Mikhail Gorbachev died: how were his last days in power

The popularity of Michele Gorbachev it had grown around the world as the so-called “socialist bloc” vanished, with subsequent revolutions – mostly peaceful – and a moment that summed it up: the extinction of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

But as popular as Gorbachev was in the West, did not correspond in the former USSR, where the population was impoverished. Neither the Nobel Peace Prize (1990) nor the reunification of Germany, one of his achievements, saved him from the debacle. His star began to decline.

In March 1991 he was re-elected Executive President of the USSR, but in May his already staunch enemy Boris Yeltsin he was proclaimed President of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic. It was the first step towards a split: in June, Russia declared itself independent, with Yeltsin as president.

In August 1991 a coup d’etat by the uncompromising Communists converted Gorbachev imprisoned in his summer residence in the Crimea. Yeltsin called to defend it with popular demonstrations. The coup failed, Yeltsin gained prestige and popularity, and Gorbachev was a “political corpse”.

Towards the end of that year, the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, along with Yeltsin, also proclaimed their independence and the Commonwealth of States. The Russian Federation took the seat of the USSR at the UN and on 25 December Gorbachev resigned from his posts: the USSR ceased to exist. The red flag of the hammer and sickle has given way in the Kremlin to the white, blue and red flag of Russia.

Head of a political and cultural foundation, the former powerful of the USSR recorded an album in 2009, Love songs. They were the favorite of his wife, Raisa, who had died a decade earlier. It was one of his last appearances.

“These are the seven favorite Russian love songs. I performed them myself, accompanied by Andrei Makarevich. It’s for charity. “A romantic gesture that, who knows if the Kremlin will appreciate when it comes to honoring Gorbachev. Perhaps his body rests on its stone walls, reserved for the great glories of Mother Russia. Or in London, where Marx wrote” The Capital”.