Western leaders are lauding Mikhail Gorbachev as a man who unshackled millions of people from communist oppression, but hard-line China is blaming his reforms for the chaos in the former Soviet lands.
China's Xinhua News Agency showed the government's sentiments in one sentence of a dispatch Wednesday. It said Gorbachev's " `new thinking,' `glasnost' and `political pluralism' have brought political chaos, ethnic strife and economic crisis."Xinhua linked disintegration of the Soviet Union directly to the Soviet Communist Party's 1990 decision to drop the party's constitutional guarantee of power.
Other world leaders, however, applauded Gorbachev's achievements.
"It is given to very few people to change the course of history. But that is what Gorbachev has done. His place in history is secure," British Prime Minister John Major said Wednesday. Major said the former Soviet Union is "well on the way to democracy. That is the greatest legacy he will leave."
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called Gorbachev "a very great man. He restored liberty to all the east European countries. He brought it for the first time to the peoples of the Soviet Union - real personal and political liberty."
Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany expressed his compatriots' gratitude for Gorbachev's role in reunification of long-divided Germany.
"Without Mikhail Gorbachev, the overcoming of the East-West conflict and the unprecedented success in the last years of disarmament and arms control would not have been possible," he said.
President Francois Mitterrand of France saluted Gorbachev as "one of the most remarkable men in the history of this century in organizing the emergence of freedom in his country, the end of the Cold War and disarmament."
Afghan rebels said that the collapse of the Soviet Union is divine retribution for the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.
Burhanuddin Rabbani, an Afghan rebel leader, said: "I believe in the verse of the Koran that you will see the destruction of dictatorships that have oppressed people. The Soviet Union and communism are being buried in front of our eyes."
Japan's Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Japan may recognize Russia as early as Friday and paid tribute to Gorbachev "for promotion of perestroika" and ending the Cold War "under `new thinking' diplomacy."
Israel paid tribute to Gorbachev for restoring diplomatic ties with the Jewish state and permitting free Jewish emigration.
Hungarian President Arpad Goencz said he hopes "from the depth of my heart" that Gorbachev's resignation does not mean the end of his political career. "Gorbachev is a leading figure of European, moreover, world history of our century," he told the state news agency MTI.
Italian Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis said Gorbachev was responsible for "the profound transformations on the European continent" and "the start of a process of democratization" at home. "Gorbachev's role proved to be of decisive importance in getting under way solutions to grave crises particularly in the gulf region," he said in a statement.
President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa hailed Gorbachev as the man who started the changes that ended the Cold War and opened the door to freedom in central Europe.
"The healing process has begun, but it will require considerable time, understanding and great effort to overcome the enormous damage caused by the ideology of communism," he said in a statement.
Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, in his first statement on foreign affairs, Thursday announced Australia's recognition of the 11 former Soviet republics and praised Gorbachev for his "foresight and courage."
"I warmly welcome the new community of nations to the international stage," Keating said. "The cooperation between the newly independent states and the peaceful and orderly transition to the new Commonwealth is to be commended."
India's largest communist party called the dismantling of the Soviet Union a "historically retrograde development" Thursday and said socialism in the shattered nation would be resurrected.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist said it was confident "that the people of the former Soviet Union and the communists who had over the decades built up a successful and powerful socialist state would in the years to come rally together in future struggles."