Gorbachev Born: The Man Who Ended the Cold War
Gorbachev was born into a family where both his grandfathers had been arrested in Stalin's purges. He joined the Communist Party anyway, rose through it, and eventually ran it. Then he tried to fix it. Glasnost — openness. Perestroika — restructuring. The intended result was a modernized Soviet Union. The actual result was fifteen independent countries. He didn't plan the Soviet collapse; he just loosened the grip long enough for everything to fall apart. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Back home, his approval rating crashed to single digits. Russians blamed him for the chaos that followed. He died in 2022, largely unlamented in the country he tried to save.
March 2, 1931
95 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on March 2
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