The Cold War & The Legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev

It is sad to hear that the former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has died. Today, we’re looking at the Cold War and his legacy in ending it.

The former leader died at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on August 30th at 91. According to the hospital, Gorbachev died following a “severe and prolonged illness.” He had been under the supervision of doctors since the beginning of 2020. He was the last living Soviet leader following the death of Georgy Malenkov in 1988. Even though he had been in the Soviet government for some period, he was only President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991.

Mikhail Gorbachev was highly regarded by the West, though opinions about him got divided at home. He took on several roles in the government, including serving as the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1990. The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or U.S.S.R., usually had a de facto leader, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev occupied that role, making some substantial reforms to the government and the lives of its citizens. So what did Gorbachev achieve?

In the West, Mikhail Gorbachev gets remembered for ending the Cold War between the United States and the U.S.S.R. In World War II, the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom allied together and defeated Nazi Germany. Though tensions between the former allies, especially the United States and the U.S.S.R., had rocketed. So began the Cold War in 1945, a fight between a democracy and a communist country, though not much direct fighting got involved between the two major players. It would continue for another 45 years, with several small wars fought in different places, like the Vietnam War, backed by the two superpowers.

However, the Cold War included a new game-changer: The Atomic Bomb, which could wipe out an entire city in one go. Later in the Cold War, the hydrogen bomb would get created much more destructive than the a-bomb. At first, only the Western allies had this nuclear bomb advantage. Later, NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization), consisting of these Western allies, would get formed to counter the Eastern blocs of Europe under Soviet control. But members of the Manhattan Project (the program that produced the first nuclear weapons) thought they were backing the wrong side and gave in secrets to Moscow, helping the U.S.S.R. build its nuclear arsenal.

Both sides knew that now each had the a-bomb, risking nuclear war could ultimately wipe out humanity. So no one would want to start such a war. In Eastern Europe, the Iron Curtain got formed, an effort by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states. Later on, the Warsaw Pact would ensure that the Soviet Union and its members would have a strengthened defense. Within this period, the United States and the Soviet Union had changed leaders several times.

A problem at the time for the Soviet Union was Berlin. Berlin got divided among the (former) allies who defeated the Nazis. Even though the city was already 100 miles behind Soviet Territory, the Western allies still held half of it. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin wanted to get the West out of Berlin, so he ordered all supply routes to be blocked. So U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the Berlin Airlift, a massive operation that shipped supplies by plane. After the Berlin Airlift, the Soviet Union started building the Berlin Wall, which separated the Soviet-occupied East Berlin from West Berlin.

Afterward, tension grew between the two superpowers. And then came the height of the Cold War: The Cuban Missile Crisis. One Communist leader allied with another, and soon Soviet short and mid-range nuclear weapons were in Cuba. Otherwise, those nukes had no chance of striking the United States from the Soviet mainland. Both sides could make a direct strike almost anywhere into enemy territory. Soviet missiles were stationed in Cuba, while the United States had theirs put into Turkey. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy was U.S. President, and it was a major standoff, the scariest part of the Cold War. However, even with the U.S. issuing a “naval quarantine” around Cuba, Soviet missiles still got in. During this period, the defense readiness condition alert (DEFCON) for the United States Armed Forces was raised to DEFCON 2, the last step before an all-out nuclear war, with U.S. armed forces ready to engage in less than six hours. Things were at a deadly stalemate, with the world at stake. But luckily, no missiles got fired, and ultimately, both sides agreed to withdraw their missiles from Cuba and Turkey.

By this time in the Cold War, things had reached a high point, and both sides later started signing a series of agreements. With tensions significantly reduced after several years, both sides continued building their nuclear arsenals.

Mikhail Gorbachev helped ease tensions between the two superpowers by advocating for policies of openness and restructuring. He pushed for demilitarization in Eastern Europe. He also believed massive liberalization was needed to revive the Soviet economy and society. To the West, his policies were crucial in ending the Cold War and helped get more freedom for the Soviet people. He also realized that the Soviet economy got crippled by excessive spending on nuclear weapons. So Gorbachev signed several treaties with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, effectively ending the arms race. He would later see the end of the Cold War in 1990 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, a giant sign of relief for both sides. He also got awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year. The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 also meant an end to Gorbachev’s position as leader of the Soviet Union. But in his later years as a Russian citizen, Mikhail Gorbachev remained active. He became President of the Gorbachev Foundation in 1992, which analyzes social, economic, and political changes happening in Russia and works to promote humanistic ideals. In 1993, Gorbachev founded and became President of Green Cross International, an environmental organization.

Sadly, Mikhail Gorbachev has passed away. However, I’m sure that his legacy will live long after, whether to those who praised him or those who didn’t, as the man who ended the Cold War and eased out tensions that had made the two superpowers go face-to-face for almost half a century. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading.