I snipped a lot.
TITLE: RADIO INTERVIEW WITH MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
[EKHO MOSKVY RADIO, 15:16, MARCH 1, 2004] SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru/)
Anchor: It's 15:16 Moscow time, hello and welcome to Ekho Moskvy. I am Marina Korolyova and as we have promised, our guest is Mikhail Gorbachev, the first and only President of the Soviet Union. Good afternoon, Mikhail Sergeyevich.
Gorbachev: Good day.
Anchor: You can phone your questions to our pager: 961-2222. Any questions that interest you in connection with the upcoming elections and any question you feel like putting to Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. He will be live on the air until 15:30. ---
Gorbachev: ... Still, it was to a large extent movement by inertia. Now we should put the stake on bringing in resources. Most importantly, one can't afford such heavy oil dependency... You know that the first blow fell precisely on perestroika -- in the shape of plunging prices. In 1986 prices fell to 12, 10 dollars per barrel... It was a staggering blow. We couldn't quite cope with it then.
Now such a possibility exists, but one should remember that it can't last forever and so modernization of the manufacturing industry and, I should say, intensive support and encouragement of small and medium business -- without it there will be no economic growth, no income growth and there will be no stability because stability depends on how people feel about their country and about themselves, because the middle class is created as a result of a lot of medium business.
At present it contributes only 20 percent, and some say 12 percent to the GDP. Take Germany, we have just been discussing these problems together, and there small and medium business accounts for 70 percent. I could go on down my check list.
I don't like the way many eager people are adapting our education and science to the challenges of globalization and the modern information technologies in such a way that the principles of accessibility, of free access are challenged, and this was what sustained the Soviet Union.
Now all these services are already partly paid for. If things go on like this and all these plans are not revised, if the housing and utilities complex -- the President has already put it on hold once when it was reported to him -- estimates had been made on his instructions -- and it turned out that if the plans proposed by some members of the government were to be carried out, 80 percent of the people wouldn't be able to pay for their apartments in which they live.
So, this is a very serious matter. Therefore, major changes are needed. And of course, there has to be a search for funding of all this. And there is again the issue of natural rent. It's taking too long. The situation is quite like shifting from one leg to another in the morning in an apartment with many families, waiting for the turn to the toilet.
Anchor: So you are in favor of the natural rent, what is proposed by Sergei Glazyev, you favor introduction of a natural rent, don't you?
Gorbachev: I don't known in what form does Sergei do it because there are different variants, but it must be as a part of it, what they don't earn but rather what they simply receive from the nation, from nature. But we have developed these territories for so many generations and thus it should be put at the disposal of the nation, to the fund which is already created by the president. All this will create possibilities to move forward.
Anchor: Mikhail Sergeyevich, does it seem to you that the Kasyanov government would not be equal to these tasks?
Gorbachev: I don't think he would. He was very much linked to the past. And for him the main heroes were people connected with extreme liberalism. I would say that we should not in any case allow a communist comeback, that left radicalism shall we say. Neither should we allow the return of what we had done in the times of Chubais -- this was a manifestation of the most dyed in the wool right radicalism, liberal radicalism. It is these people that should not be allowed to get into the government.
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Anchor: Mikhail Sergeyevich, when I say "President of the Soviet Union" I understand that today we are precisely kind of between two dates: firstly it is February 27 14 years ago when the post of President of the Soviet Union was introduced.
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Anchor: There are different events and how would you evaluate them: are they all good? I take it that the birth of a daughter is happiness, and your own birthday is also good and as for the rest, would you, incidentally, wish to change something?
Gorbachev: No, I think that these are all dates which indicate that the fate has decreed so and gave me the possibility and genuine tested me and also gave me big chances to show my worth. And in this sense, I first said -- that among reformers there are no happy ones but now I stick to a different view: I have no reason to complain about my fate.
Anchor: But if it so happened that you obtained a possibility to get back into that time, would there be something that you would do differently?
Gorbachev: Well, of course, much would be different, but the choice would be the same. It is because already at that time there was the sensation that a country of knowledge and well educated was suffocating from lack of freedom. This was true in regard to even the working people, even the modest Shchokinsky method, the subcontract, and it could not be put into practice. Peasants were suffocating, to say nothing about the intelligentsia -- who could manifest their potential, organize some initiatives, but all the plans were shelved. But having said that we are still living off the ideas that were generated then.
But in general the country needed freedom, our country. People resented being humiliated by the unfreedom, by total thought control when you could go to jail for telling a joke. And generally speaking we began lagging behind and surrendering our positions from the mid- 1970s. And the whole developed world was entering a new technological era and we remained in the old era. That is why we had the most wasteful kind of economy.
We expended a lot of resources and obtained two or two and a half less in the shape of final product, because we were a wasteful economy. Labor productivity in industry was 3-3.5 times less than in the West and five times less in the agrarian sector. And I am not talking about quality. It was a disgrace when people were literally fighting for their place in the queue to buy Italian shoes. That state could not be tolerated.
Anchor: Mikhail Sergeyevich, our listener Dmitry asks this question: "In what country would you like to live -- in Russia or in the Soviet Union -- and in what kind of country are we living today?"
Gorbachev: Well, I think it's this way. What is the Soviet Union -- it is the name of the greater Russia. If you take the territorial spread and the peoples inhabiting Russia -- with the exception of Finland and Poland, this is all Russia.
So, for us this our perception of the greater Russia. What has happened and this is something I did not agree with and cannot agree with to this day is what has been done to the Soviet Union. We struck a heavy blow. Because I can tell you that the main mistakes, people say that one thing was done wrong and another thing and property was not handled right and economic models were not properly chose. All these things can be mended. But the destruction of a country, the breakup, the destruction of the cooperation which enabled us to effectively use all our resources -- this accounts for 50-60 percent of all our woes today.
So, I would still adhere to the Soviet Union. But mistakes had been made, I would try not to make the mistakes that have been made.
Anchor: I have looked at the latest data of the Public Opinion Fund and the results of a poll among Russians to find out how they assessed your activities. Do you know that 47 percent of Russians blame you for the breakup of the Soviet Union? I am sure you know about it, you've been told.
Gorbachev: Well, with polls it's like this... Should perestroika have been started or not? 45 percent said it shouldn't have been started, and 42 said yes, it should have been started. This should give you to think. So, it should have been started. Especially since that question was followed by other concrete questions: do we need democracy, freedom and glasnost and contested elections and 60-70 percent of those polled answered yes.
As for the disintegration of the Soviet Union, I cannot claim that I bear no responsibility, that would have been an irresponsible statement showing me up as a cynic. I was there, I was at the head of the country, well, not personally, you know what our system was. But still I was the principal player at the time and it all happened during my time. But the blow occurred when in 1991 we were emerging from the dire crisis of the previous years and we had an anti-crisis program and a new Union Treaty had been prepared for signing that would have decentralized the Union and enabled the republics and the regions to make more decisions locally, to assume responsibility and to solve issues.
And in July, 1991, we agreed on reforming the party which was already divided into several public currents, in effect, was falling apart. And at that moment those who were against perestroika processes and all these moves because they didn't hold out any promise for them... The nomenklatura did not withstand the test by democracy. In 1989 there was a serious crisis. Power was in the hands of 35 major functionaries of the CPSU, they were the heads of their regions, some were even members of the Politburo and they lost the elections.
And what had that to do with Gorbachev? They made it out that the whole point was to get rid of Gorbachev and attempts began to get rid of Gorbachev. But we should have continued along our course and we were doing it because I am morally responsible for what was taking place. I cannot agree with the statement because I fought to preserve the Union until last.
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Gorbachev: You know, in all these votes and in all these polls to me everything is clear. Putin's victory is a foregone conclusion.
Anchor: So, you don't doubt it?
Gorbachev: I have absolutely no doubt about it. I don't know what should happen for things to turn out otherwise. But most of all I was concerned in the Duma elections and now by the fact that almost 50 million people failed to turn out to elect the Duma and in general, it is almost half the people -- and this is very bad.
Anchor: Maybe it expresses the fact that people fail to see an intrigue in the elections? Indeed, it is clear who will win so why go to the elections.
Gorbachev: But wait there is still some competition there and if one agrees with you, you say that it is not important how they vote, the counting will be done later and correctly and that is why -- why bother. Add to this also those who go to the election -- they are the most active, they are the keenest people, with their own position, so they go and vote against and now they have moved to the third place. And this means that the authorities have a credibility gap with the people.
I think that even the fact and this is heard in the presidential election, this means not the attitude to the President but rather the mistrust of the entire structure of power and the activity of the authorities. I am most of all concerned with this. This means that not everything is in order in our state. And this should be pondered over. I am sure that the President is thinking about it but the main thing is that this should be looked into and the mistrust on the part of the people should be removed because otherwise we will not be up to such big tasks. In our country -- which is a special country, one can accomplish half the assignment with the sole reliance on the mood but if I now feel humiliated, if the dignity of people is involved, this strongly influences everything.
That is why it will be a great responsibility for President Putin to shoulder -- I am cofident that we will be elected and I say that with certainty -- in that period. If he act slow, if he maneuvers, if he does not take the road of serious steps in different directions -- and we have already touched on this topic -- it will be bad.
Anchor: Mikhail Sergeyevich, you said that Vladimir Putin will most likely be elected. And then you said it is important what he does after. Now many experience such apprehensions and the apprehensions are expressed that a return to totalitarianism, to totalitarian power is possible in Russia.
Gorbachev: I think this will not happen.
Anchor: But you know Vladimir Putin and you have met with him.
Gorbachev: Yes.
Anchor: What can you say?
Gorbachev: I know and we have talked much with him and we even discussed this topic. He would listen to this question of mine with agitation. I told him about my conversation with the former prime minister of France and he said -- I can see that the situation in Russia is complex and so authoritarian methods cannot be avoided in such a situation. He is a very experienced politician. Yes, he said, will it not so happen that a new authoritarianism will emerge. And we discussed the topic. I shared my thinking with him and I told him about that conversation with that man.
He received this with great agitation. It was one of the first conversations. But subsequently the topic would arise again -- the attitude to democracy and in connection with the mass media and so on. There will be no authoritarianism under Putin. Some individual measures can be tough, but he is not a man who would get us back to.. ---
Anchor: Slightly more than 20 minutes have already passed, regrettably. You were with us on the air. I will not congratulate you on your birthday because this is not done in advance but I will remind listeners that Mikhail Sergeyevich has his birthday tomorrow.