The essential meaning of perestroika for Gorbachev and his supporters was creating and acting on alternatives to failed and dangerous policies at home and abroad.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.
Sometimes people ask me why I began perestroika. Were the causes basically domestic or foreign? The domestic reasons were undoubtedly the main ones, but the danger of nuclear war was so serious that it was a no less significant factor.
Putin is sometimes described as a revanchist, seeking to recreate the Soviet Union. That is a useful shorthand, but it is not really accurate.
The opportunities that Gorbachev created for international relations have also been missed, perhaps even lost - here, however, primarily because of the United States.
Stalin's policies pushed the world into the Cold War. Putin has the potential to be equally as dangerous.
I started like many young Russian people in the beginning of perestroika when it seemed that everything was possible.
Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.
It's essential for the U.S. and Europe to prevent Putin from going farther and reversing the hard-won independence of former Soviet republics.
On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in its cold war relations with the West, particularly the United States, began to unfold.
The words spoken by the leader of the free world can expand the frontiers of freedom or shrink them. When Ronald Reagan called on Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall', a surge of confidence rose that would ultimately breach the bounds of the evil empire.
No opposing quotes found.