In light of the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR, I attempt to evaluate the life and legacy of the man and ask whether things could have been any different.
I argue that Gorbachev was more of a fool than anything else, a product of a bureaucracy that had become an active enemy of socialism and who triggered a collapse by pursuing policies he didn't fully understand. He's still a wretched traitor though.
