read my essay and answer the questions.(Political science)

Q : Mikhail Gorbachev

If you believe that Mikhail Gorbachev should be given more credit for ending the Cold War, explain why by responding to this thread.

My discussion answer.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the eighth and also the final president of the Soviet Union that saw the end of the cold war. He started out in leadership as the general secretary of the Communist party in 1985 a position that made him see the numerous opportunities for reform in an economy which had remained stagnant for a very long time. In this paper, we are going to discuss Mikhail Gorbachev’s contributions to the end of the cold war that subsequently led to the fall of the Berlin wall and why he ought to take more credit for ending the cold war.

Reasons why it’s Mikhail Gorbachev and not Ronald Reagan show should take credit for ending the Cold War is mainly because he played a major role in ending the Communist Regime due to the strict reforms he imposed and implemented on the Soviet Union. As the president of the union, he had to make tough decisions such as in early 1989 when he denied the Polish Communist regime which was under Wojciech Jaruzelski, with military support (Sproule, 1990).

He introduced the policy of Glasnost meaning ‘openness’ in 1985 that saw the end of the long cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. This policy pushed for improvement in the level of transparency between the member states in all their dealings. His main aim for introducing this policy was to encourage more openness in the actions of the government towards the people they were serving. This policy involved human rights improvement, raising the freedom of speech as well as an expression for the soviet people to a higher degree and putting in place measures to control existing severe censorship by the government. This policy was effective since it enabled the people to know about certain government malpractices. The policy gave the media more freedom to expose and give necessary critiques to the government that led to many citizens losing their faith in communism. The introduction of this policy empowered the people from Eastern bloc as well as the Baltic region to go against their respective governments and take control.

Mikhail Gorbachev also introduced the policy of perestroika which meant restructuring. This is a policy that aimed at reforming the systems of economy and politics for the soviet people. With the help of this policy, Mikhail Gorbachev was able to put in place major political reforms also introduce the philosophy of free markets in the economy. Some of the major political reforms were enabled by this policy included democratization which gave the soviet people the right and freedom to elect their candidates of choice.

Finally, one major aspect which gives Mikhail Gorbachev a lot of credit in ending the cold war is due to the series of meetings and appearances he made towards resolving the crisis between the governments and their citizens. For example his meetings with the communist leaders. He was successful in ending the cold war due to his consistency in solving emerging threats within the Soviet Union directly affecting the soviet people (Gorbachev, 2011).

References

Gorbachev, M. (2011). Mikhail Gorbachev: prophet of change: from the Cold War to a sustainable world. Forest Row, East Sussex England: Clairview.

Sproule, A. (1990). Mikhail Gorbachev: the Soviet leader who ended the Cold War and opened the road to freedom for Eastern Europe. Watford: Exley.

My professor's comments : Good essay, Do you think Gorbachev anticipated the consequences of his reforms?

My answer :

I wrote an essay and my professor gave me a comment. so please answer the question.