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World

Beer and loathing: Why Russians loved and hated Gorbachev

4 September 2022

5:03 PM

4 September 2022

5:03 PM

A paradox about Mikhail Gorbachev for my generation of Russians – I was seven years old when he became general secretary in 1985 – is that he will be remembered as both liberal and killjoy, an uneasy combination that left him at times making enemies in all directions.

The first is easy enough to understand.

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