Sympathy For Communism - Mikhail Gorbachev: An Appreciation or Lack Thereof (Part One)

Sultan Mehmed VI, Emperor Karl I, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Mikhail Gorbachev, all these men had the dubious distinction of presiding over the dissolution of empires. The first two were more at the mercy of events than actively involved in the downfall of their respective empires. The latter two could point at decisions they made which led to imperial collapse. Both the Kaiser and Gorbachev were usurped by those close to their administration, in the Kaiser’s case it was the less than dynamic duo of two generals, Paul Von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. For Gorbachev it was Boris Yeltsin who would undermine his grip on power. All these leaders who suffered ill-fated fortunes lived long enough to outlast their empires. For all four men, their fates were understated rather than dramatic. There was no Hitler with his hands shaking uncontrollably in the bunker as he put a bullet through his head.

Instead, each of the four men who lost their empires lived long enough to contemplate a loss of power and prestige. This was a unique to exit the world stage, with not a bang, but a whimper. Politicians lose elections all the time and are banished to the dustbin of history. Plenty of dictators have met a bad end at the hands of those they oppressed. Meanwhile Mehmed VI, Karl I, Wilhelm II and Gorbachev had years to contemplate how they had let it all slip away. The pain most have been excruciating, the depression infinite, the sense of abandonment acute, the verdict of history chilling. All these men died in peace, not by the barrel of a gun. That must have been the one saving grace to salve the wounds from a life’s work that ended with grief and oblivion.

The Outlier –An Eternal Optimist

Of the unfortunate figures mentioned above, Mikhail Gorbachev lived by far the longest beyond the collapse of the empire he led*. Gorbachev made it for thirty-one years after the Soviet Union vanished. Some called the Soviet Union an evil empire and it certainly had plenty of that. Almost all of that happened prior to Gorbachev’s time in power. If anything, Gorbachev made the empire a less evil one. He was no Stalin and for that matter, not even a Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev or Yuri Andropov. He was a true believer, but one with a much more humane streak than any of those who came before him. In all but one case, Gorbachev would eschew violence to hold the Soviet Union or the satellite states in Eastern Europe together. He would not be like Stalin who used the Red Army and secret police to strongarm Eastern European states into staying within the Soviet sphere of influence. Nor would he be like Khrushchev who sent tanks into Budapest to crush the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. And he did not believe in the smash mouth show of force that Brezhnev sent to darken the Prague Spring in 1968.

Gorbachev had neither the paranoia of Yuri Andropov nor the ossified recalcitrance of Konstantin Chernenko. Instead, he was something of an outlier. Of the Soviet leaders, he was most like Lenin. A true believer, but without the revolutionary fervor and all-consuming violence that led Lenin to enforce his nightmarish vision. Gorbachev was an optimist who believed in the superiority of communism. His fatal mistake was while he knew it needed to be reformed, he went further and believed it could be reformed. For Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika were not just fuzzy concepts, they were ideas one could live by. They would make the Soviet Union better and greater, or so he thought. Armed with new ideas, he could reform the Soviet economy, lower the temperature of the Cold War and allow silent voices to speak freely. Then as if by magic, Soviet communism would reveal itself to be a system worth fighting for.

Message to a Friend - Thank you Gorbi on the Berlin Wall (Credit: RIA Novosti )

Rigidity & Reform –Opposites Detract

No such of a thing happened. Instead, the economy was a disaster waiting to happen. The Cold War thawed, but that turned out to be problematic. What was communism without enemies at home and abroad? It had always given the Soviet Union a reason for being. Without enemies, the system suffered. Gorbachev was always convinced that communism was the best system for those living in the Soviet Union. The problem was that he could not convince everyone else. There was dissension in the Soviet ranks between hardliners and liberals, rigidity trying to hold the line against the reformists. Gorbachev was a little bit of both, which meant for many he was nothing at all. The Soviet Union bound together a combustible group of republics that turned out to really be nations wanting to break free of the prison they had been held within for at least half a century, some even longer. Reform stirred up a cauldron of unrest which was soon to explode.

When Gorbachev tried his hand at being a hardliner by backing a violent putdown of protests in Lithuania, the situation grew even more grim. A system that so many times had been held together by violence could not be mended back together by bullets. This time was different. Gorbachev did not have the heart for the kind of violence needed to quell revolt. More to the point, he had too much heart and not enough iron fisted determination. He was ambitious, but not autocratic. The Soviet system imploded on itself. The hardliners tried a coup that failed to put them in power. However, it paved the way for Boris Yeltsin to take the helm of the largest Soviet successor state, Russia. The Soviet Union was nothing without Russia’s resources and military might to enforce its will. Gorbachev was a man without a nation who ironically, led an empire. Not for long.

The Optimist - Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 (Credit: White House Press Office)

Casting Blame – Man At The Wrong Moment

In retrospect, everything seems inevitable. The Soviet Union collapsed, so it was always going to collapse. Simple logic for a complex process. Gorbachev could not stop the inevitable, he was weak, na?ve and kindhearted. At least that is what many in Russia want to believe. Gorbachev bears part of the blame, not the brunt, for the Soviet Union’s collapse. Russians blame him for facilitating the Soviet collapse. Much of this has to do with the chaos that came after him. Russia took a turn for the worse after the Soviet Union vanished from the political stage and Gorbachev along with it. Russia during the 1990’s was beset by gangland style violence, economic crisis that reduced enterprise at times to the barter and rapacious oligarchs who milked the Russian state of resources, both financial and natural. Was all this Gorbachev’s fault or was communism inherently flawed? It was likely the latter, but somebody had to take the blame. ?

*Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30th. He was 91 years old.