Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union and the man who brought the Cold War to an end, died in Moscow on 30 August after a “difficult and protracted illness”.
Gorbachev’s decision not to use force to prevent the toppling of the Berlin Wall is credited with averting a third world war. The former president’s reforms – including “glasnost”, which extended freedom of speech and of the press, and “perestroika”, which decentralised decision-making – led to the end of the USSR and the breakaway of some eastern bloc states.
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