Moscow
Most Russians think former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms were a mistake, according to a poll released this week. On the 20th anniversary of the start of perestroika, or restructuring, Russians were asked to name its main consequence. More than half picked the collapse of the Soviet Union, while less than 10 percent mentioned the end of the Cold War. For his part, Gorbachev denies that the Soviet breakup was due to his reforms. “Perestroika has won,” Gorbachev told Russian reporters this week. “It led our society to reject totalitarianism.” He said his biggest mistake was failing to decentralize the Soviet Union earlier, so that the republics wouldn’t have felt a need for independence.
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