Word: gorbachevized
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...party's Central Committee to go to Moscow. Instead of settling behind a desk, Zyuganov was sent around the Soviet Union to check on party work, an experience that he says put him in touch with the country's problems. In 1990 he broke with then party leader Mikhail Gorbachev and helped found a hard-line Communist Party based in Russia...
Zyuganov's career as an opposition leader has been characterized by caution and measured ambition. In July 1991 he and 11 others signed an open letter titled "A Word to the People," a blistering plea to save the Soviet Union from Gorbachev's reforms. The letter, which Prokhanov wrote, marked the birth of the union between Communists and nationalists that some fear will transform Zyuganov's coalition into a Russian version of Hitler's National Socialist party. It also foreshadowed the failed coup by party hard-liners the following month. Although he proudly calls himself a "leading ideologist...
...going with Gorbachev," the Moscow airport ticket clerk says scornfully. "If I had a gun I'd kill him myself." In Russia these days, such remarks are common. The last President of the former Soviet Union is reviled by many of those he once ruled. Free-market liberals disdain his vacillating support for economic reform; Communists and nationalists detest him for his role in ending the empire. No matter. Gorbachev is waging a quixotic race for Russia's presidency and this day is heading 700 miles south of the Kremlin to plead his case in Volgograd...
About 1,500 citizens pack the Palace of Culture and Art to hear the man so many love to hate. "I have no text," Gorbachev says. "Ask your questions." Instantly, a Russian air force general is shouting: "You bastard! You traitor! You destroyed the motherland. How dare you face the people...
...thus begins two hours during which Gorbachev yells, whispers, lectures and cajoles. "You are now a free people," he says. "I accept my share of responsibility for the mess we're in, but remember that when I got power I set out to reform this country. You now have the freedom to choose, but you must learn how. You must debate civilly. If you want stability, which you think you have lost, you must first learn respect for law, especially since some still want to shut...