Today and indeed for the past week the press has been awash with articles reflecting on the fall of the Berlin Wall, from the issue of who got the ball rolling, how Eastern Europe and Russia have fared post-Soviet collapse, the question of nostalgia among the populations of former Iron Curtain territories, and so on. Is is interesting to see that out of the plethora of articles and perspectives, Mikhael Gorbachev is being treated very sympathetically. Last week an article in the Economist described Gorbachev’s reformatory pushes as the actions of a man inspired by a genuine values system: “It was his faith in socialism, his human instincts and legitimacy within the system that set eastern Europe free.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel has praised him at today’s commemoration celebrations in Berlin: “You made this possible — you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect”. This article in the Guardian also sees him as the unsung hero of 1989.
If a sense of his importance to the events of 1989 is required, it was supplied last week by Timothy Garton Ash, the British historian, who described Gorbachev’s “breathtaking renunciation of the use of force” while Soviet leader as “a luminous example of the importance of the individual in history”.
Garton Ash’s reminder feels long overdue. For there is a conundrum concerning Gorbachev: it is why a living figure of such historic moment appears to have receded so far in our memory in comparison with contemporaries such as Nelson Mandela or Ronald Reagan.
Is it, perhaps, because his momentous experiment ended soinauspiciously with a failed coup, the implosion of the Soviet Union ona wave of nationalist sentiment in the republics and Russia itself, anda resignation that effectively finished his political career? Eventsthat preceded the rise of a voraciously destructive klepto-politics inRussia, so venal that people would come to yearn for the certaintieseven of Stalin’s rule.
Read the whole piece here on the Guardian.
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Of course, what the West made of Gorby’s openness to “freedom of choice, mutual respect of each other’s values, balance of interest, renunciation of force in politics, all-European house”, is the foundation of the domestic popularity of the present Russian government. And despite a “PR” “reset”, the Anglo-American values of dismissal of Russian values, rejection of Russian interests, refusal to condemn Georgian initiation of force against Russian soldiers, continuing to back every Russophobe government in Russia’s vicinity, and pining for the days when voracious klepto-crats looted Russian assets while rendering tens of millions of Russians destitute means that the present RF government will continue to be domestically popular for quite some time.
Anglo-American, you lying sack of dirt??The recent report condeming Russian aggression came out of EUROPE. Americans had NOTHING to do with it, Britons little. Germans, French, Spanish, Italian and many other peoples reviewed Russians behavior and caustically condemned it. And no significant nation ANYWHERE on the planet has recognized Russian imperialism in Ossetia and especially Abkhazia, where not even Russian lunatics can justify military action.Stalin was also “domestically popular” while he was brutally murderering more Russians than Hitler. That you would encourage Russians to continue down a path of self-destruction clearly shows your ultimate contempt for the people of Russia.Gorbachev was popular because he kept his shoes on. You ought to read a little more. Or, can you read?