:: Opinion

Gorbachev and his Russian tragedy

Govind Talwalkar

Sept.30 : When the ghost of his dead father told him that he (the king) had been poisoned by his brother who had then married the widowed queen, Hamlet’s whole moral world collapsed. In the circumstances, it was not that Hamlet hesitated to act but he was acutely aware of the dire consequences that would inevitably follow.

One is reminded of this tragedy as we look at the inner conflict which Mikhail Gorbachev underwent after assuming the office of the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. He had the courage to admit that the system he had inherited was thoroughly rotten and suffered from widespread corruption and inertia.

The diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev, an adviser to Mr Gorbachev from 1986 to 1989, is now available on the website of the National Security Archives and throws light on the extent of the rot in the Soviet Union.

Mr Chernyaev served in the Army during World War II, and later graduated from the Moscow University. He was a student of philosophy but was also interested in history, literature and art. After graduation, he joined the foreign department of the International Communist Party and then moved on to become Mr Gorbachev’s political adviser.

Mr Chernyaev was not an admirer of Joseph Stalin and was appalled with the corrupt administration of Leonid Brezhnev. No wonder he felt elated when Mr Gorbachev took over as the general secretary. Like millions of Russians, and foreigners, he too welcomed the innovative policies of the new general secretary.

As an adviser to Mr Gorbachev, Mr Chernyaev had access to several secret documents and was privy to confidential discussions. He describes corruption at higher levels — he writes about foreign secretary Andrei Gromyko taking bribes and gifts from diplomats seeking promotions, and his wife, whenever the couple visited New York, would purchase jewellery and expensive goods.

It is well known that in the Soviet Union disparity was very glaring. When Mr Chernyaev visited Maxim Gorky’s museum (after Gorky’s death his house was restored as a museum), he was amazed to see the deceased author’s lavish lifestyle. A dacha (country cottage) of Mr Chernyaev’s superior was like a palace, and Mr Gorbachev had several dachas, thanks to his wife who also interfered in the administration.

The productivity in almost all the industries in Russia was very low. Because of inadequate and defective storage capacity, tonnes of produce was wasted. The statistics mentioned in the diary are staggering: One million tonnes of potatoes and over one million tonnes of vegetables were lost in a year.

All the while, Mr Gorbachev was impressing upon his officials and people in general that the West’s dominance was due to superior technology and that Russia had to compete with it. But Russian officials and industry managers were suffering from acute inertia, and the weight of the bureaucracy was bearing down on the party as well as the administration. There were 18 million party officials.

After Mr Gorbachev came to power, Mr Chernyaev had high hopes that people’s spirits would be revived. Mr Chernyaev says that though Russians were broken-hearted under Stalin, they had not lost their love for freedom. The tremendous welcome accorded to Mr Gorbachev was a clear indication of this.

Mr Gorbachev conducted himself in the international arena with dignity and confidence. He proved more than a match to all the foreign leaders of the time.

Americans quote Ronald Reagan’s speech before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin asking Mr Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Reagan’s admirers believe that it was because of Regan that the Wall came down. But how did Mr Gorbachev react to Reagan’s speech? According to Mr Chernyaev, Mr Gorbachev said that Reagan had not come out of his old profession (Reagan was a Hollywood actor).

Mr Gorbachev was more popular than some of the international leaders in their respective countries and could easily outshine them. It was also found that Reagan’s top officials did not defend their boss while talking with Mr Gorbachev.

Yet, internally, the Soviet Union was facing stupendous problems. Twenty crore square metres of housing needed urgent repairs or had to be pulled down. Water and sewage systems were overloaded and over 300 cities did not have them at all. Almost half the streets and passageways in the cities had no hard surfacing. Number of industrial injuries was rising fast. In five years, 20,000 people were disabled and 63,000 died.

This internal chaos and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan was demoralising the Russians and Mr Gorbachev’s enemies did not lose this opportunity to strike back. They went on the offensive during party meetings and Soviet Union had no option but to order withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The year 1989 was a revolutionary one because people rose in revolt against Communist regimes in all East European and Baltic states. The Berlin Wall was pulled down and in 1990 Germany was united. Mr Gorbachev had made it clear to East Europeans that Russia would not intervene and they had to face the situation on their own.

Mr Gorbachev and his colleagues thought that it was impossible to sustain African leaders who, in the name of socialism, continued with their authoritarian and corrupt rule. For example, when Fidel Castro berated Russian leaders for betraying socialism, Mr Gorbachev’s adviser wrote a memo saying that "the beard" should be told that his socialism depended on Russia’s annual subsidy of five billion roubles.

But as Mr Chernyaev points out, Mr Gorbachev could not come out of his ideological groove. He did not discard his belief in the planned economy as he was confident of solving all of Russia’s problems. Even while advocating faith in democracy, he avoided transfering power to the Duma. But Mr Chenyaev admits that even if Mr Gorbachev wanted to bring in revolutionary changes and dismantle centralised and regulated economy, he had no mechanism to implement it. The party was dysfunctional and the administrative machinery paralysed.

Mr Chernyaev diary shows that Mr Gorbachev was like a hero of a Shakespearean tragedy. He showed exceptional qualities of leadership and wanted his people to not only come out of their oppressive circumstances but also wanted to give them a chance to develop their creative qualities. Echoing Hamlet, Mr Gorbachev might have thought "the time was out of joint" and "that he was ever born to set it right". But Mr Gorbachev’s world was nothing but wreckage that could not be mended. It just had to be ended.