Episode Details

When Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30, obituaries and remembrances lauded his legacy of reform that ended Communism and the peaceful means that allowed the Eastern Bloc to go its own way without bloodshed. But the last Soviet leader is still often misunderstood, because his most important reforms eroded the very foundations of his power, leading ultimately to the dissolution of the state. In this episode, Oxford's Archie Brown, who has studied Soviet Communism for a half century, takes us inside the mind of Mikhail Gorbachev, who was unique among leaders of the USSR.