R.I.P. Mikhail Gorbachev

The world is a lesser place for the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev - a man who played a key role in the ending the Cold War, and - perhaps accidentally - the USSR.  He was, IMO, an infinitely better person than the drunkard Yeltsin who followed him, although he also a flawed human being. 

Flawed, but he tried to do what was best - he was the man in the arena, in Theodore  Roosevelt’s terminology; he “had a go”, in Australian vernacular. 

And to a significant extent, he succeeded, although the former USSR’s transition to democracy was ruined by others. 

For more, see: 

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/mikhail-gorbachev-dies-soviet-leader-92?CMP=twt_b-gdnnews; 
• https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125852;
• https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/30/europe/mikhail-gorbachev-dies-intl/index.html; 
• https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/mikhail-gorbachev-last-revolutionary; 
• https://theconversation.com/a-consequential-but-ultimately-tragic-figure-last-leader-of-the-ussr-mikhail-gorbachev-dies-aged-91-189676;
  
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Gorbachev;
• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-31/mikhail-gorbachev:-celebrated-in-the-west,/14038200; and 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mikhail_Gorbachev&oldid=1107705088.
  

PS - see also this, on Maria “Manana” Aslamazyan,described as “one of Glasnost’s staunchest defenders” (Glasnost being the truth and openness movement started by Gorbachev) who died on the same day as Gorbachev.