This documentary looks at one of the most gripping chapters in contemporary history from the election of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War four years later. It features exclusive interviews with the former Soviet leader and leading politicians and statesmen active on the international stage at the time. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. His policies of "glasnost" - "openness" - and "perestroika" - "restructuring" - ultimately ended in the collapse of Moscow’s empire and changed the course of world history. But in the end, his legacy is still at best an ambiguous one. This documentary examines one of the most exciting chapters in contemporary history since the Second World War and talks to former French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine and German politician Horst Teltschik, both of whom played important roles in German reunification. Gorbachev's former national security adviser Alexander Likhotal and others also chart the way nuclear weapons have continued to spread throughout the multipolar world that grew out of the end of the Cold War. Could this new arms race bring us to the brink of nuclear war again? The film draws on the wisdom and experience of men who ushered in the end of the Cold War to ask how real peace can be achieved.
Saturday, October 06, 2018
Gorbachev and the Opportunity for Peace Wasted | DW Documentary
This documentary looks at one of the most gripping chapters in contemporary history from the election of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War four years later. It features exclusive interviews with the former Soviet leader and leading politicians and statesmen active on the international stage at the time. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. His policies of "glasnost" - "openness" - and "perestroika" - "restructuring" - ultimately ended in the collapse of Moscow’s empire and changed the course of world history. But in the end, his legacy is still at best an ambiguous one. This documentary examines one of the most exciting chapters in contemporary history since the Second World War and talks to former French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine and German politician Horst Teltschik, both of whom played important roles in German reunification. Gorbachev's former national security adviser Alexander Likhotal and others also chart the way nuclear weapons have continued to spread throughout the multipolar world that grew out of the end of the Cold War. Could this new arms race bring us to the brink of nuclear war again? The film draws on the wisdom and experience of men who ushered in the end of the Cold War to ask how real peace can be achieved.
