Mr Gorbachev is still a divisive figure in his homeland as many Russians still associate him personally with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The fall of the Berlin Wall is widely seen as the symbolic moment when communism in Eastern Europe – started by Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik revolution in 1917 – was brought to an end.
However, Mr Gorbachev revealed his real thoughts on what caused the fall of communism during a 2006 interview, during which he claimed it was nothing to do with his desire for reform.
He also stopped short of highlighting the importance of the Berlin Wall coming down, instead noting the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 as the pivotal moment in the fall of the Soviet Union.
He said: “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, even more than my launch of Perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.”
