A week after Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev’s passing on August 30, a fact that stands out is that while President Vladimir Putin visited the hospital where Gorbachev died, there was no state funeral. The body of the former leader was kept in the Hall of Columns for the public to pay homage. Citizens stood in long lines to pay their obeisance to the first and the last President of former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Josef Stalin’s body was kept in state at the same venue after his demise in 1953.
Gorbachev was admired across the world for his extraordinary foresight and courage in the initiatives he spearheaded as the leader of USSR. At the outset, he successfully engineered a peaceful end to the Cold War. Secondly, he wisely withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan after nine years of infructuous occupation and a relentless proxy war between the two super powers that led to countless casualties of innocent lives in a mindless mayhem.
Thirdly, he made an honest bid to inculcate a spirit of freedom and liberalism in soviet institutions in treating its own citizens at one end, and in dealing with the West and the rest of the world at the other. Erstwhile UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reportedly said of him, “(Gorbachev) is a man I can do business with.”
Also read: Remembering Mikhail Gorbachev
Born in a peasant family to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother in south-western Russia on March 2, 1931, Gorbachev joined the Young Communist League (Komsomol) in 1946 at the tender age of 15 and worked on a combine harvester at a state farm in the town of Stavropol for the next four years. He entered the law school at Moscow State University in 1952 and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) at the same time. He fell in love with a Philosophy major Raisa Titarenko in the University and married her in 1952.
After graduating with a law degree in 1955, Gorbachev occupied many posts in the Komsomol and in the CPSU organisations in Stavropol, finally becoming the First Secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU in 1970. In 1979, he became the youngest member of the CPSU’s ‘Politburo.’ He was just 48 then and most other members in the powerful Politburo were in their seventies. In 1985, he was made general secretary of the Party, the most important job in the Soviet Union. The rise of Gorbachev in the CPSU was indeed meteoric.
Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982. His successor, Yuri Andropov, was keen that Gorbachev succeed him, but the Politburo felt otherwise. It felt that at 53, Gorbachev was too young for the responsibility. Konstantin Chernenko, then 70 and ailing, succeeded Andropov. Gorbachev often stood in for Chernenko, who died on March 10, 1985. The very next day, the Politburo elected Gorbachev as the general secretary of the CPSU. At 54, he was the youngest general secretary of the Party.
Once he assumed leadership, Gorbachev’s primary domestic goal was to revive and rebuild the stagnant Soviet economy after years of lacklustre performance under Brezhnev (1964–82). He sought rapid technological infusion and higher productivity. He also wanted the Soviet bureaucracy to become efficient and accountable.
In 1987-88, he spearheaded deeper reforms through ‘glasnost‘ (openness) under which the media was given unprecedented freedom in its reportage and could even criticise the government and the Party. Artists and authors freely choose their positions. They attacked and arraigned the excesses of the Stalin era – till then an anathema.
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Gorbachev then introduced the policy of ‘perestroika‘ (restructuring), aimed at democratising the Soviet political system. Multi-candidate contests and secret ballots were initiated in some elections to party and government posts. Some limited free-market mechanisms also began to be introduced in the economy. It was not easy to implement the extraordinary changes that systematically sliced off the authority and perquisites of the Party and the bureaucracy, both of which fiercely resisted the reform process. They did not want to lose their control over the nation’s political power and economic life.
In October, 1988, Gorbachev was elected as the chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet (the national legislature). In December, 1988, a new bicameral parliament, christened the ‘USSR Congress of People’s Deputies’, was established, with some of its members directly elected by the people in multi-candidate elections. In 1989, the newly elected Congress of People’s Deputies elected from its ranks a new USSR Supreme Soviet. In contrast to its predecessor by the same name, the Supreme Soviet was a real parliament with substantial legislative powers. In May, 1989, Gorbachev was elected the chairman of this Supreme Soviet and retained the national presidency.
In regard to external relations, Gorbachev took some revolutionary steps to reach out to the West. In November, 1985, he met with US President Ronald Regan in Geneva, the first in a series of summits with global leaders. Analysts consider the Reykjavik Summit in Iceland on October 11-12, 1986, as the precursor to subsequent major nuclear arms agreements.
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev relax at Reagan’s California ranch. President Reagan gave this cowboy hat to Mikhail Gorbachev, which he promptly put on backwards. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Bob Galbraith – US government work.
In December, 1987, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Reagan got signed which banned the US and USSR from possessing, producing or test-flying a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300-3,400 miles. In February, 1989, the last of the soviet troops moved out of Afghanistan.
In July 1991, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed by Gorbachev and US President George H.W. Bush, leading to the largest nuclear reductions in history. It also included a mechanism to allow both sides to inspect and verify each other’s arsenals.
In November, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet forces moved out of East Germany, facilitating the unification of Germany. This was the beginning of the end of communism in Eastern Europe. In October, 1990, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In August, 1991, an attempted coup by the Communist old guard failed, but dramatically eroded Gorbachev’s authority. On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declared the Soviet Union dead and announced the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On Christmas day, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as a Soviet leader. The Soviet red flag over the Kremlin was pulled down and a tricolour flag of Russia replaced it. In June, 1996, Gorbachev ran in the election for President of Russia, but won less than 1% of the vote.
Gorbachev aimed high. He sought for his people freedom of speech and choice, a vibrant economy, a better standard of living, democratic institutions and a progressive society. He wanted a peaceful, cooperative and collaborative relationship with the West and the rest of the world. Then why do Russians treat him with disdain?
Also read: Revered in the West but Reviled at Home: The Legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev
While he may have attained the glory of a Nobel Peace Prize, the empire of the Soviet Union crumbled and splintered under Gorbachev. The 14 new countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan – chipped away from the erstwhile USSR. The reduced Russian Federation still holds 76% of the area, 50% of the population and 68% of the GDP of the former USSR. But the loss of size and stature of the Soviet Union and the return of the establishment in party, politics and governance left Gorbachev standing alone and helpless in the end.
The versatile author Rudyard Kipling once said, “The East is the East, and the West is the West and the twain shall never meet.” Gorbachev had the audacity to question that axiom and was only partially successful. While he was the first and last President of the USSR, ironically, it was when he was at the helm of affairs in Moscow that 14 republics broke away from the USSR, on the fateful day of December 31, 1991. He also lived long enough to see the relentless expansion of NATO, despite the solemn promises made to him to the contrary.
A.R. Ghanashyam is a former Indian diplomat
