The inspiration for change

Bridget Kendall:
Welcome to this special edition of Talking Point in Moscow. I'm Bridget Kendall and I'm joined here by the former Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev who will be answering some of the 700 questions we've received.

Mikhail Gorbachev:
Thank you for your invitation.

Bridget Kendall:
It's 10 years since Mr Gorbachev stepped down as Soviet President and it's over 15 years since he began the reforms that were to shake the foundations of the USSR and that's where our first question begins. It's from Timo Nurminen in Helsinki, Finland and he asks: When did you first realise that the system you were living in was flawed? When you were younger or only when you assumed power?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I must say that it is of course a long process and first of all my life and politics when my responsibilities kept growing all the time and when for almost 10 years I was in charge of a region because then I found myself in a situation when I had to take decisions which were required by life itself and then I saw with all my large rights I couldn't solve many things. I thought that it was just outside my region where I worked but then I found myself in Moscow in the Political Bureau and I worked for seven years with Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernencko - and then I realized that were lots of things I couldn't do - the system was hampering me and then I thought about reforms - that was that.

Secondly, I had an illusion just like Kruschev and Kosygin did that through partial reforms to improve socialism, to improve the system, to make it work - we were talking all the time. I had been talking about the advantages of the system as compared to the capitalist system and the illusion was there and then it collapsed and I realised it was necessary to change the system in 1988. It was before political reform began with free elections, with the division of powers into judicial executive legislative power. The freedom, the pluralism in politics, pluralism in the economy, the right to elect parties - confessions and so on.

Bridget Kendall:
Was there a moment when you realised the Communist Party was the enemy of reforms?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
Already after 1986 when we had held the 27th Congress, we had hoped that it would provide a stimulus for the whole society. Nevertheless, I went on my own because I couldn't trust such information - even to the closest people - it was difficult. I travelled around the country myself and I saw and people told me directly - we believe in you, really, we have to reform to change it, we are tried of all this life - that here the local authorities - the local bosses do not take anything in - they are not changing. They say we survived Kruschev, we survived Kosygin - we'll survive you, Gorbachev - they come and go and we're here forever. And I began to think about this and the more we tried to enable people - the citizens - to give them the freedom of speech, freedom to criticize, independence, the right to initiative, the right to hire production facilities and to do their own business. The more active we were in our search for ways to set society in action, the more the apparatchiks were stalling us because they were used to hold all the strings in their hands so that everybody would depend on it and they were just governing everything.

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Bridget Kendall:
The second question we've had which is about Chernobyl from Mark Fischer in the United States asking what role do you think the accident at Chernobyl in 1986 played? What was it like when you realized that the American government, it seems, had more information about what was going on than you the leaders in the Kremlin?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I don't think they had more information - I don't think so. Chernobyl - I would say this was a landmark and I think that there was an era before Chernobyl and a different era afterwards. Then we understood that the bell was tolling for the system about the way things were governed. As for information, we were procuring it - even the people - I believe that the people who were really there and open with me - the academician Velikhov, many others, young academicians - clever, energetic - they could not understand straight away what had happened.

We thought that the main impact will be on the Ukraine and then we realized it was in Belarus. The whole neighbouring area - the large area - and then the impact was felt in Gdansk and even in Sweden - somewhere in Sweden they were beginning to talk. They were beginning to monitor this information. Of course this is all over a short period. Nevertheless, some people came to the conclusion that we were hiding something. But in the morning we gathered the Political Bureau - the morning after the catastrophe happened and we gathered all the information. By the way, the International Atomic Energy which was working with us all the time, we had reported the situation to them and they said - the agency said - that our honesty was unprecedented. Of course there is a lot of ideology there. There's fighting in the divided world - ok we caught you lying.

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Bridget Kendall:
Jiadong Sun, London: It seems to me that Communism in the Soviet Union ended quite dramatically. Would you rather have taken more gradual steps or did it slip out of your control?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
We can talk about different things here. When he talks about this, I think he means the Soviet Union disintegrated. As for Communism, communism is not the Soviet Union, Communism is a whole system of countries - as we called them the socialist and capitalist camps and the bit about the defeat of a Communist model. It was the model used by the Bolsheviks which relied on dictatorship and not on democracy. Then there was a gap straight away between what they were going to do and what they promised to do and what they did in the end. We took the wrong path. We decided to use dictatorship and not to introduce the Communism straight away. We said it was a mistake. We started to talk about private property about cooperative concessions, co-operative ventures, about this new economic policy. And the country blossomed. We reached the pre-First World War level. People can do a lot when the conditions are right and Lenin disappeared and everything went back to dictatorial methods as a result. We had the totalitarian system as a result.

This system - we Communists - the new generation of Communists understood that this system wasn't working that it was beginning to fail and showing that we were lagging behind. Before we were managing to catch up with other countries and we were beginning to lag behind in agriculture. Productivity was three times lower than before in industry as well. There was a lot of wastage. It was a wasteful economy. The resources that we were spending - one would have two GDPs and it did not happen. The system was to blame and it was the anti-democratic moral which was defeated - dictatorial model.

The consequence of the Perestroika was that it brought the country from a totalitarian system to democracy. Yes, in that way, yes that was the model. Some people thought that it will bury socialist values with that, but it doesn't work like that. How many times did they bury - as we buried capitalism and liberal values, the other side buried socialist values - but both are still there. And the conclusion is that we need liberal values - freedom, the values of socialism as well - like justice, solidarity. Can we say that we are living in a just world now? No.

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Bridget Kendall:
To pick you up on what you were saying about the collapse of the Soviet Union. We've had a question from Ernest Merril, Antigua and there are many others, particularly Russians it seem, who have sent us a question like this. He says: I blame you Sir for the collapse of the Soviet Union and other people share my sentiments. Sir, do you believe I am justified in saying that?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I have a different opinion. It's up to him what he thinks, he has his right to think so. Since he asked me, I will say. I fought to the last for the preservation of the Soviet Union - for reforming it. The Soviet Union needed reform, it was true. It was a huge machine, it couldn't manoeuvre, it was over-centralised, it was over-bureaucraticised. It had a system where one party ruled, where one ideology existed. Everything was under control, from a nursery to big industries. This machine was not working - the system wasn't working - and it needed reforming. This is what the Soviet Union needed

Over the years of the Soviet Union on ethnic groups - large ethnic groups like 52 million in the Ukraine, 10 million in Belarus, 16 million in Kazikstan, 20 million in Uzbekistan. Republics had grown up - whole states - but they were treated like regions - they had no rights. This is why they had to be decentralised. If we hadn't done that then the process of disintegration would begin. When the putsch undermined it, the union treaty had already been ready for signing and the putsch undermined it and then disintegration did begin then.

After the putsch I tried to negotiate a new option, a new variant for the Soviet Union and then the national elite starting acting. They saw a chance to shake off the influence of the centre - to acquire independence to use it. As a result all the polls, even now, show people regret the disintegration of the Soviet Union. But when they're asked do we need to restore it - only 5, 7 - maximum 9% say yes. Which means that what I did in reforming, it was saving the Soviet Union. I would have done it differently - democratic - more flexible with confederate relations inside. Now we are looking for new ways of integration because everybody needs cooperation - even Burbulis who wrote documents for the Agreements of Belovezhskaya Puscha. He says now Gorbachev's vision was right.

Bridget Kendall:
But who then do you think is to blame for the break up of the Soviet Union if it's not you?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I already said that the process of reforms was undermined - it was sabotaged - it was the organisers of that coup first of all who sabotaged it and then Yeltsin decided to implement his ambitions. I fought until the end for the preservation of the Soviet Union. It was under my leadership that the new Union Treaty had been prepared. And when the union was already in the republic's parliaments for approval then Yeltsin gathered in Belovezhskaya Puscha the known participants. In August the Communists who staged a coup d'etat saying that Gorbachev was putting the Soviet Union in danger and that they were saving the Soviet Union - in fact it was the other way around; they were just trying to save themselves. When Yeltsin, Kravchouk and Shushkevich made these proposals on the dissolution of the Soviet Union in Moscow in Parliament where 86% were Communists, they voted for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I was on my own and it seemed as if I was the only one who needed it.

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Bridget Kendall:
Nigel, London: Preparations for the failed coup against you in 1991 seem to be underway for about a year. To what extent were you aware of them?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
The putsch was in preparation for a year - this is a big claim. The person who was asking thinks he knows more than we do. There was fighting between various groups who had already emerged in the leadership of the Soviet Union in the Soviet Parliament. I would remind you that in the autumn at the meeting of the Congress of the People Deputies Sazhi Umalatova at the instruction of her group at the instruction of the head of parliament - she was putting forward a proposal in order to remove Gorbachev from the presidential post and she failed in April at the Plenum of the central Communist Party - they tried to remove me from the post of the head of the Communist Party.

All the attempts to pursue an open political fight against me - to use democratic means to remove Gorbachev from power - they all failed and then they decided to stage a coup d'etat. I knew that there was discontent. I knew about their positions but politically they had been failing - that's why they decided to stage a coup d'etat. And when they decided to do it - when the draft of the union treaty had already been ready when we had a political programme and all the republics had approved it - even the Baltic ones who said that we would comply with them though we will not sign them. And then in July we adopted a plan to reform the CPSU and in November 1991 we were going to discuss it at another Congress of the People Deputies.

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Bridget Kendall:
We have a question here from an English schoolboy, Brian Witham, from Britain: He says, in our history lessons at school, we have to debate the real reasons for your resignation. Can you tell me what they were?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I cannot say I did it on my own accord. When a meeting gathered in Belovezhskaya Puscha and announced a dissolution of the country and then after all these arguments they do agree to dissolve the Soviet Union and then it happens that there is no state of which I was a president. They decide then if the supreme councils, which under Gorbachev had just been selected during free elections. Those supreme councils - parliaments - who reflect the real interest of the people and they speak for the dissolution of the Soviet Union - then I took that position.

Why did people react like that? They thought that the Commonwealth - as it was announced in Almaty - it was just a softer version of the Soviet Union and in reality it was just a ploy. They said that that the same economic space would be preserved - the same financial policies - that the reforms would be coordinated, that the united armed forces would still be there, that the foreign policy would be the same. All the signs of the Soviet Union - but nothing was there. During the next three months it was all gone. It was a just a ploy for the people. The people thought that maybe Yeltsin and his team would manage to put them together better. People were confused - totally confused. Then despite that, I spoke virtually every day on the subject - sometimes such things happen.

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Bridget Kendall:
Our next question comes from Tajikistan - Ahmadi, and he wants to ask about Afghanistan: You withdrew troops after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s without implementing a political plan for the country. So aren't you partly responsible for the present crisis?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I have heard this question many times before. Firstly there were accusations that we moved into Afghanistan and we were accused when we withdrew from Afghanistan. It was not an easy decision. I had to reach an agreement inside the country and outside with Iran, Pakistan, the United States and India - all those interested parties. We had an international conference to solve, as it should be such conflicts should be decided. The main thing that we were doing in the last years when Karmal was replaced, his theory was that he was prepared to fight in Afghanistan to the last Soviet soldier. Money was spent - they were stealing it.

Najibullah who replaced him represented the push to majority. He was ready to co-operate with the regional elite - with religious activists. He enabled the middle class businessmen to work. A new life began - not a Marxist life when they wanted to live by Marxism. The English tried for 100 years to make the local people - the Afghans - live their way - they failed. And Karmal decided to show another way and he failed. Then after that we just began to withdraw troops but we carried on to support the country with food, with arms and all the necessary things to enable the regime to function. And it did function - for three years, one way or another, it wasn't easy. You can see how things were happening then and it will happen like this.

It is difficult, special country. Kabul doesn't mean anything without the regions - if the regions are fighting. And what did the Americans do? It's clear now they had prepared the Taleban together with Pakistan - they prepared the Taleban movement who had overthrown the Najibullah regime who was neutral and was based on a constructive position. A new government should have been done either with Najibullah or not but a new government should have been formed. But what happens? They prepared a regime in order to undermine, to sabotage, they thought the Soviet Union tried to domesticate Afghanistan and accusing the Soviet Union of evil plots. There are real processes and the mass media - not everybody works like the BBC. I must say that the BBC is objective - not always, sometimes things happen. But look at other voices - how they do what their financiers tell them - the governments. This is a powerful force who can present a different picture altogether and not as it is in reality. That's what happened.

Bridget Kendall:
What about President Bush's policy now. Syed Nizam Uddin Ashraf, Karachi Pakistan: What is your opinion about the present policy of President Bush to fight terrorism?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
What happened on the 11th September is the last bell, as they say, because for the leading countries first of all for the United States - and not just for that - all the countries because few paid any attention to this problem. They were focusing on missiles and anti-missiles, submarines, strategic planes - how to replace them, how to achieve supremacy in space and the blow came from a different quarter. And such a blow to which it's difficult to find a response. Now it's the Taleban - it's an organisation which fed and formed the Taleban with feelers all over the world and gave it an international character. Solidarity was needed in that instance. I think the international community showing solidarity to the United States showed its humanity first and secondly I think that the coalition against terrorism and the anticipation of the Security Council created legal and political basis and pre-conditions to defeat, especially where the centres of international terrorism were deployed. Apart from all of that, the Taleban refused to cooperate and that's why the military action started.

Although I must say it wasn't the best way of solving problems because now again destruction - civilians are dying. The country has been fighting for 20 years. Now recently in the north of Afghanistan, American soldiers died.

Bridget Kendall:
What about American threats that there are now against Iraq?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I think I already wrote about this. The euphoria that the Americans had as a result of a fast defeat, although now it's not clear whether the operation will last a long time. But then they became dizzy - that in one sweep they can destroy all the military installations. These are ill-thought-out statements. Did the American President now go to South Korea and how did he feel there when its leader is trying to promote integration on the peninsula and how can the South Korean leaders can talk to the North Koreans when they have been announced rogues. One day Americans are talking to the North Korean leaders, talking about building stations and all of a sudden another day - and now Iran.

All this is happening when difficult complicated processes of the establishment of civic society in Iran is under way. There is fighting between clerics and civic politicians are fighting. If all this had started happening on the border with Russia and Iran will not just take it lying down. It is not the Taleban.

As for Iraq - Iraq said it would agree to accept UN inspectors. What do we hear in reply? Even the USA's allies asked questions - it needs discussions. The decision of the Security Council decision is needed. The Americans come up with such phrases as - we don't need anybody, either the Security Council or other states - if they want to support us good, if not, we'll do it ourselves. We'll come up with a diagnosis ourselves . When the United Nations does not meet any more - the Security Council doesn't meet any more. This is a return to the Cold War. This already smacks of the Cold War. Didn't the 20th century teach us that military force cannot solve everything. It is needed sometimes. But one cannot think that everything can be solved through war - it is a mistake.

Where is leadership? I don't think that leadership is about carrying out one war after another - three, four wars. I think the international community has many ways to fight international terrorism - the financial methods when with the banks took all the terrorists' capital under their control. Diplomatic means too, economic means - like blockades - the international community has many means. Why go like that - just to justify military expenditure - a colossal expenditure which has grown again? The unprecedented military budget in the whole history of the United States. I don't understand this.

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Bridget Kendall:
We've had quite a lot of people who want to know your opinion about Vladimir Putin. Rikke Ish�y, Copenhagen Denmark: How do you view Putin's Presidency, taking into account, what appears to be, his restrictions on freedom of speech and other fundamental democratic rights?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
When young people ask this question I welcome it. But when the accusations against Putin are made against Putin I know it's not honest - it's a political game - why? You can get freedom today but it doesn't mean that you will be free tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Russia is in a transitory state to a democratic country - democratic structures are being established - new personalities are emerging - new mentalities are emerging. When we began Perestroika 90% of the people in the Soviet Union were those who were born under Soviet rule - they don't know any other forms of life. You think that in one week, one year - even five years - can it be done just like that? This is why I said that Perestroika is an evolutionary process. It's a matter to be done one - two generations.

I've just spoken to Helmut Kohl on the 4th March. He is here in Moscow. We were talking about changing. He said that the German nation speaks one language but it feels like after the collapse of the Berlin Wall two nations met one another. Over 40 years a different mentality had been formed and integration wasn't going very smoothly. And Russia from one serfdom and then Communist serfdom. And altogether if you ask Putin - of course he would like to democracy already today like in the USA, Britain, Germany but can you tell me who can do that? Well let him be a president then - nobody will be able to do it. Society has to suffer to get a new democratic society. This is why things happen in this transformation period. Some things happen and I cannot justify him then but altogether his policy when he is working and doing things in the interests of the majority of people, he is continuing the reforms. He is reforming the army.

There were cases and I spoke about them - for example, the Kursk submarine. He should have reacted earlier and he should have announced his position earlier and later he had to make a lot of efforts not to let his position slip. People are having a hard life in Russia. But they consider the President is doing the right thing but changes do not come easy. Many people do not want it to happen - even just to preserve the status quo sometimes authoritarian methods have to be applied. But when I spoke in France, I said sometimes authoritarian methods are needed even in democratic countries it happens. But will it not happen that this separate cases will emerge into an authoritarian regime and he just burst out then - if they were here in this country, in this chaos, they would understand that things are not solved so easily. That sometimes far from democratic measures have to be taken.

But nevertheless I think that this person represents a new generation. Over the past three years he grew into a mature politician. He is understood by ordinary people. His rating remains very high. This is his biggest resource and this is why he succeeds. Before we didn't have a federation, we had a feudal regionalism. Now the constitution begins to work - the mechanisms begin to work - everything is just beginning. Time is needed - I think that he'll have time.

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Bridget Kendall:
Jonathon Jones, Houston, Texas, USA: Will Russia ever join Nato?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
Even Putin put the question like this. I think to put it like that is not our aim. But to cooperate with Nato - I think there is a consensus on that in Russia. But cooperation is not like some people in Nato would like it - Russia will just be there as an observer and applaud its decisions - no - Russia has a huge responsibility. It has a huge historic, military and political experience - its huge. Why should it have less rights than other countries who are just needed for some reasons - I think that many are just accepted without thought.

No - attitude has to be changed. In co-operation between Nato and Russia - I think Blair's initiative on this is very correct and has a future. A new council to discuss co-operation between Nato and Russia should be created where Russia should be able to take decisions. I would only like maybe up to four issues on which Russia should have the right of veto - but altogether I don't think it should be given the full right of veto. This would have far reaching consequences. All of a sudden the process had been going well and the Europeans began to cooperate - then America says why rush - let's talk about it in the autumn. Everything had been ready it seemed. On the one hand they think that Russia should find its feet to make its choice - to integrate into the Western structures. The economy and other processes - the choice has been made. After the 11th September, Putin said openly - do you know how much it cost him in Russia to make a statement like that and what did our friends do - they are stalling it again. So the ball is not in our court but in our partners. The world is different now. Everybody thinks - especially the super states which are now in proud solitude think that nothing has happened but it is the 21st century now.

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Bridget Kendall:
We have a couple of questions that want to know a bit more about you personally. The first one is from Virginia Gillespie in New Jersey, USA: You always seemed to get along well with Americans. Have you ever considered moving to the United States now that you are out of the picture, as it were?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
Why? I'm Russian - this is my country - my roots are here - the graves of my parents, my grandparents - for some it may not matter but for Russians, not just Russians, it matters a lot. But my attitude to Americans is something else. I toured America many times. I have a lot of contacts there. My audiences there are up to 15,000 - 20,000 people. People come - in America nobody will force you to come and we have open discussions and conversations - I value this.

I like Americans, I like them a lot. I would like it so that even in politics between our presidents - there is progress in that respect but also between our parliaments that there should be positive changes. And positive because of cooperation and not because somebody will command Russia to do this and that. This will not work - Russia will not be told what to do. Then there will be attempts to tell India, China what to do - no they will not be strong enough to pull that off - it will snap. I like the pragmatic attitude now which means accepting that there are different attitudes to solutions to different programmes but to meet halfway - to build new relations fit for the 21st century. I think that illusions have no place here. But nevertheless ambitions of dominance, of pressure - they will not work. Not only towards Russia - this humiliates nations - people.

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Bridget Kendall:
Our last question is an even more personal question. It's from Vadim in Israel who sent this to our Russian service website: What kind of books do you like to read and what your personal tastes are in culture?

Mikhail Gorbachev:
I like reading and of course I have read a lot of Russian books and I like Soviet authors. There is a lot of interesting things there although there is a lot of emptiness there as well. French, English, American - I cannot be limited to one book. I can name several French, American - a dozen Russian authors. When I was young, I liked Jack London and then Fitzgerald and Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind. Now I read more books which study the processes of transformation that is happening in the world. My house is full of such books. I am all submerged in this life over the past years. Even with Raisa - especially after she died I go to the theatre less. I used to love the theatre - now there are lot of new Russian authors - I don't know their work, which I regret, but I haven't got time. My energy is limited.

Bridget Kendall:
There is lot of interest - always has been - in your wife - you must be lonely after the death of Raisa.

Mikhail Gorbachev:
To finish the talk about books, I want to tell people, especially young ones, that no TV programmes, including the one we are now taking part in, will ever replace books. People have to quietly be alone with a book to have time to think and not just to watch the screen on which scenes keep changing and nothing is clear. A book is a person's salvation.

As for your question - yes, lonely - the pain is still there. I travel, you work to the limit. What saves me is that my daughter Irina and my granddaughters moved in with me. I understand what it took them - that they had to uproot their live but I'm grateful. Recently I turned 71 and the first thing in the morning I went to Novodevichye Cemetery to Raisa's grave. I took her favourite flowers there - yes lonely. But at my age to stay alone - of course it's always good when friends are there and when your wife is a friend not just in terms of her intellect but also her friendship. We had a lot of happiness. When you talk together - when you have to stay 70 on your own - it's difficult.

Bridget Kendall:
That's all we've got time for in this special edition of Talking Point from Moscow. My apologies to those of you whose questions we didn't manage to ask out of the 700 and more that have come to us. But thanks to all of you who did ask your questions. And my main thanks of course go to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for this chance to explore his insights both into the past and into the future.

Mikhail Gorbachev:
Good luck.

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