Mikhail Gorbachev, the accidental hero

Gorbachev's life is a great example of how things never turn out as you expect. He set out to reform the Soviet Union and instead he destroyed it. He was a hero in the West but loathed by the Russians.

His life was also an inspiring example of how for a brief shining moment we can see progress in international politics.

Gorbachev became the Soviet leader in 1985 aged 54. He could see that the country was in severe trouble.

He had two main tasks: modernize the country and reduce tensions with the United States (whose leader, Ronald Reagan, in 1983 called the USSR the "evil empire). He failed in one and succeeded brilliantly in the other.

The Soviet economic model was autarkic: built on a mixture of self-reliance at home and economic exploitation of territories in the near abroad. Everything was tightly regulated. It could do many basic things satisfactorily, such as providing food and accommodation, and it was illegal to be unemployed. Sullen, disengaged workers knew they could not be fired, even when they left their place of work to queue for a couple hours per week to obtain items. Their slogan was "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work".

By the 1980s economic life in the west was changing, with less attention focussed on manufacturing and mining, and more attention to the provision of services. Computers were beginning to transform western life.

But Russians lived in an information vacuum. For example, there were no maps of Moscow or telephone directories – either you already knew the information (and so you didn't need it) or you did not know it and may well be seeking it for inappropriate purposes (and so you must not find it).

I travelled extensively in the old Soviet Union in the Cold War days and found it a bewildering place. In 1985 I wrote about the challenge that information technology would pose to the USSR, which censored so much information.

Gorbachev attempted to reform the crumbling Soviet economy via policies of openness and transparency. He thought he could introduce just a bit of capitalism to stimulate the economy.

But he failed to understand how the west has flourished with capitalism. It is part of the west's DNA. A fish doesn't know it swims in water. Similarly, children in the west grow up earning pocket money via doing odd jobs and they see their parents working with a clear financial incentive.

The only Russians with capitalism in their DNA were the black marketers selling contraband. They knew intuitively how to make money. The average Russian, with a history of being tightly controlled by the Tsars and then the communists, never understood capitalism.

The Soviet state started to unravel.

However, Gorbachev had much more success overseas. The Soviet Union surrendered in the arms race. This took the Reagan Administration by surprise because they were expecting to fight a "limited" nuclear war in the late 1980s. The Americans now had to scramble to keep up with the Soviet initiatives.

In 1987 came the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement to scrap the missile systems to be used in that "limited' nuclear war. Gorbachev and Reagan both agreed that a "nuclear war could never be won and should never be fought". These are wise words for today's era, when nuclear disarmament negotiations are failing, and the threat of nuclear war is growing.

Gorbachev also withdrew from the losing war in Afghanistan. This had gone on for a decade and cost much Russian blood and treasure.

It was a great time to be a foreign affairs commentator. For a brief shining moment, it looked as though progress was being made in international affairs.

But the economic and social chaos at home overtook Gorbachev's success overseas. The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 and so he was a leader without a country. Indeed, in August 1991 there had been an attempted coup and he was trapped by the plotters in his holiday home, but the plot failed, and he was released.

The 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine haunted him. He was fresh into office and the only people who could advise him were those responsible for the disaster in the first place.

After he left office, he took a great interest in environmental issues. One of his achievements was the 1993 creation of Green Cross International, an organization that would have helped him in 1986 to deal with Chernobyl.

I got to meet him at this point because he joined The Club of Rome. Again, his views on the need to protect the environment and to combat the climate emergency remain very relevant today.

Gorbachev died at the age of 91. He was one of the oldest Russian men; Russian males have a life expectancy of only 73 years.

His last two decades or so were not so good. He was reviled by many Russians, who looked back with nostalgia to the "good old days" of the Soviet Union. He was blamed for ending that era of stability. He tried to re-enter politics but scored less than 5 per cent of the vote.

He lost his beloved Raisa in 1999 (they had been married for almost half a century). One of the anecdotes from my meeting the pair of them is that Raisa (though her interpreter) would suddenly halt a conversation.

Her memory had gone back to the attempted coup in August 1991. In Tsarist and communist history, one of the first tasks of the plotters is to kill the deposed rulers. The plotters did not know what to do with the Gorbachevs and so they were spared.

That frightening episode would suddenly disrupt her conversation. When that occurred, we waited mid-sentence until she overcame that memory and resumed her conversation fluently.

Another possible source of regret was Putin's reversal of Gorbachev's goal of Russia's being part of the "European home". Gorbachev wanted to create a modern, European-focussed Russia. It will take many years to reverse the damage Putin has done to Russian relations with Europe.

Overall, a remarkable and eventful life. We have all benefitted from Gorbachev's being on this planet.