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Mikhail Gorbachev: The Leader Who Lost an Empire

By Col R Hariharan | Columns| India Legal Magazine | September 10, 2022

https://www.indialegallive.com/magazine/mikhail-gorbachev-appraisal-soviet-union-cpsu-boris-yeltsin-brezhnev-putin/

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of the Soviet Union, passed away on August 30, at the ripe old age of 91. His chequered life is strewn with service in the cause of Communism as a party functionary and leader till 1985. Beyond that, his achievements as the harbinger of peace and the end of the Cold War during his six-year tenure as the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), are unmatched. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saw him as “a one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history” who “did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War”.

But many Russians see Gorbachev as the man who triggered the break up of the Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin called it 20th century’s “greatest geopolitical catastrophe”. No wonder, Putin showed his disdain for Gorbachev by denying him a formal state funeral. In any case, he was “too busy” to attend the funeral. However, he is reported to have laid a single rose on Gorbachev’s coffin in the Moscow hospital, perhaps because his place in history cannot be wished away. Brookings foreign policy expert Strobe Talbott also saw Gorbachev as “the man who lost an empire” in a December 1997 article of the same title.  

However, it is not wholly fair to blame Gorbachev for the collapse of the Soviet empire. When he came to power in 1985, the country was already in deep economic trouble. By then, Brezhnev Doctrine—all socialist countries had a duty to support and defend socialist gains—which was applied for nearly three decades to protect Soviet interests the world over had drained the economy. As Leonid Brezhnev aged, his effectiveness as a ruler plummeted. Bureaucracy was stifling the system and corruption was rampant. Brezhnev’s successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who led the country from 1982 to 1985, missed the wood for the trees. They could not understand that the decay in the system required more than cosmetic repairs like tightening party discipline and fighting corruption.

There are many ways of looking at Gorbachev’s life. Let us look at his evolution from a devoted Communist functionary to a leader, statesman and dreamer. The political journey of Gorbachev started as a 19-year-old applicant to the CPSU, promising to be “faithful to the great cause of Lenin and Stalin, to devote his life to the party’s struggle for Communism”. How he went on to start the process of loosening the Party’s stranglehold on power in 1991 presents a fascinating story. It represents the three stages of Gorbachev’s life: as a faithful functionary coming to terms with the application of Stalinism and Leninism as the party doctrine in the early years; as a ruler trying to make the CPSU more democratic and humane; and lastly, failing to see the rise of Russian nationalist idiom which was used by Boris Yeltsin to dethrone him after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Of course, the events thereafter marginalised Gorbachev’s role from the centrestage of Russian politics. It was brought to a close after his defeat in the presidential election in June 1996. Pitted against Yeltsin, Gorbachev could secure only 0.5% votes. It was a demonstration of Russian nationalists’ disillusionment with Gorbachev.

Gorbachev at the age of 54 was perhaps the youngest leader to be elected for the post of General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985. After graduating in law from Moscow University in 1955, Gorbachev preferred to become deputy director of the agitation and propaganda department of the Komsomol Youth League in Stavropol region rather than taking up a legal career. Despite his strong commitment to the party, the young Gorbachev saw some truth in Nikita Khrushchev’s denouncement of the cult of personality and Stalinism in his secret speech at the 20th Party Cong­ress of the CPSU in February 1956.

Khrushchev, known as the crude, bumptious henchman of Stalin, was the antithesis of the suave, loquacious, charming and sociable 25-year-old Gorbachev. But Khrushchev’s actions—freeing of prisoners from the Gulag and relaxation of censorship and repression—probably made a strong impression on Gorbachev. In 1970, he became the first secretary of the Stavropol region, which automatically made him a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1971. As a regional leader, he developed close relations with Brezhnev and enjoyed the party’s trust. This enabled him to visit western Europe five times between 1970 and 1977 as a member of Soviet delegations. The open and free society he saw in Belgium, Netherlands, France and Italy impressed him. Wikipedia quotes biographer Taubman: “He later related that for him and his wife, these visits ‘shook our a priori belief in the superiority of socialist over bourgeois democracy’.”

The party downgraded Khrushchev and sent him on “special pension”, a euphemism for prison. The Brezhnev Era that followed was also a period of dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov coming into prominence. The state stripped Solzhenitsyn of his citizenship and sent him into exile in 1974 when the manuscript of The Gulag Archipelago was smuggled out of the Soviet Union to be published as a bestseller worldwide. Solzhenitsyn became an intense critic of Gorbachev’s reforms, particularly after he rejected the author’s proposal for replacing the Soviet Union with an all-Slavic state as unacceptable and impractical. However, Gorbachev was the one who disbanded the last of the Gulags. He allowed the publication of Solzhenitsyn’s works in keeping with perestroika and restored the author’s Soviet citizenship that enabled him to return home to a hero’s welcome in 1994. These actions depict the humane side of Gorbachev’s personality.

Soon after coming to power in 1985, Gorbachev like his predecessors tinkered with the economic policy to increase growth with capital investment. He launched perestroika (restructuring) to make it easier to do business in the Soviet Union. Despite adopting gradual measures to create a semi-market economy, he could not turn the command economy into a truly market one. However, it made the job of his successors easier to attract foreign investment and integrate Russia in the global marketplace.

The Chernobyl disaster, barely a year after he came to power, was probably a moment of truth for Gorbachev’s disillusionment with the Soviet system. It renewed his faith in Glasnost (openness), his second vital reform. The spirit of openness spread widely, particularly among journalists. He used his knowledge of the Soviet political system to manoeuvre his way to democratise the constitution and introduce a multi-party system. 

In 1989, Gorbachev withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan after a decade of bloodletting in the war with Islamic insurgents. He agreed to the unification of East and West Germany. His biggest contribution was in triggering nuclear disarmament in his three summit talks with US President Ronald Reagan. Gorbachev’s speech at the UN General Assembly in 1987 will be remembered for his announcement of a unilateral reduction of Soviet armed forces by half a million. He also announced the withdrawal of 50,000 troops from central and eastern Europe, before meeting Reagan. 

However, Gorbachev’s relentless efforts yielded results only when POTUS George W Bush visited Moscow in July 1991. They signed the START I treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), a bilateral agreement for the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. Gorbachev met Deng Xiaoping in 1989 even as crowds were gathering at Tiananmen Square to mend the fractured relations with China.

Gorbachev dreamed of a world without war. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on December 10, 1990, he quoted Immanuel Kant’s prophesy that mankind would “one day be faced with the dilemma: either to be joined in a true union of nations or to perish in a war of annihilation ending in the extinction of the human race”. He said that “as we move from the second to the third millennium, the clock has struck the moment of truth”. He added that the year 1990 marked the end of the unnatural division of Europe. “Germany has been reunited. We have begun to tear down the material foundation of a military, political and ideological confrontation,” he said.

However, he warned that “there are some very grave threats that have not been eliminated: the potential for conflict and the primitive instincts which allow it, aggressive intentions and totalitarian traditions”.

Gorbachev’s ominous warning seems to have come true with the war in Ukraine. No wonder he died with a broken heart at the war.   

The writer is a retired military intelligence specialist on South Asia associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies

Sri Lanka’s first firm steps at economic reforms

Col R Hariharan

Sri Lanka Perspectives August 2022| South Asia Security Trends, September 2022  www.security-risk.com

 

Overview

President Ranil Wickremesinghe took tentative steps to bring a semblance orderly governance during the month. He ended the month presenting an interim budget to stabilize economic growth with the aim to create a surplus by 2025. After the exit of the Rajapaksas, their hopes of Wickremesinghe restoring democratic governance were belied when the government used the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to rounded up the Aragalaya leaders, drawing severe criticism from civil society and the UNHRC.

There is a sense of disappointment among the people to see parliamentarians reverting to ride their hobby horse - jockeying for power, tinkering with legislation in the name of curbing executive powers of the president and endlessly talk of the elusive “all party government”.

On the positive side, the young energy minister Kanchana Wijesekara seems to be making honest efforts to tame and rationalise energy pricing and distribution. The talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have progressed, though efforts to reschedule creditors is making halting progress, with China playing truant. President Wickremesinghe seems to have succeeded in his tightrope act in foreign policy so far, despite the India-China differences coming alive over China berthing its spy ship in Hambantota port in spite of India’s security concerns.

Interim budget and economic reforms

Presenting the Budget, President Wickremesinghe said the government’s aim is “to create a surplus in the primary budget by the year 2025.” The Daily FT listed six salient aspects of the budget. These included the announcement on billions of rupees-worth social safety measures, quit notices to public servants over 60, restructuring for key 50 state owned enterprises (SOE), measures to kickstart revival in agriculture, industry and tourism, write off default loan of farmers and announcement of wide-ranging revisions to many existing legislations.

Every Sri Lankan would agree with his remark that the country “can no longer be a nation dependent on loan assistance….We can also no longer be used as a tool of interference by other countries with strong economies. All of our collective vision should be to make our country strong and stable, in order to stand independently.”

However, Wickremesinghe’s reiteration of the call to political parties to join the “All Party Government” is probably has only some cosmetic value to the political discourse as the APG is a non-starter. While this may be the need of the hour, much will depend upon how the political cookie crumbles. As he said, if Sri Lanka “miss these opportunities, we will be marginalized globally.” But the credibility of his remarks is weakened as the same tainted political class is still calling the shots in the present government. There is talk of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa returning home on September 24 from his self-exile in Thailand. If that comes true, Wickremesinghe should get ready to handle the unsavoury task of yet another socio-political turbulence.

The main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) has welcomed the budget. SJB MP and economist Dr Harsha de Silva saw it as an attempt by the President to change the course of the country into a ‘modern productive enterprise’ by undertaking serious reforms to stabilise and restructure the economy. To achieve this, the President has proposed the introduction of new laws like the Public Finance Management Act to run the affairs of the government and amendments to the Monetary Law Act to reduce the pressure on the Central Bank from Treasury and reduce money printing. The introduction of the new laws will have a more disciplined system of governance.

With entrenched in political and trade union interests in SOE and among public servants, Wickremesinghe is likely to face a tough task at every step in fulfilling this part of the agenda. As Dr de Silva pointed out “They (SLPP) opposed every type and every time reforms were brought up for four decades. It is a quirk of circumstances and fate almost that is them who will have to do these reforms now.”  

The state-owned Sri Lankan airlines is a case in point. It has accumulated a staggering $ 1 billion debt and dues comprising of $ 175 million government guaranteed international bond, $ 380 million payable to state banks, BOC and Peoples Bank and $ 80 million loan taken from BOC by mortgaging shares of Sri Lankan Catering. The government can no longer fund the national carrier given the country’s financial, forex and economic crisis.

However, the privatisation of this white elephant is going to be an uphill task, as leftist trade unions rule the roost in most of the SOEs and see a red flag in any talk of privatisation. Already, there are protests voiced against the proposed privatisation of retail distribution of fuel. Ultimately, when IMF’s structural reforms come into full play, Sri Lankans will have no option but to corral and weed out 60 odd white elephants of SOE.

As PM in the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government, Wickremesinghe had co-sponsored the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 adopted in 2015. To retain his international credibility, he will have to bring the issue to a logical conclusion by establishing a credible judicial process to bring to book alleged right abusers. This is a humongous task as the President is dependent upon the SLPP support.

The first step in improving the government’s accountability process would be to abolish the PTA “one of the key enablers of arbitrary detention for over decades” as described by a UN body. Unfortunately, the government has used it to arrest Aragalaya protestors. Instead of doing away with PTA, the government efforts are on subsume its provisions in a National Security Act (NSA). This could only bring international criticism to the government, when it is trying to maximise its economic support. Of course, the larger question of implementing 13^th Amendment in full is still lingering and this is yet another pressure point.    

China’s wolf diplomacy in action  

China’s “spy ship” Yuan Wang-5 docked in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port from August 16 to 22 disregarding the security concerns of both India and the US and turning down Sri Lanka’s request to defer the visit. The research ship belonging to the PLA’s 5th branch – the Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) - created in December 2015, is capable of carrying out space, cyber and electronic warfare. It also has the capability to assist PLA’s land-based stations in tracking satellite, rocket and ICBM launches within a range of 750 km. There is more to China’s insistence on docking Yuan Wang-5   in Hambantota port than refuelling and replenishment. China was testing the depth of India-Sri Lanka relations which have become closer than ever before. It is also a strong affirmation of China’s influence on Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean Region. This was indicated in an op-ed the Chinese ambassador to Colombo  Qi Zhenhong  wrote in Sri Lanka media. Hinting at India, he warned “any infringement on the national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka shall not be tolerated” (obviously by China). He further added, “External obstruction based on the so-called ‘security concerns’ but without any evidence from certain forces is de facto a thorough interference into Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and independence.”

The Chinese ambassador also reminded Sri Lanka of the 51^st session of the UN Human Rights Council to be held in Geneva where human rights issues of Sri Lanka might be stirred up, where China could help. India took strong exception to the Chinese envoy’s article. The Indian High Commission in Colombo departing from the norm, let loose broadsides on the article saying “His violation of basic diplomatic etiquette may be a personal trait or reflecting a larger national attitude.” It added, “His views of Sri Lanka’s northern neighbour may be coloured by how his own country behaves. India, we assure him, is different. His imputing a geopolitical context to the visit of a purported scientific research vessel is a giveaway.”  It is evident, India is not prepared to tolerate any more needling from China. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar during his South American tour explained that the relationship (with China) cannot be a one-way street. “They are our neighbour and everybody wants to get along with their neighbour…But everybody wants to get along with their neighbour on reasonable terms. I must respect you and you must respect me.” He stressed that each one will have their interests and we need to be sensitive to what the concerns are of the other party.

Tail piece: Yuan Wang-5 is currently 400 nautical miles South-Southeast of Dondra Head at the southernmost tip of the island nation. It is a matter of detail that the vessel is mapping the ocean bed in an area close to the US military base in Diego Garcia.

[Col R Hariharan, a retired MI specialist on South Asia and terrorism, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Email: haridirect@gmail.com  Website: https://col.hariharan.info]