Gorbachev on Russia and Ukraine: 'We Are One People'
Many people who send letters to the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, still write on the envelope: "To the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Kremlin." The Russian postal service is used to this and redirects the mail to the Gorbachev Foundation, headquartered in a modern building about seven kilometers north of the Kremlin.
Some of those letters are harshly critical of Gorbachev, who is regarded as a traitor by many Russians who regret the demise of the Soviet Union and the shocking economic transformation that followed. Some of the more vitriolic missives even encourage him to commit suicide. But at 83, Gorbachev is defiant and determined.
"I live and will continue to live according to my conscience and principles. Everyone else can go crazy," he told The Moscow Times in an extensive interview this week.
Despite saying he is "already a part of history," Gorbachev said he cannot simply observe passively what is happening in Russia today.
"I need to participate, and I will. Nobody will shut my mouth, even though people wanted me to emigrate. I don't want to leave, let those people leave," Gorbachev said, banging his hands on the table for emphasis.
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"I am called a traitor because I destroyed so many nuclear arms. The second treachery is that we built good relations with the U.S.," he said.
For those who address their letters to Gorbachev at the Kremlin, time has clearly stood still.
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Today, Gorbachev argues that the problems in Ukraine and the world at large are in part due to errors made during the collapse of the old system.
"What is happening now in Ukraine is in many ways due to the mistakes of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Once they decided to dissolve the union, they should have agreed on territories and borders," Gorbachev said.
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Gorbachev believes that the Soviet Union collapsed mainly due to the political self-interest of local leaders — above all, the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who, Gorbachev said, wanted to "get rid" of him.
Gorbachev has never communicated with Yeltsin since. "There was nothing to talk about with this usurper who went behind my back," Gorbachev said.
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At the same time, Gorbachev does not believe that the Soviet Union should have been preserved in its old form as a repressive state.
"We could not live like we did before, when people would make a joke and find themselves in jail the next day. There were so many problems, but society did not discuss them," he said."
"People had been breaking each other's bones in lines for Italian shoes in our country," he said.
Gorbachev said the union should have been preserved "with a new essence that would consist of independent sovereign states."
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"It is true that the spirit of these [German unification] agreements were broken because we agreed that NATO infrastructure would not expand into East Germany, which creates a certain spirit. When they began to accept new countries into NATO in the 1990s. That violated the spirit of the agreements," he said.
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The tense relations between Russia and the U.S. are also created by certain groups in both countries in favor of confrontation, Gorbachev said.
"There is the same type of public both in the U.S. — including the military-industrial complex that cannot imagine its life without weapons and war — and here in Russia too. Every U.S. president feels obliged to wage a war during his term or, even better, two — as the saying goes. I am serious. It's not a joke. This idea has survived, and that is very bad."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/mikhail-gorbachev-nobody-will-shut-my-mouth-video/511564.html
In summary, Gorbachev now says the USSR broke up too fast and that was all Yeltsin's fault, that Yeltsin was a usurper and wanted the power and wanted to "get rid" of the USSR president.
Gorbachev says that what should have happened was a modernization of the USSR, a federation of states. He may be right on that, from Russia's perspective, but maybe the British would like their Empire back too and have India and all these places again, too. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
Nobody has a right to just rewrite history and have a do-over of history, from 30 years ago now. That's a long time. You can't tell some Estonians and Latvians "oh sorry, we messed up back then, here's the Russian Army back again we're gonna do what we should have done to start with."
The fact is, from that time, that the USSR fell apart -- utterly fell apart -- FAST. The USA did massive food shipments. They had food, but it was rotting in railway cars. The system had all broken down. It just fell apart, not long after that Berlin wall, it just all fell apart and that's why there was no "time" to do something different.
Russia does not have a legacy right to re-create the old USSR and have a do-over. These other places have been out of the USSR, for a very long time now, almost a generation.
So anyhow, according to the article, many Russians view Gorbachev as a traitor for letting the USSR fall apart. And for making friends with the West.
He says he did the right things though, and that things were so bad in Soviet Russia that people would "break each other's bones" in line for imported Italian shoes.
And that "someone could make a joke and find themselves in jail the next day."
He's talking about tyranny there, and dictatorship, and secret police, and all that.. hopefully Russians don't forget that lesson and never go fully back to it.
Some of the same things happen in Putin's Russia, though. I've read the articles. An artist will do an exhibit, and if it doesn't favor Putin in a good light, then Putin just shuts it down. Any media that violates the government line, can and does get shut down.
I've read things Gorbachev has said before, and he used to be very critical about Putin. Now since Ukraine he seems to want to get back into good graces.
