Rustem Vakhitov
The death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, drew the expected reaction from the Russian left (though not only from the left). The internet exploded with curses, obscene epithets, and insistence that the deceased was surely hellbound - all those things that accompany any mention of the name of the famous “Gorby” in Russia, only tenfold. Despite the dubious moral character of such sentiments, they may be understood humanly. The collapse of the USSR brought so much pain to millions of former Soviet citizens, accompanied by the deepest economic crisis, the poverty and humiliation of millions, civil wars and ethnic cleansing in the national republics, blood, tears, and suffering. Moreover, the wave of pain that rolled across Northern Eurasia in 1991 has not been still since: today’s events in the south-east of Ukraine are also largely a consequence of Gorbachev’s stupid and inept perestroika, which Zinoviev mockingly dubbed “catastrophoika.”
But there is nonetheless an important nuance to which the left should pay attention. The curses against the deceased Gorbachev indicate that the personality cult of the head of state is still very deeply rooted in our minds. Most of us still believe that if a person is cloaked in the raiment of supreme power, elevated to the ruler’s throne, then he is responsible for everything that happens to this country. It is understandable when bourgeois politicians think this, because the theory of the hero and the crowd is quite organic to their worldview, reflecting the realities of a society where power has been seized by capitalists who consider themselves enterprising and businesslike individuals, and proletarians stupid and inert bumpkins. They view history and politics through the exact same scheme. But in our country, many adherents to the cult of personality - regardless of whether it is light or dark - are also those who call themselves leftists, and even Marxists! So, in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and circles close to it, the cult of Stalin remains vital and widespread. By the way, the black cult of Gorbachev, in which he is a villain on a world-historical scale, who destroyed a great prosperous country on the instructions of Western intelligence services, is the other side of the bright cult of Stalin.
If people sincerely believe that one person can raise a country out of ruins and make it great, they will also believe that one person can destroy it. It is only strange that such powers are attributed to Gorbachev, who, unlike Stalin, was not a politically significant person. Boris Kagarlitsky aptly wrote that Gorbachev was an ordinary nomenklatura of the “stagnation” era, who could only weave intrigues and please the authorities. This is true: Gorbachev’s biographers write that he owed his rise to Andropov, who often went to a sanatorium in the Stavropol Territory for treatment, where he was charmed by the talkative head of the local party organization...
By the way, I would not like to be understood in such a way that you think I believe that the Soviet Union was doomed anyway, and that Gorbachev had no tole to play in its demise. A person in power, either by position or by virtue of his ability to influence minds, has a considerable influence on the course of history - if at the same time he is supported by the broad masses. The course of events will depend on his will, depth of analysis, political intuition, organizational abilities, and the options before him. But still, he is not able to change the main direction of history, which is determined by the critical mass of what has happened over decades, and sometimes even centuries. Probably, the variant of state socialism that arose out of Stalin’s Thermidor in the 1930s no longer had historical prospects in the 1980s.
Even if perestroika had succeeded and the USSR survived, it would have been a different socialism, different from the Stalinist-Brezhnevian one, just as modern China differs from its Maoist antecedent. The collapse of the Stalinist model, slightly updated and corrected in the Brezhnev era, was seeded not only by the unsuccessful reforms of Khrushchev, who failed to bring the country out of the state of total mobilization (unlike Deng Xiaoping, who coped with this task much more deftly). Stalin’s Thermidor itself bore its own “birth trauma” - irrational bitterness, dogmatism, the hidden triumph of the petty tradesman - and this could not but affect the fate of socialism in Russia. All this was tied into the complex knot of history in the early 1930s, when Gorbachev was literally still “walking under the table.”
Indeed at a certain moment there really was the possibility of transforming socialism and the USSR. Certainly there were several possible options for the collapse of the USSR, of which, thanks to the antics of Gorbachev, and Yeltsin with his Belovezh buddies, one of the worst was realized. Those liberal mourners for Gorbachev, who are now shouting: “thanks to him, the USSR collapsed without wars,” are, as a rule, latent Eurocentric racists (although outwardly they, of course, loudly declaim against racism!). This can be seen from their conviction that, as long as there was no conflict then between the Slavic republics, then the USSR collapsed “peacefully.” The blood of Tajiks, Abkhazians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, which flowed in rivers even in perestroika, means nothing to them.
At the same time, there are actions for which Gorbachev himself, who issued the criminal orders, was directly responsible. For example, on his hands is the blood of demonstrators from Tbilisi dispersed by army units (21 people dead). General Rodionov claimed that Gorbachev personally gave the order to shoot, but the order was verbal and Gorbachev later disavowed him. Gorbachev organized the blockade of Lithuania and was responsible for the massacre in Vilnius in 1991 (then he again denied everything and blamed others). By order of Gorbachev, parts of the Soviet army were sent to suppress demonstrators in Baku - about 100 people died. Our liberals are very surprised that the media of Lithuania and Azerbaijan did not share their favorable assessments of the deceased politician and called him “the executioner of the Lithuanian and Azerbaijani peoples.” Perhaps this is an emotional exaggeration, but there are good reasons not to see Gorbachev as a kindly grandfather.
Not Gorbachev, or, in any case, not only Gorbachev caused the collapse of a great power - this is obvious; but his incompetence, political short-sightedness, sometimes criminal gullibility, and sometimes no less criminal cruelty led to the fact that this happened with great blood and suffering, and still generates blood and suffering here and there in the post-Soviet space.
Finally, I must say something that probably few will like to hear. To put everything on Gorbachev, to create a dark cult of personality where no significant political personality had existed, is very comfortable for the layman, who now excels at cursing out the former President. They say that once Dovlatov, tired of listening to the lamentations of liberal dissidents about the “terrible tyrant Stalin,” exclaimed: “Listen, it’s not Stalin who wrote 4 million denunciations!” It’s the same thing here: I bet that most of those members of the older generation - who now write in chats and forums that they would “bury the marked one in fiberglass!” - not only did not come out to defend the USSR in 1991, but were completely indifferent, or otherwise observed its collapse not with joy. Neither Gorbachev, nor Yeltsin, nor the Young Reformers could have done anything if their attitude to socialism, to the party, to the Soviet Union in its earlier form was not, alas, shared by millions and millions of Soviet citizens, from the most diverse strata - from academicians to the collective farmers. I remember perestroika well, and I can testify that at times it felt like some kind of collective self-blindness. Outwardly, quite sensible-looking people said, for example, that we do not need an army, because everyone loves us, and that all international strife was due to the machinations of the evil communists. And they were applauded by their audience for saying this. The independence of the Baltic republics was enthusiastically voted for by their Russian residents, who would soon become “non-citizens.” Now, in hindsight, everyone has become “Soviet super-patriots.” A whole country of 200 million people committed suicide, Yeltsin only played the role of a noose, and Gorbachev that of the stool. Eduard Limonov wrote just before the catastrophe: “The Soviet people are going through a period of chaos precisely because, tempted by other people’s wealth and prosperity, they doubted themselves and lost their spiritual masculinity.”
Gorbachev in the late 80s was just a man who, like everyone else, could not rise above the crowd, because for that you need to have an idea and have will, be immune to the love of easy fame, be able to resist the opinion of the majority, be unable to succumb to flattery, cunning, and charming opponents. Those who now blame Gorbachev alone for everything are doing a terrible thing - if we don’t admit the guilt of everyone now, if we don’t try to understand the reasons for this massive self-blindness, then it’s possible that it - God forbid! - may happen again.
Following Yeltsin, Kravchuk, and Shushkevich, Gorbachev left. Finally the USSR has gone into the past (which, as a special worldview and memory, continued to exist even after its death, moreover, the imprint of Sovietness clearly lay even on its enemies - on the anti-Sovietists). Nothing can be returned. A real post-Soviet era is coming - with new problems that require new ideas and new solutions. The “long twentieth century” is over.
Gorbachev's most important accomplishment was a huge reduction in nuclear weapons. That is no small matter. Neither is the peaceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he also managed to negotiate. Much of the collapse that followed was caused by the US. Economic Advisor to both the Polish and Russian government at the time, Jeffrey Sachs states https://youtu.be/wmOePNsNFw0, got every help he recommended while Russia got almost nothing. The expansion of NATO, too, was something Gorbachev was promised would never happen, as the last two American ambassadors to the USSR then Russia have publicly testified. Naive, perhaps; too trusting, likely, but Gorbachev did his best to play a very bad hand of cards in ways that ended bloodshed (an estimated TWO MILLION had died in Afghanistan) and helped humanity's chances of survival,