Word: gorbachev
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...Gorbachev has sought power and has enjoyed wielding it not as a narrow-minded member of the Communist apparat but with a much larger purpose. He had a great plan which none of the political leaders or analysts around the world could even imagine: Gorbachev has envisioned a world in which tolerance and cooperation would prevail over mistrust and hatred...
...Gorbachev is a courageous leader who defied the old Russian saying, "The czar wishes but the boyars will not allow." Gorbachev imposed his will on the boyars. He built a totally new view of international ethics which debunked the theories of realists like Henry Kissinger, who claim that all we owe foreigners is the minimal obligation of preserving the order that avoids the chaos leading to nuclear war. Instead of pursuing that amoral policy, Gorbachev led the world through one of the most important changes in the course of history with a minimum of blood loss...
...second aspect the narrow-minded analysts seem to neglect is that Gorbachev had no obligation to act the way he did. He could have well continued with the traditional "closed book" Soviet foreign policy of the long Cold War years. Before Gorbachev came to power in 1985, even the most celebrated periodicals on international relations frequently published articles praising how well the Soviets were doing economically. The world knew nothing about the truth since nobody could penetrate into the closed society controlled by the Kremlin's fear-based authority...
...introducing glasnost, Gorbachev chose to lead his nation into the untidy, antagonistic, uncomfortable, but proud and encouraging prospect of open horizons. He did not make the Soviets lose the Cold War. He ended it. He gave his country the hope of an exciting new society--a more just and more efficient one--that would take its rightful place in the family of nations it fled...
...fear, the Moscow Eight, a second-rate group of thugs, had to use tanks. Yet for the first time in Soviet history, their tanks were directed not against a competing power elite within the Soviet Union, but against the people themselves. That alone is enough to comprehend the effect Gorbachev had on the course of history...