Fort Collins – Freedoms gained when communism lost its grip in the 1980s are being squandered by self-serving nations ignoring economic and political injustice, Mikhail Gorbachev told a rapt audience at Colorado State University on Thursday night.
The 74-year-old former leader of the Soviet Union and Nobel Peace Prize winner said those enriched by capitalism should reach down to help those who have not benefited from booming economies.
“Instead of solving the problem of poverty, the gap between rich and the poor has grown,’ said Gorbachev. “We have seen the emphasis on free trade over sustainable development result in the … numbers of poor growing.’
Gorbachev’s appearance as part of the Monfort Lecture Series at CSU drew probably the largest crowd ever at Moby Arena, said CSU spokesman Brad Bohlander. More than 9,155 filed into the arena, including fresh-faced students and those who lived during the Cold War.
All said they wanted to see the man who helped dismantle the oppressive Soviet Union while keeping his country and the United States from carrying out nuclear annihilation.
“This is a man who I’ve studied in my classes, and there he was, not 10 feet away from me,’ said CSU graduate student Alexandra Nutter. “I’m kind of intimidated.’
Brisk and businesslike, Gorbachev talked through an interpreter, but his low-key sense of humor still emerged.
He paid tribute to Ronald Reagan, calling him a tough hawk on military issues but also wise in recognizing that the two superpowers could no longer toy with the idea of staging nuclear war.
“I told him that initially I thought he was a real dinosaur, and he said many thought I was an old Bolshevik,’ Gorbachev said.
“But we both said nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought,’ he said.
Gorbachev was a loyal Community Party member and rose through the ranks of the government before becoming president of the Soviet Union from 1985 through 1991.
During his climb, he realized that the harsh rule of the Soviet system could not survive in the long term. “The country was suffocating from the lack of freedom,’ he said.
Gorbachev’s series of reforms, his efforts at halting communist rule in Eastern Europe and his framing of disarmament pacts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
He was recently named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.
Since retiring from politics, Gorbachev has become an advocate of environmental health and of setting new priorities in the post-Cold War world.
During an earlier press conference, he criticized President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and said the wave of worldwide democracy is being hampered by the disparity between social classes.
“Social problems are not being addressed by democracies,’ Gorbachev said.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 303-726-8674 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.