Talk:Mikhail Gorbachev

What is that spot on his forehead?!

I think someone spilled wine on his head!

"(this quote arised from his misunderstanding of Jesus: Clearly Moses was the first socialist proposing to give anybody according to his deed - 'eye for eye', delivery of slaves each 7 years, canceling the capital by forbidding interests for borrowed money. Jesus was the first communist, proposing to give anybody according to his needs - 'give to whoever asks you')"

I removed this expression from under the Jesus quote. It's blatant POV and irrelevant. We don't need random editors arguing with a direct quote from a historical figure. -- Styrbjorn 22:32, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The phrasing around G. taking out trademark protection on his birthmark is quite unclear. Also: I have read in a short biography that G. was what's called a "teetotaler" or something in english, he didn't drink alcohol. But I have also seen a russian documentary made after his wife's death that seems to indicate that he isn't that any longer? Other issues which may be of interest may be his close relationship to his wife, and the humanitarian organization they started (cancer research?)

Featured on Template:March 11 selected anniversaries (may be in HTML comment)

What about moving this article from Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev to Mikhail Gorbachev? Most articles link to the second title, few to the first one. -- Juan M. Gonzalez 22:39 Sep 9, 2002 (UTC)

Moved. --mav

Thanks, mav. I had a nagging suspicion that just moving the text wasn't enough, but I couldn't remember why (it's the history, of course). --Ed Poor

Ivashko can not be considered as Gorbachev's successor as the leader of the Soviet Union. Andres 01:00, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't see how you can put Yeltsin as Gorbachev's successor. Yeltsin become president of the Russian republic in 1990 before Yeltsin resigned. The Soviet Union encompassed more than Russia. This was not a simple name change. A larger entity dissolved and a lower entity became sovereign. --Jia ng 19:48, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

First of all, your change is not just fixing a typo. If there are disagreements in basics, they must be settled in the talk page.

Now, you are saying "the SU dissolved". If it were so easy. There are international treaties, obligations, debts. In many aspects Russian Federation claimed to overtake. There is a historical continuity Imperial Russia -- Soviet Union -- Russian Federation. If you don't like the chain of rulers as it is displayed now, let's discuss something different, to display this chain of succession, rather than simply break it. Mikkalai 21:01, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I never said that my change was fixing a typo. Russia declared its independence in June 12, 1990 and the USSR was not dissolved until a year later. There is no continuity. Are you claiming that Gorbachev ceased to be legitimate in June 1990? The navigation bar states "List of leaders of the Soviet Union". That's all we need to include. It's not a "List of leaders of Russia". The key word in your statement above is "many", not "all". It was not a direct succession and the two are not synonomous. To claim that is to be misleading. --Jia ng 21:30, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The key word is "don't be too formal" in my comments to edits. You are breaking the actual chain of history of the land under a formal pretext without giving any replacement. Mikkalai 22:07, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As an encyclopedia, we must do our best to be factual. What's wrong with being formal? I don't see your point. This is not a direct chain of leaders. --Jia ng 22:26, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wrong with being formal is that history is not mathematics, unfortunately.

For example, I could disagree with inclusion in the list of leaders those temporary ones, from coups, since the were not formally recognized anywhere in the world (and by the people of the country as well). Why is your formalism so selective? Mikkalai 22:48, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Since when has formal recognition by other states determined whether a leader would be a leader, period? --Jia ng 23:01, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

With regard to Gorbachev and Yeltsin - we link from Kerensky to Lenin at one end so we should link from Gorbachev to Yeltsin at the other. PMA 12:33, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Since that one was directly overthrown and replaced it's fine, but it should link to the state replacement, not the person. That navigation bar also links to "Leaders of Russia", not "Leaders of the Soviet Union".--Jia ng

what's wrong with navigation bars mixed? See List of British monarchs, with all these changes and intertwines of lands and rulers. Main goal in historiography is connectedness, otherwise it is impossible to trace through time. Mikkalai 22:48, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You mean at James I of England? That was a direct succession and the crowns were merged. I don't see the issue or confusion there. It's been the same family since the Norman conquest. --Jia ng 23:01, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Silly things removed until serious confirmation

... and explanations.

Gorbachev won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, called "Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks", along with Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren.

OK. This one seems seems true, but the above text is total confusion. I have no desire to write it correctly. If someone wants, go ahead. Mikkalai 02:29, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In early 2004, Gorbachev created a copyright of his famous birthmark after a vodka company featured the mark on labels of one of their drinks in order to capitalize on its fame. The company now no longer uses the trademark as Gorbachev takes it very seriously.Gorbachev to Trademark his Forehead

This text may also be true, but the exposition is unencyclopedic, good for a tabloid (what's the company? why did gorbachoff copyright? to get rich or to fight defamation? etc.) Mikkalai 02:29, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The excision comes across as an attempt to de-trivialise the Gorbachev article, always a worthy goal, but overdone here in my opinion. The Grammy Award alone would qualify Gorbachev for inclusion (see Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies), and the Grammy articles would link here. The trademark issue will probably be mentioned in the trademark / intellectual property / celebrity articles at some stage as a famous example of protecting one's likeness, and is the only mention in the article of the famous birthmark - there is a photo but it could be thought to be from a burn late in life. I agree that the text should be improved, but please use pages such as Wikipedia:Cleanup, Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute or Wikipedia:Pages needing attention instead of deletion. My view is that the article currently needs more content, not less. -- Zigger 04:14, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

You seem to have ignored what I wrote. I don't care if you include Gorbachov's penis diameter. What I care, you must be diligent with facts. The authors seemed to put some red hot chily pepper rather than provide correct information. Mikkalai 08:19, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Gorbachov vs Gorbachev

The correct transliteriations of the Russian name Горбачёв is Gorbachov;. The name is often spelled in Russian as Горбачeв (without double dot) hence the spelling of Gorbachev but this is a rude spelling error. We have to avoid the spelling errors. ABE 00:16, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is an English language encylopedia. It doesn't matter which translation is more accurate. In English, Gorbachev is the most common spelling, used by the English language media and elsewhere. --Jia ng 00:18, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to the Transliteration of Russian into English, Gorbachyov is the proper transliteration. The source of confusion lies in omission of diacritic marks over ё, as explained in the Reforms of Russian orthography; even when written with without diacritic, it's still universally spelled as yo (hence the simplified CHOFF ending in the phonetic guideline). The similar confusion is applied to Khrushchev, who should have been properly transliterated as Khrushchyov and it's in fact the spelling used by every Russian.

I think these variants be mentioned in the intro as primary with commonly accepted ones in parentheses, just like Joseph Stalin is correctly named by Russian Iosif on the first line. DmitryKo 12:08, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Berlin wall

There is a nice anecdote on the page from the French language wiki, which would be nice to incorporate if anyone can think where best to put it. Here is my translation of the French:

In 1989, on an official visit to China soon after the events of Tiananmen square, he was asked for his opinion on the great wall of China: "It's a very beautiful work", he replied, "but there are already too many walls between people". A journalist asked him, "would you like the Berlin wall to be taken down?" Gorbachev replied very seriously, "Why not?"

~~,,,~~Trainspotter~~,,,~~ 19:52, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree with a comment someone said about using a better picture. Could someone find a better one?

Glasnost: eastern europe tore away the USSR

It was not so much eastern europe... eastern europe was in itself manipulated easily, but the balitic region was the actual definitive *region* which had the momentum and history to actually break away. Remember in the baltics the germans were greeted as liberators against the soviets in WWII... capsulised in the movie "Hunt for the red october" goes the saying "but why would a russian want to defect?". "He's not Russian. He was born in lithuania". That pretty much sums it up. This isn't the united states of america we're talking about. It was never united, and never was, and never will be. period.

That's true. If the USSR would have been like the USA, Baltics would have lived in reservations that would be used as nuclear waste dumps.

Clarify

What i mean by that is eastern europe is much a generisation... there was a real difference in the warsaw pact between communist "satelite states" and those states actually IN the USSR... dissent towards the soviets varied greatly between them, on a scale of 0 to 100, objectively between 4 trillion 5 hundred billion 4 hundred and twenty seven million, 800 thousand , four hundred and seventy three to say on the same scale of 0-100, 3 in Georgia. Ukraine less, take into account that soviet union encouraged russian nationals to "Spread everywhere" to complete the russification of the USSR.

Raisa

Shouldn't Raisa's death in 1999 be mentioned?

Inadvertently dissolved Communist Party

The article states that Gorbachev inadvertently ended the supremecy of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. He had intentions to end Communism (as stated later on) so inadvertently is a bad word to describe the situation.

Religious beliefs

Although he doesn't adhere to any religion, I'm not sure if it's correct to label Gorbachev an atheist. For example, he is quoted as saying: "We must not categorize nations into first-rate and second-rate because all nations are God's creation. And God knew what it was creating." [1]

Atheist or not, he is a trained politician, and I would rather believe that his invocations of God and Christ are a PR trick, nothing more. There is a Rusian say, "You live with volves, you wail as volves". As for labelling, this is a kind of label which is valid only according to person's claim about himself, regardless any amount third-party guesswork. mikka (t) 01:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On October 27, he became an archont to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the orthodox church. ==> http://www.hri.org/news/greek/ana/2005/05-10-25.ana.html#15 and http://www.orthodoxie.com/2005/10/michael_gorbatc_1.html