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Gorbachev's most important accomplishment was a huge reduction in nuclear weapons. That is no small matter. Neither is the peaceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he also managed to negotiate. Much of the collapse that followed was caused by the US. Economic Advisor to both the Polish and Russian government at the time, Jeffrey Sachs states https://youtu.be/wmOePNsNFw0, got every help he recommended while Russia got almost nothing. The expansion of NATO, too, was something Gorbachev was promised would never happen, as the last two American ambassadors to the USSR then Russia have publicly testified. Naive, perhaps; too trusting, likely, but Gorbachev did his best to play a very bad hand of cards in ways that ended bloodshed (an estimated TWO MILLION had died in Afghanistan) and helped humanity's chances of survival,

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