EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW WITH MIKHAIL GORBACHEV IZVESTIA DAILY, P.1, 9, MAY 14, 2005 SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru)
EX-PRESIDENT OF THE USSR MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: "I AM NOT SURE THAT THIS GOVERNMENT CAN IMPLEMENT THE PRESIDENT'S PROGRAM"
*(CD -- I snipped a hell of a lot here where Gorby says Putin should fire the government.)*
Izvestia: Let us look at present-day affairs in a historical perspective. There is one school of thought which says that Putin is a latter-day Gorbachev.
Gorbachev: We are absolutely different people. Absolutely different histories, different lives. And times have changed. But I have long said and I still maintain that he is a credible president. I didn't believe at first that he would succeed. But life has shown that he is an efficient and ambitious man. And now in his current situation he is under pressure from all these groups. And they still can't complete the distribution of property.
Izvestia: There is a parallel: both you and he came to power to succeed a senescent and inefficient ruler. Both you and he were recruited from the ranks of the young in the hope that you would preserve and reanimate the system. But the young chose to change course a little bit.
Gorbachev: In his first term Putin did a good job of work. If a contest were announced who would detect more miscalculations on his part I would probably have named more than anyone else. But that is not the way to assess things. When a person is implementing a concrete project and solving concrete large-scale tasks, delays and setbacks and even mistakes always occur.
I must say that there was chaos everywhere -- in the social sphere, in science and education, health care, in the army, in the relations between the federal administration and the regions. Wherever you looked, there was chaos everywhere. I think much has already been accomplished, at least enough for him to make a mark in history.
But now the question arose: where do we go from here? How not to drift by inertia, not to follow in the old rut in which Yeltsin was caught? Now a new course has to be initiated, there needs to be a change of course. When he was being elected for the second term, I said: the important thing is what he will do. If he uses his new mandate to strengthen his own power and continues the process of creating a "managed democracy," this will lead to no good.
Izvestia: Here is another parallel with perestroika. You, too, successively assumed more and more formal positions, but your real grip on power was weakening. Don't you think Putin is following the same road? He, too, is assuming more and more powers...
Gorbachev: The situations then and now are different. I had to do it in order to create a new regime through a new Constitution, through the political process, through free elections, a regime based on democratic procedures and principles. And I had to free state power -- the executive and other branches -- from the reins in which they were kept by the CPSU. I faced the task of creating a state system of governing the country because Article 6 of the Constitution was about to be abolished. But in the case of Vladimir Putin, that task had already been solved. He faced a different challenge: creating credible national parties, federal parties which would provide the basis for the emergence of democratic institutions.
But I must say that nothing can be more misguided than an attempt to create parties in Surkov's office. A party arises from political movements, social strata, from large groups. Parties form themselves by identifying interests.
So, the task that faced us was to free ourselves from the shackles of the CPSU. In his case the power system is already in place and the challenge now is to encourage the formation of parties.
Izvestia: Another parallel. Many people remember the period of 1990-1991 when there was a sense of an imminent catastrophe in society and everybody was saying: if this or that is not done, there will be a disaster, a civil war. There is a growing sense of imminent catastrophe in today's Russia. Even the mayor of Moscow and the Chief of the President's Staff have spoken about a real danger of disintegration of the country... And look at the interest Izvestia's readers show in the "color" revolutions.
Gorbachev: I think the way that the reforms are being implemented has raised the temperature. The reform of government is stalled. Kozak's administrative reform is stalled. And, finally, all these social sector reforms. The opposition to the approaches of the government and its projects did not begin in January and February. That was the time when pensioners took to the streets protesting against the law on monetization. But the struggle has been going on for some time: what to do about education, health care, the housing and utilities sector? And one can see now that the most primitive option was chosen: to do everything at the expense of the common people. I think this may unsettle people and stir them up. The country woke up after the protests of old folks. And every day protests are taking place somewhere, people protesting against this or that policy. They won't take it lying down any more.
Izvestia: Let us turn to history again. There is a popular theory that the collapse of the USSR was the result of a Western conspiracy, and the West says that it is the result of our deliberate strategy that led to the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Many insiders of the foreign policy establishment at the time had a feeling that the West was scared of the prospect of disintegration of the Soviet Union if only because dealing just with Gorbachev, whom they understood, was more convenient than dealing with a dozen unpredictable leaders. And then, when things got out of control, they invented an excuse for a major geopolitical setback. How do you assess the role of the West in this whole string of events?
Gorbachev: Absolutely and definitely: we ourselves brought on the collapse of the Union. First, the advocates of perestroika were tardy in reforming the Union, reforming the Party, they had created a difficult situation in the economy and they began losing popular support and this paved the way for other forces that used the weaknesses of the reformers to the hilt. As for the hand of Washington, this is wishful thinking. The West was afraid of the disintegration of our country...
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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