Compare And Contrast Mao And Gorbachev

One of Gorbachev's plans was to “[reorient] the external military and foreign policy of the Soviet Union” (Wallace 468). This however failed, and showed the population that he did not have control over his own actions nor the Soviet Union, i.e he did not prove he had a hold on long-term power (Wallace 468). Even though he was unsuccessful in his plans, we can still take this as an example of how he saw the world. This example demonstrates how Gorbachev was able to create many elaborate plans and strategies in producing rapid change “in the realm of external policy” (Wallace 468) in relation to him trying to create peace between the East and the West. This shapes his worldview because it shows that he kept on striving for more change and was always looking for a better way of reaching the end goal of a peaceful Soviet Union.(CITE?)

Mao and Gorbachev have share many similarities. A similarity in their worldviews that both leaders obtain is their ambition for change. Firstly, Mao strived for permanent revolution, and world revolution. The way in which he saw the world advancing was through constant revolution which would result in equality. Similarly, Gorbachev was very ambitious in his pursuit of change. He wanted to make “new initiatives to "restructure" society and "accelerate” the economy” (Wallace 458). As well,

That was the message that Gorbachev was trying to let everyone know. He was a communist, but he was also a reformist. He wanted to implement rapid changes in economic and political systems so that the people of the Soviet Union could start shifting their worldviews (pre-Stalin) and start adopting his belief systems of peace, equality, liberty (Zwick 215-218). Consequently, Gorbachev’s worldviews did not fully get through to the population of the Soviet Union which made him lose control of his people (Wood, 12-13,