Best Leader of the Soviet Union

[Jacobtm]

Gorbachev was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Reagan helped it along, but if Gorbachev's radical reforms hadn't shaken up the whole foundation of governmental power in the USSR, it could've still hobbled along.

Prior to Gorbachev, all political power in the USSR was vertical, the only way to gain power was by gaining the favor of your superior. When actual elections started, and politicians needed to garner the favor of their constituents to hold on to power, the ridiculous structure of the Soviet Union, which helped almost nobody, couldn't hold together.

He was only the best because he provided that terrible empire with a mercy killing, whether or not you consider it to be accidental.

[Jacobtm]

Read up some history before you write such nonsense. As late as April 1991, most Soviet citizens wanted to keep the Union in some form. It was the August coup which brought the decisive change, and even then, the Ukraine was the only republic were there was actually a referendum on secession.
Gorbachev's idea was to create a democratic and prosperous Soviet Union. That instead of this there was a collapse, which led to nearly a dozen civil wars and that the economy of almost all republics collapsed into a depression from which many have yet to recover, shows just what a monumental failure he was.
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I wasn't claiming the citizens of the USSR voted for dissolution of the Union; obviously that was a decision taken by Russian, Ukranian and Belerusian representatives on their own. What I am claiming is that when power was devolved to the regions and local representatives began wielding real power, their interests were different from the interests of the central leadership of the USSR. This conflict of interests among the different centers of power is what led to the collapse of the soviet union.

The baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, seceded once legislatures were elected and political elites saw that to maintain their power it was more important to placate the citizens of their Republic than to placate soviet leaders.

Many other Republics who didn't secede passed laws declaring their own supremacy over their own territory and assuming many duties that the central government used to be responsible for, stripping the central government of its authority.

All the "autonomous oblasts" in the USSR, such as South Ossetia and Chechnya, were given full Republic status, which severely irked nationalists in the proper Republics that had contained these oblasts.

Groups (ethnic minorities, republics, oblasts) who felt like they'd been given a raw deal in the USSR demanded more from the system, wheras ones who felt like they'd been supporting the poorer ones wanted to keep their resources for themselves.

All these problems didn't exist when there was a central power structure. When power was devolved, the new political elites who relied on local support for their power, in an effort to keep their power, could not conform to the old standards.

That's not the ONLY reason the USSR broke up, indeed the coup was very important, as was the Chernobyl disaster, as were lots of other things. But the coup wouldn't have happened without Gorbachev's radical reforms. And without Gorbachev's reforms these problems could've been kept from exploding just as they had for decades past.