Mikhail Gorbachev, who destroyed the USSR with his reforms, proposes to reform Russia
Russia needs reforms today, but without destabilisation and chaos. This was stated in an interview with the German publication Berliner Zeitung by former first and last President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev.
These days, when Germany celebrates the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former leader of the USSR once again became a very popular figure in the West and managed to give a lot of interviews to a variety of media outlets. Including Berliner Zeitung, who spoke about how the Soviet Union under his leadership decided to give up influence on the Warsaw Pact countries. And also presented his vision of Russia’s future.
According to Gorbachev, “you cannot go far with stability alone”, so Russia needs changes. First of all, in the economic, legal electoral system. However, this is not a “remake of perestroika”.
In his reasoning, the former President of the USSR appeals to the recent “Levada Center” poll, which showed that almost 60% of Russians are in favour of decisive change. And 53% believe that such changes are possible only if the political system changes dramatically.
Gorbachev proposes, first of all, to find means to “modernise the administrative system and democratise the political system”. At the same time, the main question, he said, is how to give momentum to this political process, preventing both destabilisation and chaos.
“This should be considered by the President, political parties, and society as a whole,” said the former President.
Mikhail Gorbachev has recently quite often, in fact, spoke with a variety of advice. But should we listen to the advice of a man who, through his reforms, destroyed the Soviet Union and now makes recommendations for reforming Russia?
After all, in 1985, when Gorbachev, after being elected Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, became the main person in the state, people also expected from him change for the better and hoped that a bright future could be achieved without painful shocks. But in the end – the country was lost…
“The problem is still real,” said Igor Shishkin, a historian and deputy head of the Institute of CIS countries. “The threat of a crisis fraught with the collapse of the country is not a fiction of alarmists. Indeed, now the situation is very, very difficult, as is evidenced by these same opinion polls. But to base Gorbachev’s advice on how to emerge from this political crisis is about the same as to take Chubais’ advice on the problem of theft of state property.
One is incompatible with the other. It is impossible, so to speak, to fleece sheep using the experience of a wolf.
Therefore, in order to overcome the crisis that is looming, it is necessary, I believe, not to interview Gorbachev or to take and listen to his advice. It is necessary – as one of the prerequisites to avoid catastrophic consequences – to investigate his activities.
After all, what are they telling us? They say: ‘They tried to reform the country, but it didn’t succeed, and the USSR disintegrated’.
Sorry, it’s a fairy tale for kindergarten kids. Mikhail Sergey and his defenders have been telling us this fairy tale already for God knows how many decades. That they supposedly meant well, but it turned out as always.
What, Mikhail Gorbachev was such a naive idealist?”
Rather, he can be called a dreamer-theorist…
“Yes, he’s dressed in this way. But excuse me, a person with different qualities can break through to the top of power. He can be honest, he can be vile. But he certainly cannot have one quality – there cannot be a naive idealist as the head of the state, as the head of the bureaucratic pyramid. Nor can a fool end up at the top. There can be no fools there.
That’s what makes us feel like they’re doing something stupid sometimes. But this can’t be by definition.
Therefore, it is necessary, I repeat, to investigate how the top of the Soviet Union took the course to destroy the country. Because all the blood that spilled after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all that blood is on Gorbachev. First and foremost, on Gorbachev.
And I repeat, do not say that it was a mistake.”
You want to say that it was a purposeful policy?
“Of course. Not long ago, ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’ published an interview that Gorbachev gave to some Baltic newspaper. It was not given attention at the time, because – well, we never know what they print there, in Latvia or Estonia. Moreover, it was an article in the local language.
And ‘Komsomolskaya’ reprinted this interview. And in it Gorbachev says in clear text that, starting his perestroika, he was well aware that the Baltics would have to be withdrawn from the USSR. Give it independence.
Is he a theoretical idealist? When he spoke to us from the tribune about ‘acceleration’, about ‘new thinking’, etc., he already had a ripe understanding that the country will need to be divided. And he’s confirmed it now.
In addition, documents have already been made public that, for example, the head of ‘Sąjūdis’ (the Lithuanian social-political organisation that headed the process of withdrawal of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic from the USSR in 1988-1990), Mr. Landsbergis, was appointed on direct instructions from Moscow. The previous one was removed as he was failing in his duties to separate Lithuania from the Soviet Union, and Landsbergis was appointed.
Sorry, but this is a scientific-medical fact.
Or, I will remind you that there was such Aleksandr Yakovlev – the right hand man of Gorbachev, the chief ideologist of perestroika. Don’t say that Gorbachev is the head and he didn’t know what his ‘right hand’ was doing.
So, this “comrade-Mr” in the 90s explicitly stated that “we deliberately pursued the course of destruction of the Soviet Union – this empire of evil.” He said that there was a group at the top of the Soviet nomenclature in the late 1950s that deliberately took a course to destroy the country. And frankly admitted: ‘We will use as a battering ram the denunciation of Stalinism. To beat Stalin with Leninism. And to beat Lenin with the topic of revisionism’.”
Then the active rewriting of history began… Under new guidelines.
“Of course… After all, comrade Gorbachev gave to Yakovlev the whole ideological and information sphere.
We often wonder now: what is happening in our country and who do our ‘blue screens’ serve – federal TV channels and other media… And this, sorry, all the ‘nestlings’ of Yakovlev, run the show there.
He immediately carried out a ‘purge’ of the editors-in-chief of all the leading media of the Soviet Union. And appointed those who wanted and were ready to destroy the country. As a result, simply monstrous seas and oceans of negativity have spilled on the state, on the people. The concept of ‘blackness’ appeared then.
People were convinced by every show, every film, every speech that in this country it is impossible to live this way, that this country is terrible, that everything is bad here.
That’s when the revision of history begins. There are some boys and girls who suddenly say: ‘Why did we win the Great Patriotic War, it would have been better to lose – now we would sip Bavarian.’
And these boys and girls, did they fall from the moon? No. It was precisely the result of the propaganda work of the information machine headed by Aleksandr Yakovlev, the second person in the state.
And he did it, as he himself acknowledges, absolutely in a clear mind and sober memory. He was aware of what he was doing.
Like Mr Korotich – now the former editor-in-chief of the superpopular magazine ‘Ogonek’, who was forgotten about, but he is one of those who destroyed the Soviet Union, for which he received an award – he ended up in the United States on a full American pension, as is said.
So he was delighted that ‘it was a unique situation. We destroyed the state with the money of the state, with the money of the party, we destroyed the party.‘
What it stupidity? No. It was a conscious action.
This doesn’t mean they were spies – you don’t have to simplify. They weren’t spies. They deliberately destroyed a country they hated, which is why I say that a trial is necessary in order to identify all the roots of this phenomenon. And uproot them.”
Actually, this is probably vital if we do not want the scenario to repeat itself.
“That’s it. For this purpose it is necessary to know why a large part of the top of the party and creative intelligentsia – not all, but a part – deliberately worked to destroy their country of residence. After all, they clearly took the course of entering Western civilisation.
I repeat: they were not spies, but consciously wanted to become part of the Western elite. They wanted to live like they do over there.
In the Soviet Union, the nomenclature is, in essence, a service class. Yes, you had a lot of this. But you had to work for it for the benefit of the state. This didn’t suit them.”
And the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev, who, for sure, as the former president, possesses a mass of secretaries of state, now lives abroad, is normal?
“Where else would he live? He wanted to be part of that western elite. Just like this whole audience – Kozyrev, Korotich… And so on. They’re all there.
As soon as they are deprived of the opportunity here to further destroy and further profit, they immediately end up there. There is such a concept – ‘migratory elite’, so these people belong to this very ‘migratory elite’.
The question is, where did it come from, and how could it be at the head of state? How did it get key posts in the intelligence services?
Sorry, but if the security services had not been involved in this operation to destroy the USSR, it could not have happened by definition.
And we like to tell a story about how KGB chairman Krychkov came to Gorbachev with a report saying that Yakovlev, according to him, is recruited by foreign intelligence, and Gorbachev banned the investigation. And Krychkov rolled over.
Did anyone believe that this could be?
If the KGB chairman personally knows that one of the leaders of the state is an agent of influence of foreign structures, he is obliged to arrest him first. It’s his duty.
So the fairy tale about Krychkov, who wanted to, but was not allowed, is from the same opera as Gorbachev’s fairy tale about how he wanted to benefit the people but it didn’t work out very well. The State Committee on the State of Emergency got in the way, bad Yeltsin, and everything else…”
Mikhail Gorbachev, indeed, never assessed the results of his activities critically. Why?
“And why on earth should he critically evaluate them. The only thing Gorbachev criticises is that he himself personally lost his post as the first person. That he lost to Yeltsin. He slings mud at Yeltsin for this.
And as for everything else… He was completely successful.
I repeat, we need to understand the coordinate system he worked in. He knowingly did it. He set himself the goal of destroying the Soviet Union. Because the West can’t bring such a huge thing to itself.
Why did he, by his own admission, understand that he would need to give away the Baltics? Because from the very beginning the West had to show that ‘we don’t mess around’, but that the Soviet leadership sincerely opts to betray its country. And for confirmation that we are yours, bourgeois, that’s why we give away Baltic. This was the first demand of the West.
What, the national separatists destroyed the Union?
No. This is an another fairy tale that people are being made to believe. The Soviet Union was being dismantling by its leadership – by the highest party, state, and special service.”
In an interview, by the way, Gorbachev, actually admits this, when he says that “we then did the most important thing, we led the process to such an extent that no one will be able to reverse time.” Not only that, he is clearly proud of his “achievements.”
“I repeat, this is a man who feels in many ways the winner. A successful ruler. It’s just that he’s in a different coordinate system when evaluating it all.”
And he is indeed proud that now it is unrealistic to rebuild the Soviet Union. And it is true. However, from the fact that it was unrealistic to restore the Russian Empire, it did not at all follow that it was impossible to create the Soviet Union.
Therefore, the fact that the USSR cannot be restored does not mean that the consequences of the crime committed by Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the whole company cannot be eliminated.
It’s still possible. Although they, of course, assure us that this is an irreversible process. And so far, unfortunately, they have reason to say so.
The late Nemtsov, somewhere at the beginning of the 2000s said that, ‘no matter what party you vote for, you will still always live on the program formulated by the Union of Right Forces.‘
And yes, we still live on this liberal, Westernising program. He didn’t lie here.
So they have reason to celebrate. But that doesn’t mean we need to accept and recognise them as winners.
That is why we need a trial, a wide-ranging trial, with the identification of all documents – and enough of them for sure remain.
Another question is: is it possible? Because those who have committed it, and their successors, still hold key positions in the state. And this is the main danger for our country. The main danger that the catastrophe of the USSR may recur in the catastrophe of the Russian Federation. Because the force that worked to destroy the Soviet Union still holds key positions in the Russian state.
It’s not about the mood of the people, but in the fact that this contagion – a cancer, hasn’t been cut out yet. It’s still here. And since it’s here, it can’t not act.”
Svetlana Gomzikova
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