I looked up Gorbachev and found a few sources that relate to this topic. 1. Interestingly enough, Gorbachev himself gave a Nobel Peace Prize speech. So, for my first source, I'd like to briefly mention Gorbachev's Nobel Peace Prize Lecture from 1990. In his speech he looks back on his reforms and focusing on how perestroika and glasnost were very much rooted in democratic pluralism. He also talked about the rule of law and the opportunity for negotiation instead of coercion. I believe this speech is important to include because I feel like it gives us a good insight into Gorbachev's intentions aside from the writing. He also pretty directly rejected any idea of returning to repression and heavily pushed his idea of necessary reformed change. 2. For my second source I wanted to find something that is a little more recent and not directly from Gorbachev himself. I came across an article from 2011 that discusses a documentary about the lives of five students who grew up during the Soviet era and during Gorbachev's reforms. I like this article because if you do not have time to watch an entire documentary, which is called "My Perestroika" you can read the article for a good summary. The article discusses the lives of these ordinary people experiencing the reforms firsthand. I found this interesting in comparison to the political elites discussing the reforms. This article provides a deeper personal and cultural look at how Gorbachev's reforms changed people's daily lives. It also restated Illarionov's idea of non-violent revolutions.

I think this is fair for a B. You have to participate and listen to the people you are responding to; otherwise, it will not benefit the colleague or you. It is important to work as a group for group exercises and constructively respond, especially because this course is online, so there is already limited communication. Overall, I believe that having to specifically and constructively respond is a fair way to earn a B.