It's perhaps hard for those who don't remember the 80s to understand the constant nuclear dread. It often felt like total annihilation was days away.
#Gorbachev was a beacon of hope and light. Imperfect? Certainly. But he took the world away from the brink.
#Gorbachev was a beacon of hope and light. Imperfect? Certainly. But he took the world away from the brink.
My childhood (70s and 80s) was wall-to-wall existential dread. Cartoons telling you how to survive a nuclear blast (ha!). Leaflets explaining what to do with your family's corpses. Lessons in how to construct a fallout shelter from your school desk. Terrifying news and TV drama.
All of that evaporated when Gorbachev arrived. He wasn't like the previous Soviet leaders - he seemed warm, cuddly, human (and humane). And he had the courage to stare down his own generals, and reach out to the West. The terror subsided, and proliferation ended.
It wasn't entirely his egalitarianism. Cold war armament had brought the USSR to its knees. But another leader might have bunkered down and grimly fought on. He didn't: he looked for rapprochement internationally and openness - glasnost - domestically.
He made lots of mistakes. It was a hard road to travel down, certainly (politically) harder than clinging on to the old, failed certainties. And his downfall was inglorious, as the USSR collapsed into a corrupt oligarchy. But I still had huge admiration for him.
The current threat - climate change - is just as severe as the nuclear one, but slower, insidious, and solutions are endlessly kicked down the road.
We need a new Gorbachev. A new statesman with the skills and courage (and, let's face it, desperation) to take the bold steps.
We need a new Gorbachev. A new statesman with the skills and courage (and, let's face it, desperation) to take the bold steps.
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