Gandhi and Gorbachev, Mao and Mandela

Gandhi and Gorbachev, Mao and Mandela

Undoubtedly, Gandhi, Mao, Mandela, and Gorbachev have been some of the greatest and most influential figures in the past century and a half. They have all had a large impact in their individual nations, as well as the world, bringing about significant change. Gandhi and Gorbachev went about establishing change by nonviolently trying to reform their governments. While, Mao and Mandela strived for revolutionary change in their countries and went about achieving it through a more militant perspective. Each personality is unique to their own environment, but there were areas where they were similar and different as well.

Gandhi and Gorbachev were similar in the fact that they wanted to drastically reform the way their governments were without using violence. Gandhi was the epitome when it comes to nonviolence. Gandhi stood up to the largest empire on Earth, the British, never once resorting to any form of violence. He went against the empire to liberate his homeland of India from under the colonial rule of the British and seeking the rights of Indians in another British colony, South Africa. When, Indians were finally given more rights in South Africa and in India too Gandhi moved towards reforming the Hindu-Muslim conflict that intensified after the partition of Pakistan and India when the British left in 1947. However, during his fight against colonial rule, racism, and oppression Gandhi used only peaceful methods. His actions were peaceful not because he was a coward, he maintained, “that the armed man is more of a coward then the man who rejects the use of force, because possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice, while true non-violence is unequivocally fearless” (Deluca 17). It took courage to lead protests under the watch of violent British troops and result in Gandhi being beaten or arrested on several occasions, stage economic boycotts that would make life less comfortable, and his most notorious form of nonviolent activism was fasting and hunger strikes. The hunger strike, if failed, would have resulted ultimately in his death. Through his acts of nonviolence Gandhi brought about change in India, giving his fellow Indians freedom and restoring their feeling of national pride. Gorbachev would eventually try to do similar things in Russia.

Gorbachev too went about trying to nonviolently reform the status quo of the ailing Soviet Union. Unlike Gandhi, Gorbachev tried reforming the government from the inside. Taking a more diplomatic approach by initiating reforms and inspiring change through words. Like a true diplomat, “Gorbachev’s affinity for motivational speeches reflected his belief that he could will a peaceful revolution into existence through words, scolding, encomia and exhortations that would generate enthusiastic popular support and �somehow…make…his reforms…real” (Deluca 101). The Soviet Union was one of the world’s superpowers, but was rather weak due to a weak economy and low morale. The people were tired of the old faces that were in power, they did not live very comfortably with lack of consumer goods, there was no profit incentive for the economy, and the majority of the people were not Russian. To combat against this low morale and poor economy, Gorbachev put into effect three different reforms. The first of which was called Perestroika, meaning, “restructuring”. The plan was to change the economy and bureaucracy by incentives for the people like the privatization of small consumer places such as coffee shops, possible ways of profit for the people, and the eventual privatization of other businesses. The second of his reforms was called Glasnost or “openness”. The object of this reform was to understand what the people were feeling by letting them voice their opinions more and have more news available. The third reform that Gorbachev set in place was New Thinking. This program focused more on improving foreign relations; something the Soviet Union did not do so much in the past. In this, Gorbachev mainly focused on the West, specifically the U.S. because of the Arms Race that the Soviets were losing. Gorbachev started a public relations campaign against the (SDI) Strategic Defense Initiative that Regan had released. He was able to make it seem that the Soviet Union was against nuclear weapons and for peace. Gorbachev was a “PR genius!” as the woman from the video remarked after he had gotten out of the car to visit the people during a trip to Washington, D.C. Gorbachev was extremely popular, people would gather wherever he went and shout his name as if he was a rock star. That status is something he had to work at, “he worked hard both on and off camera to shape his populist image” (Deluca 105). Popularity and admiration were some other similarities