Conflicting legacies: world success, home failure
Former Reuters reporter Anatoly Verbin recalls Mikhail Gorbachev ,who died on August 30 aged 91.
EUPHORIA. There is no better word to describe my feelings, the feelings of many in the Soviet intelligentsia, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and started the reforms that the world came to know as perestroika and glasnost. It was the euphoria of liberation, freedom, hope.
Changes that had seemed unthinkable were suddenly a reality, prompting a torrent of disbelieving questions. Did you know? Have you heard? Have you read . . . ?
Did you know that dissident Andrei Sakharov has been freed from exile? Have you heard that Gorbachev himself phoned Sakharov and asked him to come back to Moscow and resume ‘‘patriotic activities’’?
Sakharov took those words literally. He was elected a delegate to the Congress of People’s Deputies, which brought together representatives from all 15 Soviet republics in the first freely elected parliamentary body since the Bolshevik revolution.
He took the floor on the opening day during a discussion on electing Gorbachev as head of the smaller standing parliament, something that was a foregone conclusion. ‘‘I support Gorbachev, but only conditionally,’’ he declared.
On the last day of the twoweek session, he grabbed the microphone and started to deliver a speech on the need for more radical reforms.
Gorbachev, obviously annoyed, switched off the sound — not realising that, while the hall could no longer hear Sakharov, the rest of the country could, because the TV feed remained live.
It was a small sign that Gorbachev, having unmuzzled the opposition, would struggle to control the pace and direction of the process he had started.
Kremlin encounter
Fastforward two years to the late spring of 1991, when I was with a group of journalists who ‘‘doorstepped’’ Gorbachev in the parliament building inside the Kremlin. Several of his security chiefs were with him.
One of us shouted something like: ‘‘Mikhail Sergeyevich, there are persistent rumours that many around you are unhappy about your reforms and are planning to remove you.’’
I had never seen Gorbachev so furious. Nearly spitting, he denied the rumours and any suggestion of a rift in the leadership.
But on August 19, 1991, those same security chiefs launched a coup that left Gorbachev isolated at his Crimean holiday villa for three days.
I spent those 72 hours in the White House, where Gorbachev’s ambitious rival Boris Yeltsin, newly elected president of Russia within the Soviet Union, led resistance to the coup.
The putsch collapsed quickly and Gorbachev returned to mount a last attempt to save the Soviet Union in some form. But before the end of the year, Yeltsin and other leaders of Soviet republics had dissolved the union, and Gorbachev was out of a job.
Gorbachev’s legacy
At a global level, Gorbachev changed the course of 20th century history for the better. He played a key role in ending the Cold War; he did not resist or use force to stop the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, letting the communist states of eastern Europe go their own way; and he withdrew the
Soviet army from a bloody and futile campaign in Afghanistan.
But in national terms, he largely failed. His ‘‘perestroika’’ reforms could not reinvigorate and preserve the Soviet Union. The freedom of expression — ‘‘glasnost’’— that he championed has all but vanished for citizens of more than half the former Soviet states, foremost Russia, whose authoritarian leaders tolerate little or no opposition.
I can’t imagine his torment if his mind was still alert on February 24, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine. He may well have been asking himself, ‘‘Which of those countries is mine?’’, for his mother was Ukrainian, as was the father of his beloved late wife, Raisa.
Gorbachev showed a part of his human side that I hadn’t seen before in Vitaly Mansky’s 2020 documentary Heaven.
Overweight and barely able to walk, but still alert, he skilfully dodged tricky questions and took pride in his achievements — but he only really came alive when talking about his soulmate.
‘‘Meaning in life? Not anymore,’’ he said.
‘‘There was — when Raisa was alive.’’ After a couple of vodkas, he sang softly in Ukrainian in what felt like an echo of their time together.
Possibilities opened — and closed
On a personal level, I am eternally grateful to Gorbachev. Before perestroika, it would have been ludicrous to think that a former member of the Komsomol Communist youth organisation, the son of a university teacher of MarxistLeninist philosophy, could become an accredited reporter for a Western news organisation. He made it possible for me to live the life of my choice, not one determined by the fact that I was born in the communist Soviet Union.
I find it poignant now to recall his resignation speech on December 25, 1991: ‘‘We opened ourselves to the world, gave up interference in other people’s affairs, the use of troops beyond the borders of the country — and trust, solidarity and respect came in response. We have become one of the main foundations for the transformation of modern civilisation on peaceful democratic grounds.’’
Sadly, with the war in Ukraine, all of this has been undone. Maybe it is just as well that Gorbachev has died.
Rest in peace, Mikhail Sergeyevich, and thank you. — Reuters
November 1985 — Gorbachev and United States President Ronald Reagan hold their first summit in Geneva; Gorbachev says he is ‘‘very optimistic’’ about detente and future arms cuts.
April 1986 — Explosion at Chernobyl nuclear reactor spreads radioactive cloud across Europe. Soviet authorities admit it only three days later, raising doubts about glasnost.
December 1986 —Dr Andrei Sakharov, the father of the dissident movement, is released from exile after telephone call from Gorbachev, one of hundreds of political and religious dissidents freed during his rule.
May 1987 — A young German named Mathias Rust breaches Soviet air defences by flying a Cessna light aircraft from Helsinki to central Moscow, landing on Red Square. Gorbachev launches a purge of top defence officials.
October 1987 — Prominent Russian reformer Boris Yeltsin clashes with Gorbachev over the pace of perestroika and leaves the ruling Politburo.
December 1987 — Gorbachev and Reagan sign the first treaty to cut nuclear arsenals in Washington. All Soviet and US intermediate range missiles are to be dismantled.
October 1988 — Gorbachev consolidates power by becoming chairman of presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature.
February 1989 — Nineyear Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan ends. Independence movements gain momentum in the Baltic republics, Georgia and Ukraine.
March 1989 — Soviet Union holds first competitive multicandidate elections to choose a Congress of People’s Deputies. Many prominent oldguard communists lose out to independents, and separatists win majority of seats in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania.
November 1989 — Popular revolutions sweep away communist governments in East Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union makes no attempt to intervene as its satellite regimes fall.
December 1989 — Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush, at a summit in Malta, hail the end of the Cold War.
February 1990 —The Communist Party surrenders its guaranteed monopoly of power. Parliament agrees to give Gorbachev an executive presidency, with a big increase in powers. Proreform demonstrators hold huge rallies across the Soviet Union.
October 1990 — East and West Germany unite after intensive sixpower negotiations in which Gorbachev plays a key role. The Soviet parliament approves plan to abandon communist central planning of the economy in favour of a market economy. Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
November 1990 — Parliament empowers Gorbachev to issue decrees in almost all sectors of public activity. First draft of a Union Treaty proposed by
Gorbachev gives substantial powers to the 15 republics, but four — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia — refuse to sign.
April 1991 — Warsaw Pact of East European nations disbanded.
June 1991 — Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russia.
August 19, 1991 — Citing Gorbachev’s alleged ill health, his deputy Gennady Yanayev takes over as president at head of hardline communist junta. State of emergency declared in some areas. Estonian parliament declares independence.
August 21 — Coup collapses, destroying conservative caucus at centre and giving a huge fillip to separatists in republics. Latvian parliament declares independence.
August 24 — Gorbachev resigns as leader of the Communist Party, orders seizure by the state of its property, bans it from all state organisations and suggests it dissolve itself. Ukrainian parliament declares independence. Within weeks, all but Kazakhstan and Russia have done the same.
September 6 — Soviet supreme legislature recognises the independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Congress scraps 1922 Union Treaty and hands power to interim authority pending signature of treaty for a voluntary Union of Sovereign States.
November 16 — Russia takes control of almost all Soviet gold and diamond reserves and of oil exports. Later it announces takeover of economic ministries.
December 8 — Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia proclaim Commonwealth of Independent States with no role for a central authority or Gorbachev. At first he resists new order and refuses to resign. Slowly he comes round to accepting the inevitable.
December 25, 1991 — Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union, which is formally dissolved the following day. — Reuters