Imam further said that reality must be faced.
Mr. Gorbachev,
Reality must be faced. The main problem confronting your country is not one of private ownership, freedom and economy; your problem is the absence of true faith in God, the very problem that has dragged, or will drag, the West to vulgarism and an impasse. Your main problem is the prolonged and futile war you have waged against God, the source of existence and creation.
The last leader of the USSR passed away in Moscow on Tuesday at the age of 91.
But in January 1989, as Europe's communist regimes were taking their last breath, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini sent a delegation to Moscow to deliver a letter to Gorbachev.
"Mr Gorbachev, it is clear to everyone that communism belongs in the world's political history museums, because Marxism does not meet any of humanity's true needs," Imam Khomeini wrote.
Mr. Gorbachev,
It is clear to everybody that from now on communism will only have to be found in the museums of world political history, for Marxism cannot meet any of the real needs of mankind. Marxism is a materialistic ideology and materialism cannot bring humanity out of the crisis caused by a lack of belief in spirituality—the prime affliction of the human society in the East and the West alike.
The founder of the Islamic Republic chose to send the letter because Gorbachev had "entered, since assuming office, a revisionist phase of the Soviet system".
"Mr Gorbachev, you must face the truth: the principal problem of your country is not the question of property, economy and liberty, but the lack of true belief in God. The same problem has led or will lead the West to decadence and deadlock," Khomeini wrote in his letter.
Imam Khomeini said communism had no future "because it's a materialist school, incapable of saving man from the crisis of disbelief in spirituality, the most fundamental suffering of human society in the West and the East".
Imam Khomeini said that the solution was Islam.
"I call on you to seriously study Islam. The high and universal values of Islam can be the source of comfort and salvation for all nations and resolve the fundamental problems of humanity," the founder of the Islamic Republic said said.
By December 1991, Gorbachev would announce his resignation in a televised address, after communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed one after the other.
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Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet Union president, dies aged 91