Russia buries Gorbachev, heir to Glasnost

This is how the global press is employed to broadcast the Western perspective and narrative of events, and how the West describes and uses... an event like this funeral to analyze dimensions and describe the feelings of people in Russia... according to the Western narrative of the event... regarding the death of a former Soviet president who cooperated with the West and adopted policies... which the West considered to be its suggestions. The result was the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which had been the only superpower opposing the United States at the time until the late 1980s of the 20th century..., and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, opening the field through policies by which the Soviet Union was governed, for the United States of America to become... the sole leader in the world, without any rival....!

Below I include paragraphs from an article that appeared in The Washington Post on 3-9-2022; the article is dedicated to describing the funeral of Gorbachev, the former Soviet president and proponent of the policies of openness and transparency (Glasnost) ... and Perestroika ... within the government institutions of the former Soviet Union.

Mary Ilyushina wrote an article in The Washington Post dated 3-9-2022, titled "Russia buries Gorbachev, heir to Glasnost," in which mourners gathered around the coffin of former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev during a memorial at the House of Trade Unions in Moscow.

The article continues by describing the event, stating that Russia held funeral rites on Saturday for Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, "to lay to rest the man whose policies of openness and economic restructuring — Glasnost and Perestroika — helped dismantle communist authoritarianism in Europe..., yet he later saw his legacy collapse with Russia’s return to insulated dictatorship under Vladimir Putin..." (in the words of the article's author).

Gorbachev, who died on August 30 at the age of 91, was memorialized at a public wake in a Moscow hospital, at a public memorial at the House of Trade Unions in the Russian capital. Thousands of people queued to pay their respects to the former leader, whose body lay in an open coffin with two attendants and two soldiers standing guard on either side, in a dimly lit marble hall.

Gorbachev was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.

The article’s author adds that the West admires Gorbachev because he ended the Cold War, but his radical economic reforms made him a controversial figure and sometimes unacceptable at home, and he was denied an official funeral...!

His end echoed that of Nikita Khrushchev — the only other Soviet leader who was not accorded an official funeral — who, according to the article's author, also had the credit for liberating Russia, but was ultimately ousted as premier of the Communist Party in 1964... and was detested by his successors.

The article’s author also adds that because of Putin’s contempt, Gorbachev walked a tightrope defending his legacy, where the Russian president Vladimir Putin had "despised" Gorbachev and had previously described the collapse of the Soviet Union as a "catastrophe." While other former Soviet leaders were buried within the Kremlin walls, Khrushchev — like Gorbachev — was buried at Novodevichy.

But for many Russians of a liberal mindset, Gorbachev remains a beacon of freedom... and a distant memory of a chaotic but promising era that ended Soviet stagnation — in the words of the article —....!

Thousands of Russians, many of them carrying flowers, stood in a line to pay their respects to Gorbachev in Moscow. (According to The Washington Post)...!

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal opposition party Yabloko, said — according to the article — "I came here to express my gratitude for this opportunity. No one even asked him about it; he gave people the opportunity to express their opinions. This did not happen in Russia before."

Ekaterina, a young woman standing in line to pay her respects, told a reporter from Channel 360, "He made controversial decisions, and as a historian I know that well. But for me, the most important thing is that he was able to leave in time. He was not afraid to live his life more"...!

"With the start of the new Perestroika life, new opportunities were given to us and I was happy," one mourner, Elena, told 360 TV. "I came here to thank him for the life I lived."—according to the article—

Putin did not attend because of his busy schedule. This step was seen as a slight reflecting the Russian leader’s contempt for Gorbachev’s rapprochement with the West, his political and economic reforms, his support for freedom of expression, government transparency, and most importantly, the dissolution of the Soviet Union...!

The Kremlin said Gorbachev’s rites would still include "elements" of an official funeral, and that the state was assisting in organizing it. That included an honor guard of two soldiers wearing gold uniforms, a ceremonial post surrounding the coffin.

On Thursday, Putin paid tribute to Gorbachev with a silent visit to the hospital where the politician’s body remained after his death. In footage broadcast by state television channels, Putin was seen leaving a bouquet of red flowers beside the coffin, bowing, and then leaving the mourning hall... at the Central Clinical Hospital without uttering a word.!..

Gorbachev’s farewell starkly contrasted with the burial of Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia and the only other national leader to die during Putin’s presidency. Yeltsin, who chose Putin as his successor, was honored with a televised farewell held at Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow when he died in 2007... — according to the article —..!

Putin declared the day of Yeltsin’s funeral a day of national mourning. But Putin has often criticized Gorbachev’s legacy, though he avoids personal attacks, and described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Unlike Yeltsin’s funeral, which was attended by dozens of heads of state and other senior foreign figures, including former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, relatively few such guests attended Gorbachev’s funeral, given the intense tensions over the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has maintained close relations with Russia during the war, traveled to Moscow to attend the funeral and was seen in the pillar hall. Hungary, a NATO member, refused to allow NATO allies to use its territory to transport weapons being sent to the Ukrainian military.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan attended the funeral, and Russian media reported that ambassadors from Britain, France, Germany and Spain were present...

President Biden, along with hundreds of other officials from countries that Russia now considers "unfriendly," were barred from entering the country. — according to the article — !

Death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, at the age of 91 years.

Gorbachev, who generally avoided any direct personal criticism of Putin, was reportedly shocked by the decision of the current Russian president to invade Ukraine...!

Pavel Palatchenko, the aide and simultaneous translator who worked alongside Gorbachev for nearly four decades, said that in one of his last telephone conversations Gorbachev began "shocked and stunned" by the state of the country he once ruled.

Palatchenko told Reuters in an interview, "It wasn’t just the operation that began on February 24, but the whole development of relations between Russia and Ukraine over the past years that really hit him hard. It really crushed him emotionally and psychologically." (According to the article)..!

Date 5-9-2022