THE TWO MIKHAIL GORBACHEVS

THE TWO MIKHAIL GORBACHEVS

By Duncan R. Shaw

Madrid, 31 August 2022

Yesterday, in Moscow, the two Mikhail Gorbachevs died, both of them aged 91.

The serene, sagacious, perspicacious, beloved liberator Mikhail Gorbachev who won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Cold War and peacefully dismantling Soviet Union died – and  today is being mourned by political leaders across the globe.

Also, however, died yesterday the hubristic, arrogant, impatient, frustrated Mikhail Gorbachev who ended up reviled by his own people because of food shortages and the descent of the Soviet Union into economic chaos, violent disintegration and international ridicule.

So: which of the two Mikhail Gorbachevs was the real one?

Trying to interpret so-called ‘historic figures’ is almost as difficult as trying to live decently in this indecent world.

Should we judge Gorbachev by his intentions (noble, generous, enlightened) or by his outcomes (disappointing, excruciating, enfuriating)?

Today, for sure, Vladimir Putin will blame Gorbachev for the collapse of the Soviet Union – “the greatest tragedy in our history”, according to Putin.

Meanwhile, western leaders and media will surely hail Gorbachev as a dove of peace and understanding – and will claim that he was totally opposed to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (even though the ailing Gorbachev never actually said that this spring and summer).

It is usually a mistake, I believe, to assume that the changes that a leader has affected in his or her country are actually the changes that he or she wanted. We should not fall into the trap of overstating the capacity of a leader to implement real change – in the face of entrenched interests and a recalcitrant, conservative bureaucracy.

Which takes us, of course, to the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. 

By which we should see political leaders not as omnipotent, all-powerful titans carrying through a carefully calibrated programme of reforms, but instead opportunistic, fleeting, temporary weaklings with massive constraints on their power (from pressure groups and vested interests) – and usually without a clear roadmap.

That is, grosso modo, basically my judgement of Gorbachev: an arrogant reformer who recklessly unleashed a ‘revolution’ that he quickly lost control of – a ‘revolution’ without clear objectives.

Or, to put it in basic Derbyshire terms (with which I grew up): he ‘bit off more than he could chew’.

To use another useful colloquialism: if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else…

Back in 1985, he certainly had no desire to break up the Soviet Union and introduce  violent ‘gangster capitalism’ to Russia.

All politicians talk about ‘change’. Most of them realize just how difficult it is to actually implement a programme of reforms, and therefore don’t dare to venture far beyond the easy platitudes of ‘change’.

Some, however (a small, brave, reckless minority) actually do try to implement their reforms, in the face of entrenched opposition, enduring traditions and conservative (with a small c) obstructionism.

Gorbachev was clearly in this latter category. To begin with, in 1985, it was not clear if he was simply going to talk about ‘change’ or if he was actually serious about his reforms. In retrospect, it would have been easier for him not to have taken perestroika and glasnost (his two catchwords, always more attracive abroad than at home) quite so seriously.

After all: fools rush in where angels fear to tread, as the great Alexander Pope told us…

Actually meeting a ‘historic figure’ (usually a depressing experience) can give one a good insight into what kind of a person they really are.

I saw Gorbachev in the flesh in Argentina in 1993. Two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was on a (rather undignified) world tour: to raise money for his much-vaunted ‘freedom foundation’ (which became extremely unpopular in Russia).

In Buenos Aires, Gorbachev looked bored and frustrated. He gave a hurried speech in Russian (which the poor interpreter struggled to put into Spanish) in which he seemed to be blaming two distinct groups for obstructing his wonderful reforms: the conservative apparatichiki within the CPSU, who were worried about losing their many privileges, and also the peripheral nationalists (Baltics, Ukrainians, Georgians, etc) who used his reforms to break away from the Soviet empire.

Gorbachev also laced into the cynical Boris Yeltsin and his grasping ‘family’: for ousting him from power, and for making billions out of privatization (gas, oil, diamonds, gold…).

After this scrappy blame-them-not-me speech Gorbachev was in a hurry to leave – he was flying on to Brazil. I stood in line to shake his hand: a stocky, energetic, frustrated figure, eager to get back to the airport….

Raisa, his elegant wife, looked even more bored and impatient. She was wearing western designer clothes (presumably bought in Paris and New York) and was literally dripping with expensive jewelry.

Five years later, Gorbachev brought ridicule upon himself, at home and abroad, by advertising Pizza Hut. Politicians often make complete fools of themselves after leaving office (Blair, Schroeder, Clinton, etc), in their desperation to make money: to pay for their luxurious lifestyle, massive security, private schools for their children and grandchildren…

But, but, but…I don’t want to be too harsh on Gorbachev. After all, I thought the Soviet Union was basically a noble enterprise – despite all its obvious flaws (corruption, inefficiency, international aggression, among others).

The only thing I agree with Putin about is that the collapse of the USSR was unecessary and harmful.

As a teenage idealist in England, I basically saw the Soviet Union as a force for good in the world. After all, it was the Red Army that had (mostly) stopped Hitler…

And the ‘real existing socialism’ of the Soviet bloc was really the only viable alternative to the brutal neoliberal model being imposed in the west by Milton Friedman, Thatcher and Reagan. What other alternatives were there?

Not that I was naive about the USSR; I knew all about the ill treatment of the dissidents, the privileged lifestyle of the apparatichiki and nomenklatura, the brutal behaviour of the Soviets in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan…

I was part of a group of left-leaning British university students that was feted by the CPSU (and pampered by those beautiful Intourist girls) in 1981. They flew us (free of charge, of course) from Moscow to Leninrgrad to Kiev to Tbilisi, took us to ‘model’ collective farms and factories. 

But we also saw mothers protesting in Red Square about their sons being sent to Afghanistan being beaten up by the KGB and bundled into black vans. We also saw petty corruption, bribery, theft of state property, massive inequality, shoddy housing complexes, poor quality consumer goods…

However, as the wise old Klemperer told us: politics is about choosing ‘the lesser evil’. In the 1980s, I preferred the USSR, without all its obvious defects, to the neoliberal West.

This preference was affirmed by the ascent of Gorbachev: young, dynamic, charismatic, promising to fight corruption, reduce the military-industrial complex, leave Afghanistan, end the Cold War – a sparkling contrast to the dismal octogenarians that preceded him (Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenk0).

The young Gorbachev seemed to be aiming for what the ill-fated Alexander Dubcek called ‘socialism with a human face’ during the ‘Prague Spring‘ of 1968 – and that was what I also wanted: a socialism that was modest, humble, honest, clean, tolerant, egalitarian, liberating…

My dream, in the late 1980s, was that Gorbachev would link up with the social democrats of Europe (Olof Palme, Willy Brandt, Francois Mitterand, Felipe Gonzalez, Mario Soares, Enrico Berlinguer, etc): to bring down the Iron Curtain and together forge a ‘socialism with a human face’ which would take much better care of people than the neoliberalism of Thatcher and Reagan ever could (or wanted to)…

However, Gorbachev made the massive mistake of raising the expectations of the Soviet people too quickly. They believed he was going to swiftly end corruption, improve their food and housing, and give them more freedom – at the same time as ending the Cold War and reducing military spending…hardly realistic.

He didn’t seem to understand the dangers of a ‘dual economy’ when he permitted small private enterprises to begin trading. Inequality inevitably increased: the new ‘entrepreneurs’ enjoyed imported luxuries while the ordinary people had to queue for hours at the state shops for scrappy food and clothing.

Gorbachev struggled to make the people see the day-to-day benefirst of perestroika and glasnost. He was lauded in the West for not using force to prevent the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, but became a figure of contempt for the hungry and long-suffering Soviet people – the two Gorbachevs.

His platitudes about change actually raised more questions than answers: did he want full-blown capitalism or some kind of reformed socialism? Did he want to continue with the CPSU’s monopoly of power or did he prefer ‘multi-party democracy’? Did he want more autonomy for the republics or less?

In addition: he fatally understimated the ambition and cynicism of Yeltsin and the ‘radical reformers’, oligarchs who were desperate to make themselves filthy rich through ‘necesasary privatization’…

Yes: Gorbachev had clearly ‘bitten off more than he could chew’, he had raised expectations too high, he had not ‘thought through’ his reforms sufficeintly – and he clearly lacked a roadmap for the future.

Or am I being too harsh on him?

Your comments, please.