hashem: how will mikhail gorbachev be remembered? the late soviet leader seen as someone who changed the world in the 20th century but how has that changed shape the world ? this is "inside story." ♪ hello and welcome to the program0. i'm hashem ahelbarra. the death of mikhail gorbachev is widely being mourned as the loss of a champion of freedom who helped end the cold war.

about the legacy of the last leader of the soviet union is very different at home where many view him as the man responsible for its collapse. his passing received a cool response in russia. many people there regard the war in ukraine as necessary to regain some of the power the former ussr lost when it fell. gorbachev died at the age of 91 in the moscow hospital, after two years of illness. andrew simmons reports. reporter: at 54 years old mikhail gorbachev became the , youngest leader of the soviet union, and he was to be the last. few would doubt that he changed the course of 20th century history, although, he's revered and respected more in the west than in modern russia. one of his biggest achievements was assigning the disarmament treaty with u.s. president ronald reagan that took out a

whole class of nuclear weapons. it earn him in nobel peace prize. joe biden cited this achievement in his tribute, describing gorbachev as a man of remarkable vision. he said, the result was a safer world of greater freedom for millions of people. antonio guterres, the u.n. secretary-general, said the world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace. the e.u. commission president, ursula von de leyen, said gorbachev played a crucial role to end the cold war and bring down the iron curtain. it opened the way for a free europe. gorbachev had a huge impact on the course of world history. he deeply understood reforms were necessary and strove to offer solutions. many russians see him as the man who stood by as the soviet union disintegrated. >> his legacy is that he allowed for the peaceful collapse of the soviet union.

he did not use massive force to keep eastern europe in the empire, and for that, he deserves credit. but it is not that this was someone who came in trying to undermine the system. he tried to reform it. reporter: gorbachev used perestroika, or restructuring, to reform a stagnant economy that had seen people short of food and consumer goods and he used glasnost, openness and freedom of speech, that led to parts of the eastern bloc rising up against communism. it was the beginning of the end of the cold war, one state after the other broke away. angela merkel, former german chancellor, spoke in her tribute of the fear in east germany, of expectation that the tanks would roll in, but quite the contrary, wasn't long before the berlin wall came down. yet now, 30 years on with the

russians invasion of ukraine comes the danger of further , east-west conflict. >> russia and its president are digging new trenches in europe , and have started a horrible war in ukraine. it's now we think of mikhail gorbachev and realize what he did for our country and all of europe. reporter: gorbachev, hailed as a man of peace, has died at a time when his country is heavily engaged in war. andrew simmons, al jazeera. ♪ hashem: let's bring in our guests. in moscow, pavel felgenhauer, a defense and military analyst. maria lipmann, russian editor and political analyst based in moscow until the russian invasion of ukraine. she's now in munich, germany, and in washington, d.c. donald jensen is the director of russia and strategic stability at the u.s. institute of peace, and a former u.s. diplomat in moscow.

welcome to the program. pavel, quite interesting the way people are divided over the legacy of gorbachev now we do understand that president putin won't be attending the funeral. , there will be no official state funeral. is this because of the prevailing sentiment in the establishment and among many russians that this is someone who was very naive in dealing with the west? guest: gorbachev was not naive. i mean, i knew the man. we had quite a number of meetings and discussed different things. he was anything but naive. of course, maybe his education was a bit, you know, kind of party-style, going through the ranks of the party. but still, he was a very shrewd and very effective political operator which allowed him to get to the tops of the russian soviet leadership.

and he was not naive. he had ideas. he believed in them and that was not only his ideas that was a group of party top officials who wanted to believe that they could change the soviet system marched to the better. that it was too rigid. that it was running the country into the ground. and that a more enlightened approach would give a new impetus to the soviet system. which was wrong, because as this was known, a bad regime because it gets itself in a very dangerous situation when trying to become better, bad regimes should stay bad. like, you know, north korea. and then they can stay for a long time. and gorbachev believed he could be better. but that didn't work. hashem: maria, why on the other hand, gorbachev remained a champion of freedom, particularly for the liberal

russians? guest: well, he remains a champion of freedom, but for a minority. in december last year, a poll asked russians about most important figures of the soviet time, and gorbachev in that poll led the list of figures seen negatively by a majority of russians. he is seen as a person who presided over the collapse of the soviet union, who put an end to what, in retrospect, many people see as stability of the soviet union. he is held responsible for all that. and this feeling has remained, i think, steady throughout the years since the collapse of the soviet union. he may be seen as a hero and as a proponent of freedom in eastern europe, where his contribution is appreciated or in germany, especially in

germany, because he facilitated the reunification. but not in his own country. hashem: donald, george cannon once said that gorbachev was a miracle. why is it that in the west, he is a hero? in russia, he is a villain. guest: well, i very much agree with what they just said, he did contribute to the end of the cold war. he did it peacefully. he showed the value of personal diplomacy, and particularly with prime minister thatcher and president reagan. but as my two colleagues have said, he unleashed forces, and i agree he was not naive, he unleashed forces by these let's say middle-range reforms that that we're dealing with even today. the paradox of how he's perceived in the east and west is at first puzzling, but ends up really being part of the same

change, same transformation in european security that he helped lead, and he deserves credit for that. on the other hand, i think we have to be very careful not to lionize him. he was a reformed communist, whatever you want to call him. that have to be careful to go back to the era, and it coincided almost exactly with the beginning of my foreign service career, so i remember it very clearly, that he was not a democrat, as people often said this week. he was not a democrat. he was a believer in a better soviet union, as they have said, and that's something that for us in the west at the time, was very difficult to understand. hashem: pavel, could you explain to us the very nature of the relationship between putin and gorbachev, because somehow, you get a sense that putin was always very cautious in choosing the right words to describe or qualify gorbachev.

and gorbachev at the same time was very cautious in his criticism addressed at putin. guest: well, gorbachev tried to kind of build the relationship with putin and was not very successful. and putin didn't want him anywhere close or in any position of influence of any sort. putin owes his power to boris yeltsin who picked him together with his entourage as a successor, and putin is basically continuing the yeltsin russia as it was built under yeltsin. and then putin. gorbachev was a sworn enemy. they were with yeltsin. and putin, to some extent, inherited that. also right now, when gorbachev passed, putin is fighting a

savage war in ukraine actually to remake what is seen as gorbachev made. gorbachev presided over the collapse of the soviet union. putin is trying to build it back by blood and steel. so, it is not that there is nothing strange that the present kremlin and gorbachev had lukewarm relationships. he was not announced officially by the kremlin, though some forces to denounce him as a traitor, and so on. but he is also no hero. and gorbachev would be a much more private affair. again, maybe his family also did not want her to be a state funeral, too -- did not want it

to be a state funeral too. that is not clear right now. hashem: ok. maria, the 2021 poll that you spoke about which qualified gorbachev as the worst political leader in russia in the 20th century, is it mainly because of the perception that his policies introduced the collapse of the soviet union, which was described by putin as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. or is it just because people think that he failed in delivering on political and economic reforms? guest: well, in retrospect, the soviet time, especially the late soviet decades, are seen by the russian people -- not overwhelmingly, by a majority -- as a good time. when the state took care of people. when the relations between and among people were kind and more humane. when people thought less about

money. when things were stable and people could rely on the habitual safety net. gorbachev is blamed for actually undermining all of that. i would add, just a couple of words to what pavel said about gorbachev and putin, putin, two gorbachev is almost a traitor. because he gave up on the gains, territorial and political, that were made by his predecessors. by giving in and giving up control over eastern europe, and then presiding over the collapse of the soviet union. so, but that's putin to people. two people, i think it is more about how he learned to -- how he put an end to what is seen today almost as a golden era in soviet history. hashem: donald, the fact that he managed along with ronald reagan to scrap the entire class of

nuclear weapons in eastern europe could that be seen as his , biggest political contribution ? guest: well, i might have once said that, as you know, that i was an inspector on the treaty myself, personally. but the treaty is no longer in existence. it was a major contribution at the time that lasted for several decades. there were innovations in that treaty, most notably, on-site inspections. but that now is under a cloud given the drift and increase in distrust between the two countries, and other geopolitical factors such as the rise of china which have made that kind of control somewhat obsolete. hashem: was gorbachev in a way or another a victim, because the hardline communists, starting from the late 1980's, were working hard to try to discredit him because they didn't understand that if he stayed in power, they will lose all the

privileges they have been having for quite some time? guest: well, it was not really that straightforward. when reagan gorbachev began to end the kind of worst part of the cold war and agree on nuclear disappointment treaties, gorbachev had full support of the russian military, soviet military, and most of the ruling communists. they were still so frightened by the american, new, land-based cruise missiles, tomahawk's, and they were offered they wouldn't have enough time to reach their bunkers if the americans suddenly attack and they almost came to exchange of nuclear blows in 1983, during exercises. so, when reagan put forward the zero option, that was seized in

moscow, and that was not just gorbachev single-handedly, it was the russian generals, soviet animal staff, everyone was behind it -- soviet generals, staff, everyone was behind it. and when he began his perestroika and glasnost, that was increasing the production and procurement of weapons dramatically. he was playing on all the fields, and he had a lot of support. the system began to disintegrate economically because also the price of oil collapsed, and then he turned out to be isolated in the end when different parts of the soviet elite decided that without the soviet union, they will be better off. that they can privatize publicly-owned factories and oil fields. and that they'll be much better. so, even in the communist party,

i mean, it t disintegrated, at almost 20 million numbers, it disintegrated with a whimper, because no one was really much about ideology. it was about deviating -- divying up the soviet pipe. hashem: maria, so this is someone who did understand that the political and economic structure of the soviet union could not stand any longer, and that it was about time for change. what happened later is what people are still debating. did he lack the courage to implement reforms? or ultimately he was isolated and unable to undo on his own, and empire of its own? guest: well, i would say gorbachev can be celebrated for good intentions and for his belief in freedom.

he actually got away from the centuries-long tradition of the overwhelming control of the state. but he had wrong ideas about so many things including the economy. he thought that somehow a soviet socialist economy could be preserved, that reformed. -- reserved, but reformed. wrong. he totally underestimated the nationalist drive. he underestimated, i think, many things about foreign policy as well. not realizing that soviet retreat would mean the advance of nato and the west. economically, it was something that was felt immediately, because people in the soviet union, as pavel said, were overwhelmingly supportive to begin with of what gorbachev was saying. but when the reforms again and things were falling apart, so many people grew disappointed.

later on, they presented themselves for being naive and leaving change was possible if only they trusted their new leader but instead of resenting themselves, i think now they have negative feelings towards gorbachev. hashem: donald this is someone , who wanted to introduce reforms but at the same time he wanted he was adamant about the need to send tanks to the baltic states and to azerbaijan to clamp down on the protesters was . was it just because we failed to understand the very nature of the very character of gorbachev? guest: i think they are correct. he cracked down on the baltics. he tried to deal with the forces.

which led to boris yeltsin ultimately, then vladimir putin to send this russian nationalism which had been suppressed by the soviet regime. and we have to keep that whole complex picture in mind as well. he could not any longer maneuver , once yeltsin won the leadership, the support of most of the russian population. but i wanted to add one more point which we haven't talked about, which is to say that i think the west fundamentally misunderstood what was going on at the time, just as we misunderstood what was going on in 1991, seeing it primarily as a democratic breakthrough against the soviet regime. it was not. it was a much more complicated phenomenon than that. the issue of soviet money which was sloshing around the system in the mid-80s in the late 80s , and which ultimately gave rise to the oligarchs and all many of corrupt and pleasantness we see -- corrupt unpleasantness that we see now. the u.s. and the west had

trouble understanding this. i think we misunderstood gorbachev and what was happening just as we misunderstood okay yeltsin in 1991. hashem: pavel, gorbachev said is what it was about time to pull out from afghanistan and many thought this was going to reshape foreign policy. now, putin is launching a war in the ukraine and many are saying this is just exactly what gorbachev feared. which was an expansionist policy that would threaten the very stability of the international order. guest: well, i would say when the russian-afghan almost a decade of war began, we were actually lucky. regards, instead of going to war with nato and europe, we went into afghanistan. our nose bled and then we went out, and it was clear that we were not ready for a big war.

this time, again,, more than 10 years russia was building up its , armed forces for a big war in europe. then they sent them into ukraine believing that they'll overrun it very swiftly and that's what the pentagon and many in the west believed too. but that did not happen. we are lucky because we are not fighting a proxy war as the one in afghanistan. a proxy war in ukraine instead of fighting a direct big war in europe, and not a european war. we are lucky and hopefully that's going to end up like that of non-russian adventure by something less that a total holocaust. hashem: maria are there any , russians who would tell you that, you know, what but, ultimately, had we not had someone like gorbachev, there was absolutely no way we would be talking about political parties and freedom of expression in a place like russia. guest: well, this is certainly true. gorbachev indeed believed in

freedom. and he believed in election, even though it was not an entirely democratic election. those that he presided over. he never, ever wanted to be elected himself in a popular vote. but that lasted not for a long time, and this raises the issue of whether indeed gorbachev was an anomaly. because we are now back to the centuries-long russian political tradition of the overwhelming , centralized control. hashem: donald, whether or not this gorbachev was really adamant about the need to reform the soviet union or to dismantle it, how do you see his legacy in the future? will it live on, or are we turning the chapter of the man and his legacy at the same time ? guest: i will give you an answer absolutely opposite of what i would have answered five years ago, or maybe even on february 23. i think that his legacy will

fade just like the memory of the coup and its collapse faded with many russians because of what came afterward. it was, in many ways, much more unpleasant than what they saw even under brezhnev. so i think it will fade. but i think in the west, he will continue to be revered as a man who did advance peace and the security of europe, such as it was, at least until february 23. hashem: thank you. thank you, donald jensen, pavel felgenhauer, maria lipman. really appreciate your insight . thank you. and thank you too, for watching. , you can see the program again, anytime, by visiting our website, al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page, that's facebook.com/ajinsidestory. you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is @ajinsidestory from me, hashem, and the entire team here in doha, bye for now. ♪

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