As lawmakers worldwide commemorate the death of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) dealt with the darker parts of his legacy.
Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union, and while most statements from politicians about his death Tuesday, at age 91, focused on his transitioning of Russia away from communism, Durbin, the majority whip for Senate Democrats, said that Gorbachev’s handling of Lithuania’s independence stained his legacy.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, LAST LEADER OF THE SOVIET UNION AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER, DIES
“I’m sorry, but I can’t join a chorus of fond Gorbachev memories,” Durbin tweeted Wednesday. “In January 1991, his Soviet tanks rolled into my mother’s homeland & killed 14 innocent Lithuanians standing in defense of their TV tower & democracy. Like Putin, Gorbachev used barbarism to try to destroy freedom.”
While the Baltic states were gaining independence from the Soviet Union beginning in 1990, clashes between pro-independence protesters and the Soviet army resulted in 14 dead civilians. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, whose grandfather Vytautas Landsbergis was the leader of Lithuania during that time, recalled these events in his statement on Gorbachev’s passing.
“Lithuanians will not glorify Gorbachev,” he said. “We will never forget the simple fact that his army murdered civilians to prolong his regime’s occupation of our country. His soldiers fired on our unarmed protesters and crushed them under his tanks. That is how we will remember him.”
Durbin broke with fellow Democrats, including President Joe Biden and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), in his reaction to Gorbachev’s death. The White House put out a statement calling him a “rare leader — one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”
“Mr. Gorbachev sought to modernize his nation’s economy and, simultaneously, establish a more open society,” Hoyer said. “He recognized that true freedom required both. His dedication to peace, nuclear nonproliferation, and diplomacy helped bring an end to the Cold War and make the world safer.”
His dedication to peace with the West in the waning days of the Cold War and opening Russian society earned Gorbachev mostly fond remembrances in the United States. On the other hand, Russian state media focused on his failings that resulted in severe economic hardships in the 1990s.
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“Our union fell apart; that was a tragedy and his tragedy,” Russian news agency RIA quoted Vladimir Shevchenko, former head of Gorbachev’s protocol office, as saying.
Gorbachev died after a two-year battle with a severe kidney illness.
