Mikhail Gorbachev: I should have abandoned the Communist party earlier

[CHIMO]

Politicians rarely admit mistakes, but Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev always was in a different class. So it is not surprising that, as he looked back on his six tumultuous years in power at the head of the Soviet Union, he was willing to count the errors he had made.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian he named at least five. They led not just to his own downfall 20 years ago; they also brought the collapse of the Soviet Union and the introduction of an unregulated economic free-for-all that turned a few Russians into billionaires while plunging millions of people into poverty.

Gorbachev cuts a relaxed, even cheerful figure these days, but there are still the occasional twinges of bitterness, particularly when discussing his arch-rival Boris Yeltsin, or when he described the plotters who put him under house arrest in the Crimea during their abortive coup 20 years ago .

"They wanted to provoke me into a fight and even a shootout and that could have resulted in my death," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/16/gorbachev-guardian-interview

[pnorman]

1. K & R!

I urge all here to read the complete article!

[AgainsttheCrown]

2. This passage was interesting...

Today Gorbachev's doubts have gone. "I now think I should have used that occasion to form a new party and should have insisted on resigning from the Communist party. It had become a brake on reforms even though it had launched them. But they all thought the reforms only needed to be cosmetic. They thought that painting the facade was enough, when actually there was still the same old mess inside the building."

Assuming that he was actually for change and not a centrist posing as a progressive populist....will this be Obama in 20 years?

[pnorman]

3. Believe it or not, but I as a solid Obama-supporter,

spotted that too and made the same mental comparison between the two. But circumstances are vastly different here, and had Obama done that (ie: "threaten to break with his Party"), the result would have been DISASTROUS! And not just for the Democratic Party and this Nation, but for the entire world.