Mikhail Gorbachev struggled to make up his mind about Vladimir Putin.

Over the more than 20 years after Putin came to power, the ex-Soviet leader embraced, then rejected, then embraced again the man who, much like Gorbachev in the 1980s, came to embody Russia in the eyes of the West.

A grudging respect seemed to have developed in the end, with Gorbachev saying ahead of Putin's 2018 re-election for a fourth term: "Today he is a leader who deservedly enjoys people's support." 

After the chaos of the 1990s and the rule of his nemesis Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev expressed hope for the former KGB agent who was first elected Russia's president in 2000.

Putin, he said at the time, was "intelligent, serious, reserved and well-organised. I like people of this kind."

For Gorbachev, Putin represented a chance for stability and economic growth, while continuing the transition to democracy he had set in place.

Even in 2006, as activists expressed increasing concern about the tough treatment of civil society under Putin, Gorbachev was able to declare that "those who fear Putin's authoritarian tendencies are wrong."

But as the years went by and hopes of democratic development in Russia evaporated, Gorbachev turned to veiled criticism and then to strongly worded attacks.

Fraud-tainted 2011 parliamentary elections hardened his attitude against the president, as well as Putin's decision to stand for an unprecedented third term in office.

Gorbachev backed a protest movement that followed the elections and in 2013 made a stinging attack on Russia under Putin.

"Politics is more and more turning into an imitation of democracy. All power is in the hands of the authorities and the president," Gorbachev said at the time. 

"The economy is monopolised. Corruption has taken on colossal proportions."

Foreign media often latched on to his comments and he part-owned the proudly anti-Kremlin Novaya Gazeta newspaper, which suspended publication earlier this year after Russia launched its military action in Ukraine.

But at most Gorbachev was an irritating thorn in Putin's side. 

The Kremlin shrugged off criticism from the man who allowed the collapse of the USSR, which Putin famously described as the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.

When Gorbachev slammed Putin over the decision to return to the Kremlin for a third term, the Russian strongman spat back by accusing the former Soviet president of "abdicating" power.

By 2014, there were signs of another change of heart, with Gorbachev supporting Moscow's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine despite a Western outcry.

"Crimea is Russia and let someone prove the opposite," Gorbachev said.

The next year he backed Russia's launching of a military campaign in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

By the time Putin was running for a historic fourth term in 2018, Gorbachev was saying he was the kind of leader Russia needed in a "very complicated international situation".

The bitter irony was that in his twilight years Gorbachev supported a man who did not think much of him and who dismantled much of what the Soviet leader worked to achieve.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/08/31/gorbachevs-love-hate-relationship-with-putin-a78691

THE MOSCOW TIMES RARELY LIKED PUTIN... 

ONE HAS TO SAY HERE THAT THE AMERICAN DECEPTION HAS BEEN CONTAINED BY PUTIN, WHILE GORBACHEV WANTED PEACE AND IMMOLATED THE SOVIET UNION IN THE PROCESS... IT IS A HARD CONCEPT TO FRAME.

EVEN "THE END OF HISTORY" BY FUKUYAMA GOT IT ALL WRONG...

In 1989, the Cold War had just ended, and political scientist Francis Fukuyama rang in the new decade with a bold claim in his essay “The End of History”: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such.” He had a point. The economy was great, we were on our way to putting a computer in every home, and Bill Clinton, a moderate generally inoffensive to most Americans, was in the Oval Office. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Fukuyama argued, this upward trend would continue indefinitely. Liberal democracy and capitalism had won the final victory, and peace, freedom, and prosperity would reign forever and ever, Amen.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-1990s-when-historys-end-went-wrong/

BUSH SENIOR GOT IT ALL WRONG... 

The demise of communism wasn't a sure thing. It took the strong leadership of Presidents from both parties, including Republicans like Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Without their vision and the support of the American people, the Soviet Union would be a strong superpower today, and we'd be facing a nuclear threat tonight.

PUTIN AND XI HAVE CHANGED THE DYNAMICS, IN WHICH THE AMERICAN EMPIRE WAS GOING TO F..K THE WORLD... HISTORY IS CONTINUING FLUIDLY... AMERICAN DOMINANCE IS DIMINISHING AND BECOMING UNHINGED... NEW FRIENDSHIPS ARE FORMED... BRICS AND SUCH... UKRAINE IS A LOST CAUSE AS A NATO PRONG... THE WESTERN MEDIA IS STILL IN LALALAND... DESPITE THE INTERNET HAVING LOONIES, IT BRINGS OUT THE TRUTH, IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND IT...

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.