JOIN USForsaking power for freedom
In November 1985, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan were, after their Geneva Summit meeting, addressing a standard press conference, when, in the middle of an otherwise forgettable statement, Gorbachev looked into the sea of reporters and flashing cameras and said, “the Soviet Union’s security depends on the United States also feeling secure”.
Gorbachev’s tenure had just begun, but he had already distinguished himself with that one statement; and it was to be the harbinger of the end of the Cold War. He went on thereafter, with his now famous reforms -- Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness) -- to revamp his country’s economy and polity, adding a hitherto unthinkable level of transparency and accountability to the Soviet system. In sum, he was saying that the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States was no longer a zero-sum game; and thus set in motion events that changed in substantial measure the course of the 20th century.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev has passed away at the age of 91, resolute in the knowledge that he made freedom more meaningful for the majority of the population, while attempting, with some success, to combine his commitment to political liberty with his concern for social justice. He will remain, in history, among the great leaders of the 20th century.
Though he devoted less attention to the crucial task of institutionalising political freedoms, Gorbachev was a genuine seeker after social justice. His life’s experience had taught him that without democracy, some citizens would be infinitely more equal than others, and social justice in the Soviet regime no more than thin gruel relative to the free world.
Born into a peasant family in Southern Russia long after the communist regime had been established in the Soviet Union, and knowing no other socio-economic order till well into his adulthood, Gorbachev recognised, that “…the system held everyone in its grip, stifling initiative. In order to protect itself, it suppressed both freedom of thought and any kind of searching or exploration…” In addition to its consequences for freedoms, the nature of the polity held back economic development, except in some domains where disproportionately high resources were directed -- above all, to the military-industry complex and, for a while, the space programme.
In executing his vision for reform of the communist system, Gorbachev had to contend with both the intended and unintended consequences of his actions; and the unintended consequences of introducing transformative change were dramatic, changing the course of history.
Among his chief achievements was leaving his country freer than ever before in its history; and bringing to a peaceful end the Cold War that had engulfed the world. But he could not have imagined that the single-most important unintended consequence would be the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself; and the fallout that was to result.
If nothing else, the great hope that socialism held out, the hope of social justice and the striving for an egalitarian and just society, fell apart with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The demise of this one aspiration and with it the progressive, if elusive, ideological moorings that bound people together was soon replaced with ethnic conflict, the rise of narrow sectarian ideologies, terrorism, and the balkanisation of the erstwhile Soviet Union.
The 15-odd States that constitute the territory of the former Soviet Union have, in one of the great ironies of history, unambiguously authoritarian regimes, by whatever name you might call them. After over 30 years, it remains far from clear that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was necessarily a good development. Far from advancing democracy, the disintegration of the Soviet Union that followed in the wake of Gorbachev’s push for Glasnost and Perestroika gave rise to self-serving and corrupt elitist regimes in the new States that emerged.
On balance, though, history will likely judge Gorbachev in warmer light, as one who wished to understand the world around him rather than be prisoner to ideological dogma or amoral political pragmatism. He rose above his own circumstances and the geopolitical compulsions of his era, to lead by example and demonstrate that politics and power are not ends in themselves; and that politics is the means to just one end -- to meet the needs of the people.
His greatness comes from his actions and the kind of historical developments that they shaped. He showed that it was possible to reform the unreformable. It may be early yet to evaluate his contribution to political thought and the advance towards a just social order, but suffice to say he never gave up ‘the socialist idea’; the idea as a search for and exploration of the various paths to development in the contemporary world; genuinely historical ways of solving problems at the level of civilisations, transcending the narrow confines of ideology.
Much remains to be written about the rise and fall of communism in the 20th century. The youth of today, puzzled as they might be, by the attraction that communism once held for progressive intellectuals, and curious to understand how it was sought to be reformed and ended up being dismantled, will find the evolution of Gorbachev’s political philosophy insightful.
In Gorbachev, one encounters the serious reflections of a former communist who managed, notwithstanding the compromises that were an inextricable part of his political career, to retain a moral sense and to continue to seek to build a better world. Gorbachev will be remembered as the man who walked away from power on the world stage; and in so doing, transformed the world.
Gorbachev leaves behind a contested legacy, with opinions about him divided. It is ironic that there should be widespread resentment amongst his own countrymen, with Russians blaming him for Russia’s decline. But it takes courage of character to forsake power and pelf for greater freedoms; and Gorbachev’s political praxis represents a modern-day morality tale -- one that should inspire world leaders, including our own, to learn ethical political practice.
(The writer is Director,
Public Affairs Centre, Bengaluru)