Disappearance

Mikhail Gorbachev, the man of "perestroika" and the collapse of the USSR

Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow on November 7, 1989. AP - Boris Yurchenko

Text by: Anastasia Becchio

12 mins

One of the major political figures of the 20th century, Mikhail Gorbachev died on Tuesday August 30 at the age of 91 in Moscow.

Last secretary general of the central committee of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), then first and last president of the USSR, he spent six years in the Kremlin, from 1985 to 1991, when the bloc fell.

Seen in the West as a reformer who gave back the Soviets their freedoms, he remained until his death a very controversial figure in Russia, where many consider him to be the gravedigger of the USSR.

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" 

 ," said the Central Clinical Hospital (TSKB) dependent on the Russian presidency, in Moscow.

With

, the Western vocabulary was enriched with two Russian words: " 

 " and " 

 ", two terms which symbolize the reform policy he initiated, opening the door to the upheavals of the early 1990s,

.

Originally from the North Caucasus, in what is now the Stavropol region, Mikhail Gorbachev, born on March 2, 1931 in the village of Privolnoïe, liked to point out that he had been a combine harvester driver.

In reality, the son and grandson of peasants, he combined his studies with work in the fields to help his father at the kolkhoz.

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A member of the Communist youth since the age of 14, he was decorated in 1949 with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, which allowed him to enter the University of Moscow, the most prestigious higher establishment in the country, where he will study law.

With his diploma in hand, married for two years to Raïssa Maximovna Titarenko, a social science student he met at the University of Moscow, he returned to his native region in 1955, and in the 1960s held several positions within the organs of the Communist Party of Stavropol.

He has been a member since the age of 18 and quickly rose through the ranks of the Soviet system as an apparatchik.

He became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1985.

Perestroika

When he takes the reins of the country, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev is 54 years old and represents a new generation within an aging leadership.

He then tries to breathe new life into the broken down Soviet economy, and launches “perestroika”: literally, reconstruction, restructuring.

By allowing individuals to set up small businesses, by liberalizing large state enterprises, Mikhail Gorbachev is trying to transform the inefficient economy of the USSR into a decentralized market economy.

However, there was no question of questioning the Communists: Gorbachev sought to make the system more efficient and more flexible, by adapting it to the requirements of the end of the 20th century.

But his policy fails to put afloat a catastrophic economic situation.

The standard of living of the Soviets is collapsing, popular discontent is growing.

The mineral secretary

One of the first controversial measures of the new secretary general was the launch of a vast campaign against alcoholism, a real national scourge: half of the alcohol outlets had been closed and the price of vodka had been significantly increased. .

But the campaign proved a social, economic and political failure.

Popular comedians then dubbed him the “ 

 ”.

This first flagship measure of his mandate did not help to establish his popularity, which, in a context of growing economic difficulties, continued to deteriorate until December 25, 1991, when he was forced to leave office. President of the USSR to which he was elected on March 15, 1990.

Its policy of “ 

 ” (“ 

 ”, according to the definition given by Vladimir Dahl in

, but the term has most often been translated as “ 

 ”), Initially, it earned him the support of intellectuals.

Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, de-Stalinization and the release of thousands of political prisoners and dissidents were then on the agenda: the opening, even if it remained controlled, was applauded, but quickly, the enthusiasm of the beginning gave way to disappointment among many members of the intelligentsia.

Rehabilitated by Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought him back from his exile in Gorki in 1986, Nobel Peace Prize physicist Andrei Sakharov is one of them.

As the historian Michel Heller reports in The 7th Secretary, in the summer of 1989, Sakharov warned Gorbachev in these terms: " 

 ”.

But Mikhail Gorbachev rejects this solution.

Demonstration in the USSR on April 4, 1990. With Perestroika, Gorbachev tries in vain to save an adrift economy.

Getty Images/The LIFE Images Collection/Igor Gavrilov

Fall of the USSR

Glasnost eventually led to mass protests and also contributed to the awakening of nationalisms among ethnic minorities,

.

Overwhelmed by a story that escaped him,

on December 25, 1991, taking note of the disappearance of the USSR, after an agreement signed without him by Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, creating the community of independent states, to which other constituent republics of the Soviet Union will soon join, having proclaimed their sovereignty.

Four months earlier, the Soviet president attended, just as powerless, from Foros, in Crimea, the failed putsch of the conservatives.

These require a recovery in hand and the stifling of the independence tendencies of the republics of the Soviet Union.

To avoid the break-up of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to draw up a new “ 

 ” which would grant greater autonomy to the republics.

After visiting him at his resort to demand that he reconsider his position, eight men, including KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and Interior Minister Boris Pugo foment a rebellion .

The head of the Kremlin finds himself isolated, cut off from the world in his villa with his wife Raïssa and his family.

Tanks take position in the streets of Moscow, a state of emergency is declared for six months.

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 : 

But the putschists lack determination, and their operation ends up failing.

Boris Yeltsin, who was not arrested, then took the lead in the mobilization;

thousands of Muscovites support him.

The United States and the United Kingdom expressed their support for him.

Germany remains loyal to Mikhail Gorbachev.

French President François Mitterrand, for his part, first takes note of the statements of the putschists, a recognition of fact which will be reproached to him later.

On August 21, the putsch is defeated.

The next day, Mikhail Gorbachev returned to Moscow, but his power was faltering in the face of his successor in 1992.

Post-Kremlin

After leaving the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev became involved in the defense of the environment.

The former Soviet president founded the Green Cross International in 1993, within which he campaigned for the creation of an international tribunal to judge those who are guilty of ecological crimes.

Since 1992, he has chaired the Gorbachev Foundation, a non-governmental organization dedicated to socio-economic and political studies.

For decades, he traveled the world, giving lectures and advocating for democracy, until illness prevented him from traveling.

In July 2017, his health did not allow him to travel to Strasbourg to attend the ceremony in tribute to his alter ego on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, who died on 16 June 2017.

Co-owner since 1993 of the biweekly

, critic of Russian power in recent years, Mikhail Gorbachev had not been stingy with reproaches towards the current head of the Kremlin Vladimir Putin.

He had even called on him to cede power, after the massive opposition demonstrations in the winter of 2011-2012.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa (right) and ex-Soviet number one Mikhail Gorbachev (left), November 9, 2009. Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch

His feelings towards the Russian president have warmed up thanks to the Ukrainian crisis.

In an interview with the Sunday Times on May 22, 2016, Mikail Gorbachev said he approved of the annexation of Crimea by Russia: “ 

.

(…)

 ”.

A position that has drawn the wrath of kyiv: the last leader of the USSR is now persona non grata in Ukraine, the Security Service (SBU) having banned him from entering the country for five years.

In November 2014, in Germany, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mikhail Gorbachev affirms that Vladimir Putin is the politician who best defends the interests of Russia.

He also warns against the risk of a new cold war which could degenerate into armed conflict, and

 :

“ 

 asks the father of Perestroika, quoted by the Interfax agency.

Three years later, on the eve of the first meeting between then US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Mikhail Gorbachev called on the two leaders to " 

 " to " 

 .

" 

 ," the former Soviet leader said, referring to his meeting with then-US President Ronald Reagan that paved the way for the end of the war. Cold War.

In Russia, his attempts to return to politics have, on the other hand, ended in failure.

In the 1996 presidential election, he only won 0.5% of the vote.

In fact, Mikhail Gorbachev remains one of Russia's most unloved leaders to this day.

Gorbymania

Its image has, on the other hand, been better for a long time abroad and in particular in the West, where its liberal reforms, its desire for openness have been seen with a very good eye.

Britain's Margaret Thatcher was one of the first to carve out a reputation for him: “ 

 ,” she said during a visit to Britain in December 1984.

Mikhail Gorbachev was then only Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Supreme Soviet.

A few months earlier, on a visit to Italy, “ 

 ,” recounts the historian Michel Heller.

Quickly, the secretary general with the wine stain on his balding forehead is the subject of a real " 

 ".

magazine

awarded him the title of " 

 " in 1987, then " 

 " in 1989.

Aware of the exorbitant weight of the military-industrial complex, Mikhail Gorbachev multiplies calls for disarmament.

In December 1987, with US President Ronald Reagan in Washington, he signed an agreement on the elimination of medium-range missiles in Europe.

It was with Reagan's successor, George Bush Senior, that Mikhail Gorbachev

in July 1991.

George Bush (l) and Mikhail Gorbachev, during a press conference on the START 1 agreements concluded in 1991. (Photo: AFP)

Fall of the Wall

His name is closely associated

, the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, and the implosion of the USSR.

In 1990, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the end of the Cold War, a process that he neither controlled nor perhaps even wanted.

, published in Russia in 2012, 21 years after leaving the Kremlin, Gorbachev regretted " 

 ".

“ 

 ,” he wrote.

He also criticizes the West and in particular the United States for the support he believes they gave to his rival of the late 1980s, Boris Yeltsin, who, elected president of Russia, dealt the deathblow to the regime. Soviet Union after the failed Conservative coup of August 1991.

The History of the Berlin Wall

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During the presentation of this book, in the fall of 2012, in a Moscow bookstore full to bursting, a reader asked Mikhail Gorbachev what was the greatest regret of his life.

“ 

, replied the former Soviet president,

 ”.

The elegant Raissa, the great love of his life, his wife for 46 years, the first real first lady in Soviet history, whose presence with her husband had largely contributed to Gorbachev's popularity in the West.

Raissa died of acute leukemia on September 20, 1999 in Munster, Germany, where she was being treated.

A disappearance, from which Mikhail Gorbachev had never really recovered.

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