Loved in the World, Hated in Russia – This Is the Legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev.
His death at a time when Putin is inflicting a three-decade setback on the Russian people is a strange symbol of history.
In deepest Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev is as hated as Vladimir Putin is loved. More than thirty years after the fall of the USSR, his last leader symbolizes, for the majority of the population, the years of economic crisis, social unrest, and loss of international influence.
The current head of the Kremlin, on the other hand, embodies, in the popular imagination, the renewed stability of a country that, once again weighing against the West, has managed to restore its prestige.
“Gorbachev liquidated our USSR and killed our future; Putin rebuilt Russia and gave us back our honor,” says Irina, a mother in a small provincial town. Given well before the death of the leader of perestroika, this testimony, among many others, summarizes the climate in Russia since the announcement of his death, Tuesday, August 30, 2022: a relative indifference mixed with hatred barely appeased.
Vladimir Putin's popularity, real though very much maintained by the Kremlin's propaganda, can be explained in large part by the unpopularity of Mikhail Gorbachev, then that of his successor, Boris Yeltsin. Russians, who have not had a real democratic experience, compare today's Russia to the chaotic end of the USSR and the exhausting years of post-communist transition.
Putin has always criticized Gorbachev without naming him
Gorbachev, the man whose “Perestroika” brought a wind of freedom, embodies the weakness of power, the figure of the powerless leader caught up in events that have become uncontrollable and subject to foreign pressure from former enemy countries. Putin represents the opposite: a strong president in a country that is convinced that it can only be led by authoritarian leaders.
Vladimir Putin's formula has remained famous. The fall of the USSR in 1991 was, according to Putin, “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” He also said: “He who does not regret the USSR has no heart, he who would like to recreate it in the same form has no head.”
Wednesday, August 31, 2022, Putin nevertheless resolved to pay tribute to his predecessor “who had a great influence on world history. He guided our country through a period of complex and dramatic changes, and great foreign policy, economic and social challenges.”
Angela Merkel, meanwhile, expressed much more emotion: Mikhail Gorbachev “showed by example how one statesman can change the world for the better,” wrote the former German chancellor. "He also fundamentally changed my life. I will never forget him."
Between 1991, (the fall of Gorbachev) and 2022 ( Putin's “special military operation” in Ukraine), Russia went from a mocked and marginalized pariah to an omnipresent and threatening hawk. Today's Kremlin wields the diplomacy of uncertainty and the state of permanent threat to better strengthen its positions. Far are the images of the last Soviet leader patiently negotiating disarmament with the United States.
The great victory of Putin's regime is that it has not only liquidated the opposition but also generated a strong political apathy mixing a form of disgust or indifference toward democracy. The exact opposite of what the father of “glasnost” (transparency) had tried to create.
A discreet and cautious critic of his successor's excesses, Mikhail Gorbachev had, however, at the end of 2021, taken on almost Putin-like accents. Denouncing the “triumphalism” of Washington and the American “arrogance” after the fall of the USSR, he declared that the Western camp wanted “to build a new empire, that's where the idea of NATO enlargement was born.”
Regularly, Mikhail Gorbachev continued to call on the Kremlin and the White House to dialogue to ensure global security and reduce their arsenals, as he had done in the 1980s with U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
Since February 2022, weakened and ill, he had not spoken about Putin's “special military operation” in Ukraine. On February 26, 2022, in a statement, his foundation called for a “cessation of hostilities” in Ukraine and “immediate peace negotiations”. But in the last months of his life, the legacy of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner, celebrated in the West, and hated in Russia for his role in ending the East-West Cold War, has shattered.
Gorbachev's death at the same time that Putin is inflicting on the Russian people a return to the past three decades can even be seen as a strange symbol of history.
Some reading
China’s Uyghur Crackdown — UN Stands Up to CCP As It Releases Damning Report. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet released the report just before the end of her mandate.
Understanding Brown-Out to Help Individuals Better Prevent It and Better Cope With It. Giving meaning is one of the essential keys.
The Bold Lesson To Be Learned From the Story of Coinbase’s First Employee Olaf Carlson-Wee. Taking action is always the right thing to do.
Elon Musk’s Big Lie About the Hyperloop Has Just Been Exposed. His only objective would have been to sabotage a Californian high-speed rail project.
If you plan to become a paid member of Medium in the future or subscribe to Quora’s paid Quora+ offering, feel free to use my affiliate links below:
This will help support my work while giving you access to more content to expand your knowledge on various subjects.