so, he opened the door to peaceful and democratic development in large parts of the continent.

The optimism of those years was also transferred to the Putin regime, even when it no longer spoke of partnership.

The East Europeans were less susceptible to this because, unlike the West Europeans, they also saw the dark side of Gorbachev, which was expressed, for example, in the weeks-long cover-up of the Chernobyl reactor accident in 1986 or in the attempts in 1989 in Georgia and 1991 in the Baltic States to involve independence movements to stop violence.

Gorbachev did not end the communist dictatorship voluntarily, but under pressure from those who no longer wanted to endure it.

The fact that he finally submitted to it is perhaps his greatest achievement - and given the influence of his party career, it is no small feat.