Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91

The last leader of the Soviet Union died Tuesday after a long illness, according to the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences and would send a telegram to Mikhail Gorbachev’s family in the morning. Gorbachev only served for seven years, but in that time, he produced an extraordinary number of reforms that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Soviet brand of communism. He resigned from his position in 1991 to avoid throwing the Soviet Union into a civil war.

What were those reforms? Gorbachev pursued a strategy of “glasnost,” or openness, that thrust the Soviet Union into an economic exchange with the rest of Europe. He then allowed more free speech, multicandidate elections, and travel. “I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told the Associated Press in 1992. He had won a Nobel Peace Prize only two years earlier for helping to end the Cold War, despite being despised in his homeland.

Dig deeper: Read Esther Eaton’s report in WORLD magazine about how current Russian President Vladimir Putin warped the Soviet Union’s history to justify his invasion of Ukraine.