I'd like opinions on what you think about Gorbachev and if he had anything to do with ending the cold war?

Question

I have an answer I just need opinions to help me develop more of an understanding, I hate war it's too difficult.

Answer 1

yes, between Reagan and Gorbi.....they both helped getting the wall down....hence stopped the cold war!!

Most Russian just wanted to live good like us. Watching US television show they saw how well we got it.....they just like us....so they put lots of pressure on their Politicians....

Answer 2

Gorbachev had as much to do with ending the Cold War as Reagan did. Gorby would have made certain human rights and economic accommodations even if Reagan had not been President, because the Soviets were going dirt broke.

Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader of a new generation, the first truly post-Stalin leader there. He clearly had a greater worldliness than any of his predecessors, and he was conflict-weary.

His presence on the world scene, corresponding as it did with greater access to Western and other external ideas for the average citizen, was critical to Reagan's own ability to claim credit for ending the Cold War.

It's ironic that he polls about 1% (ONE percent) in popularity in his native land, and has made a life doing nonprofit work with a notably Western flavor to it.

Answer 3

Gorgachev was an outstanding free thinker, something very rare in Russian government at the time. Of course he had something to do with the end of the Cold War, he was probably the most influencial figure in getting it accomplished.
Reagan did a lot of the grandstanding like, "Tear down this wall" but in reality Gorbachev was the one who realized that the Russian ecomony could not continue to support the war effort and was vital to getting the changes made.

Answer 4

Gorbachev basically ended the Cold War. His reforms of Perestroika and Gasnost liberated Russia from the stagnant Communist economy. But events soon became out of his control and the other nations of the Soviet Union gained independence.

Answer 5

Most of these answers are so far off the mark it is embarrassing. Here's the real story.

Gorbachev wanted to induce the U.S. to stop escalating the weapons race. He knew it was killing the Soviet economy. However, Reagan kept urging Gorbachev to make reforms in the Soviet system until one day Gorbachev realized in shock they had gone too far, and there was no turning back. The USSR's satellite nations were inexorably slipping away from them. Gorbachev was tricked by Reagan into opening Pandora's box, and there was no way to close it. The damage had been done.

Back in 1968, the Czechs tried to implement "Communism with a human face". They wanted to reduce the rampant corruption and inefficiencies of the top-heavy, bureaucratic Communist system. As a reward, the Soviets sent tanks into the Czech republic to crush any such hopes.

All the Czechs were attempting to do was allow private enterprise where it made sense, namely those areas where the monolithic bureaucracy was completely incompetent and inefficient.

Gorbachev was no dummy. He realized the Soviet Union was going to economically and socially implode if some reforms weren't made. Therefore, he was willing to allow the reforms that had already been proposed earlier by the Hungarians and the Czechs. I once read a comment made by a top Soviet official in response to the supposition that, even if Ronald Reagan had not engineered the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet empire, it would have happened on its own. This Soviet official vehemently disagreed. He said something like "If there were inherent structural flaws in the Soviet led economy, they were deficiencies we had long learned to live with". Translation: it didn't matter how pathetic things got. It didn't matter that the cities were crumbling from neglect. The Soviets had learned to live with this. It was just their way of life. He had no doubts that the Soviet Union was not only going strong, but, just before Reagan entered office, had recently gained so much territory around the globe, from Central America to Africa, that they were poised for a huge surge ahead.

Then came Reagan, end of story.

Some people propose that Gorbachev willingly engineered the collapse of the Soviet Union. These are crazy revisionists. If Gorbachev had done what these loony people suggest, he would have been hanged for treason. Gorbachev was trying to PRESERVE the Soviet Union, not dismantle it. However, Reagan cleverly manipulated Gorbachev. Gorbachev sought an end to the arms race which was crippling his economy. His sole interest was finding some accomodation with Reagan so that the Soviets could substantially reduce their military budget. Gorbachev had calculated that the USSR would be financially crippled if it had to continue on the same path. Reagan cleverly took advantage of Gorbachev's single-mindedness. To paraphrase Gorbachev's words, "Reagan took him to the edge of a precipice, and then induced him to take one step further."

Here is what happened: Gorbachev was single-mindedly focuses on getting concessions from Reagan to reduce the arms race. This would save the Soviet economy. However, Reagan defiantly refused to, in his own words, "feed the bear". Gorbachev had taken reforms so far by then that they could not be reversed !!! Hence, the Soviet Empire collapsed from a general consensus that continuing was fruitless. They had insufficient resources and money to compete anymore.

So, the next time you hear someone lauding Gorbachev for engineering the peaceful transition of the USSR away from Communism, you will realize they don't have any idea what they are talking about. Gorbachev wanted to save the USSR. What these history revisionists suggest would amount to Gorbachev being the biggest traitor in Soviet history. It was not his intention to dismantle the USSR.

Reagan simply played a political chess game with him and left him with no pieces to play with.

Answer 6

Gorbachev was the major driver in ending the cold war. Without his backing it, Reagan could have only said he tried. It took two men of incredible strength to do it. The media and the liberals called Reagan a blithering idiot. go figure.

Answer 7

Meh he wanted it to end because there is documentation that he had already noticed that Russia economically couldn't keep up the spending that it was causing, I think he really wanted just to end the Communist rule in Russia but did not have a strong plan for its collapse. I think inevitably it was falling anyways and the Regan gets way to much credit for ending the Cold War and just lucked out at being President during that time, because Regan was the worst thing that ever happened to this country.

Answer 8

Gorbachev ended the cold war and Reagan got all the credit for it. He was a man of peace and Reagan was lucky to have had a Russian counterpart who wanted peace and human rights and facilitated the fall of the iron wall. Reagan couldn't have done it without his complete compliance.

Answer 9

What? No.

Reagan defeated communism with one hand tied behind his back and even then using only his pinky and on a sick day too.

Truman, JFK, and LBJ, presidents who actually went to war to kill communists have nothing on him.

Conservatives Repubs need a hero and they have made that B rate actor one. I remember on the discovery channel people were voting for the "greatest american." The last three were MLK Jr, Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan. Most people with a brain were split between MLK Jr and Abraham Lincoln. The right-wingers though only had one choice. That's why Reagan won.

The smart cons know that Lincoln and his Radical Republican party of the northeast are nothing like today's southern conservative domianted Republican party.

Answer 10

Of course he did. When Ronald Reagan told him to take down the Berlin Wall he said "yessir" and got right to it. Don't you realize that people think it was Reagan that did all that ending of the cold war stuff all by himself? His predecessors had nothing to do with it and certaininly the Soviet Union or the Soviet block countries couldn't have had anything to do with ending the cold war it was only Ronnie Reagan Super Pres. He single handedly ordered everyone in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union what to do.

Answer 11

He was a lot more of a diplomat and a generally warmer person than Soviet leaders like Brezhnev
and Andropov, and set the stage to allow the Soviet Union to modernize, and eventually break up. He was a transition leader.