MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said in Moscow on Saturday that he believes his political career was “a success.”
“I would say – my career was successful. But I mean career in the good sense. Not in the sense of ‘careerist,'” Gorbachev said during an open lecture at RIA Novosti in Moscow on Saturday.
Gorbachev, 82, chose the theme “does the individual change history or does history change the individual?” for his first public speech in Russia in many years.
He opened his speech with recollections from his youth, saying that his life had always been inextricably linked with politics. “When I was young, it was community work with school, and through university, and from August 1955 – it was already professional political activity” he said.
Outlining his journey from career politician to reformer, he highlighted his visit to Czechoslovakia, and the resentment he felt from people there over the Soviet Union’s invasion of the country in 1968.