Online Public Relations Thoughts

There are opposed views about the legacy of  Mikhail Gorbachev.  The West sees him as a visionary who led Russia to a democratic state.  Russians call him a traitor who destroyed the Soviet Union. Whose opinion will become history's judgement will come decades from now, long after Putin steps down or dies in office.  It is not often a former leader sparks such controversy.  Gorbachev was the last leader of the USSR and took steps to open it up from the sclerotic state it was. That it all fell apart rather than reformed is not unusual but hardliners can't forgive him.  Conservatives only see greatness in the former state, which wasn't true then or now.  Could it be that Russians prefer the heavy hand of bureaucracy?  Have they forgotten the food and goods lines that characterized the country?  Are Russian citizens content with being told what to do, how to think and what to say?  The war in Ukraine seems to indicate that they are.  Putin seems to understand the Russian citizen better than Gorbachev did.