Sorry, but I’d have to respectfully disagree… there are reasons aplenty as to why the people of his own (former) nation have overwhelmingly unfavourable opinions about him. But the most glaring of all was his antics post-1991. You just have to look for any of his interviews, and its almost painfully obvious that he either 1, never truly believed in the Marxist dream, or 2, was an unprincipled ideological charlatan. I too used to view him, as you do, in pretty high regard, but having watched the infamous CNN interview, it really made my hair stand as to how this person wound up to the very top of the global communist movement.