Differing Perspectives on Gorbachev

Almost all the obituaries of Mikhail Gorbachev struck me by how positive they were. That didn’t make sense to me – how can everyone be positive about any political figure, let alone one who presided over the collapse of one of the most powerful countries in the world, the USSR.

 

That communism was proving to be unworkable was undeniable. But as an Indian obituary pointed out, many Russians today feel that while perestroika (restructuring) was necessary, it was glasnost (freedom) that broke the Soviet Union. After all, China is the prime example of doing only the first, not the second, and shown how to turnaround a country without imploding, they feel.

 

Take these lines from Jonathan Steele’s article:

“Almost singlehandedly he brought an end to 40 years of east-west confrontation in Europe and liberated the world from the danger of nuclear conflagration. It was not the objective he set himself when he was elected general secretary of the Soviet Communist party in March 1985, nor did he predict or plan the way the cold war would end, the haemorrhaging of the Communist party, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany or the break-up of the Soviet Union itself.”

The West loves all of the above; no wonder they are so gushing in their praise.

 

Even back then, closer to 1991 when the USSR collapsed, there were many who criticized Gorbachev for “trying to “reform” communism when he should have recognised that it was dead”. But, as Steele says:

“The charges were unfair – as well as inaccurate – since they characterised Gorbachev as an ideologue when he was, in fact, one of the great pragmatists.”

After all, what followed in Russia next wasn’t exactly a fairy tale:

“Compared with the crony capitalism and chaotic collapse of public services that marked the first years of post-communism in Russia, his (Gorbachev’s) goals seem admirable (realistic).”

Even as the former Soviet republics started to break away, Gorbachev, the pragmatist, didn’t send in the Soviet army because, as he explained later:

“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war.”

 

So yes, it was a very complex and fluid situation Gorbachev was dealing with. Vladimir Isachenkov points out that Putin has one specific grouse with Gorbachev’s choices. No, it has nothing to do with his handling of communism or the Soviet economy. Rather:

“Putin in the past repeatedly blamed him for failing to secure written commitments from the West that would rule out NATO’s expansion eastward — an issue that became a major irritant in Russia-West ties for decades and fomented tensions that exploded when the Russian leader sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.”

A sentiment expressed in very graphic terms by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

“Gorbachev gave an impulse for ending the Cold War and he sincerely wanted to believe that it would be over and an eternal romance would start between the renewed Soviet Union and the collective West. This romanticism failed to materialize. The bloodthirsty nature of our opponents has come to light, and it’s good that we realized that in time.”

 

I guess Leonid Slutsky, the head of the foreign affairs committee in Russian parliament, summarizes the Russian view of Gorbachev:

“He was “the most remarkable politician of his time” but… his reforms “played into the hands of those who were trying to wipe the USSR off the world’s map.”

Great for the world at large (by overseeing a peaceful implosion), not so good for Russia itself – that seems a much fairer assessment of the man.