Stéphane Courtois: “Gorbachev could not succeed in reforming a low-intensity totalitarian regime”

Honorary Research Director at the CNRS.

Director of the review “Communisme”.

Among the many works of Stéphane Courtois, let us mention the collective book "Sortir du communisme, changer d'epoque" (PUF/Fondapol, 2011), which he edited.

The author devotes the opening chapter to the analysis of the Gorbachev period and its failure.

LE FIGARO.

- The death of Mikhail Gorbachev has drawn many tributes around the world.

Do the praises he receives in general seem justified to you?

Stephane COURTOIS

.

- Yes, these praises are undeniably justified.

, Gorbachev was a major player in the end of the Cold War, a certain democratic and economic liberalization of the USSR, then the fall of the Berlin Wall which allowed the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to embark on the path of democracy, the rule of law and the market economy.

Finally, he presided over, powerless, the implosion of the USSR, which put an end to the first totalitarian regime in history…

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