Gorbachev was a controversial figure, but it didn't seem to be controversial either, because the people who supported him and those who opposed him were two very different camps, and western and European and American liberals mostly supported him, such as Bush Sr., who said that Gorbachev had made the world no longer divided, that he had ended the Cold War; for example, Kasyanov said that he had allowed a totalitarian empire to collapse without any sacrifice.
But his opponents belonged to some Russian nationalists and leftists who believed that his reckless reforms and trust in the West even flattered the Soviet Union, and that he destroyed not only the Soviet economy, but also the Soviet ideology.
In response to this view, Gorbachev's view is that his reforms did fail, but he never betrayed the Soviet Union, never betrayed his ideals, and to this day, he still adheres to the soviet ideals. As for why his reforms failed, Gorbachev believed that there were two points: First, there was indeed a problem of his own rush, his policy was too hasty, and the Soviet Union at that time was not prepared to meet all this. Second, Gorbachev argued that the reform had "started too late" and that the Soviet Union was already hard to return.
These two points were pointed out by Gorbachev when facing the Chinese scholar Professor Shen Zhihua, and I think everyone must be very familiar with this statement, and the history teacher has told us since childhood that in addition to things, we must not only recruit subjective reasons, but also find objective reasons, not only objective reasons, but also subjective reasons. Gorbachev apparently did.
After his resignation, Gorbachev was very popular in the West, spending his eightieth birthday in London, and at that birthday party, Gorbachev said that he had had a happy twenty years. In the West, he was the darling of various speeches and events, and he was in the limelight, but back in his homeland, he still faced the evaluation of right and wrong.
In April 1996, Gorbachev had a cordial meeting with voters in the Omusk Oblast, only to be punched by a 29-year-old boy named Ulyukov, who was subdued and shouted: I want to slap this man to punish him for the mistake he has made to this country!
Was the situation in Russia created by Gorbachev alone? In the final analysis, the influence of the individual on history is very limited, and I think that the simple individual as a sinner of history is indeed underconsidered, and the pot cannot all be carried by Gorbachev alone. Instead of arguing whether he was right or wrong, learn useful lessons from his historical lessons.