Soviet Communism 'pure propaganda', Gorbachev tells students

Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev has told American university students the communism he served most of his life was ‘‘pure propaganda’’.

Gorbachev told an audience at Columbia University in New York that by the time he rose to power, with Soviet satellites in space, the ruling politicians ‘‘were discussing the problem of toothpaste, the problem of detergent, and they had to create a commission of the Politburo to make sure that women have pantyhose’’.