MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. The Soviet Union’s first president, Mikhail Gorbachev, has said that the policy of glasnost was crucial to reforms in the Soviet Union.

"I am also scolded for glasnost. But without glasnost nothing would have changed in the country," Gorbachev told TASS in an interview on the eve of his 90th birthday.

He added he was often criticized for being "too trusting." "But if I had had no trust in the people, perestroika would have never begun," he said.

The full interview with the USSR’s first and last president, Mikhail Gorbachev, dedicated to his 90th birthday, is available here https://tass.com/politics/1261489.