Boris Kagarlitsky
THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) IS CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT.
It is impossible not to comment on the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, although you run the risk of falling into platitudes. The last leader of the USSR is mourned by some as the person who “gave us freedom,” while he is cursed by others for the fact that he “destroyed the Soviet Union.” Both are gross exaggerations. And this is not an exaggeration of the role of the individual in history, but rather an exaggeration of the role of this particular individual.
In my opinion, if Gorbachev distinguished himself in some way, it was precisely because he did not play any independent, outstanding role in history. Since outstanding people are those who are able, relying on objectively established circumstances and events, to direct and accelerate the development of social processes, or are ready to die tragically opposing fatal forces that they cannot cope with, but which they still do not want to surrender. On the contrary, Gorbachev always went with the flow, he did not chart his course on the waves of history, but drifted along with them. This explains both the democratic reforms at the beginning of his reign and the complete disorientation that hastened the collapse of the state, completing the Perestroika he had begun. He sincerely tried to save the USSR, but did not understand not only how this could be done, but also why. He carried out long overdue and horribly belated reforms without thinking about their long-term implications or the dangers associated with them.
He was a weak man, devoid of strategic vision. He was shaped not by political struggle, but by work in the party apparatus. He was equally alien to both villainy and heroism (which, alas, are often combined in our history). Gorbachev as a politician and as a person was born out of two decades of the bureaucratic degradation of the Soviet system. This degradation, especially in recent years, was comfortable in its own way and at first almost harmless. Perestroika was a continuation and inevitable result of the Brezhnev Stagnation, which slowed down but did not stop the processes that undermined the state. With the arrival of Gorbachev, the reformers, who had been waiting in the wings for almost 15-20 years, came to the fore...and it turned out that they had been waiting too long. Their time has passed, their faith in socialist democratization has long been lost, they no longer had a mission, there were only technocratic projects that were psychologically and technologically outdated by a generation and a half. Perestroika was a belated and therefore inadequate attempt to repeat and continue the Khrushchev Thaw; it did not bring with it any new ideas, but it was devoid of the sincerity and pathos of the 60s.
Gorbachev knew how to cope well with apparatus intrigues, but he had neither the experience of, nor the taste for, real politics. And it was political issues that had to be resolved. Becoming the darling of the Western press and the liberal intelligentsia, Gorby rejoiced at his success instead of thinking about how to use it. He turned out to be a hostage both to his advisers and to circumstances. As the first successes gave way to growing difficulties, he increasingly lost control of what was happening. By the beginning of the 1990s, having become the first (and then the last) to hold the newly-created office of President of the USSR, he was completely confused. For the liberal public and the careerist apparatchiks who initially supported him, he became an obstacle. They already had a clear intention to restore capitalism, something which Gorbachev, unlike Yeltsin, did not dare to openly advocate for. He had no ideological supporters, because he had no ideas.
Having taken the oath of the President of the USSR, Gorbachev did not dare to fulfill it. He betrayed, not realizing that he was committing a betrayal; he lost, without understanding what game he was losing. He became a political corpse long before he left this world.
Farewell, Mikhail Sergeevich!
There is a real cognitive dissonance between the disdain and anger of -seemingly most - Russians to the legacy of Gorbachev and the admiration and gratitude of most in the "west". This disdain and anger of Russians is certainly understandable, though it is important to remember that much of the worst came after him, with active outside connivance. The admiration and gratitude is based on two great thing that he did accomplish. One was a huge reduction in nuclear weapons and the global nuclear arms race. The second was the USSR withdrawal from Afghanistan, alongside a general military withdrawal from the countries occupied during World War 2. These were not small matters.