Mikhail Gorbachev dies
Gorbachev emerged and worked on the logic of the Soviet system, but he had to put the finishing touches to a sclerotized system
Until 1985, the USSR was still marked by the Stalinist heritage, the practice of power had nothing to do with democracy, society did not transit between equality, fraternity, or the freedom of Zinoviev and the bureaucratized economy did not respond to the needs of an urban society that had changed while the political system struggled not to change. This was the USSR of the «eloquent, intelligent and energetic young man», Mikhail Gorbachev when he came to power. At 54 years old, his career had been one of exemplary classicism and his prudence of great relevance. Like any beginning general secretary, he had to begin by consolidating his power in the Party, in the KGB, and in the Army.
The internal reform attempt that began in 1985 gave freedom of expression (glasnost) to the thousands of artists, scientists and intellectuals who awakened civil society and achieved a peaceful political revolution that culminated in the dismantling of the USSR. Perestroika went through two phases and entered, in the mid-1990s, a third and dangerous stage. Between 1985 and 1987, glasnost (transparency, clear and public information) was consolidated, little by little, without which everything that followed it cannot be understood and in which the majority of political prisoners regained their freedom. In the second stage (1988-1990) it strengthened its democracy of “positive steps” towards disarmament, which gave it great popularity in Europe and the United States. At the end of the 90s, the third stage began, no longer perestroika but of the Government of Gorbachev, a period in which he felt more threatened and in which he became a more threatening politician in front of the world.
Perestroika was more effective in politics (especially international) than in economics, when its goal was economic; it did not consolidate the political-military strategic strength of the USSR, but instead caused its ruin, and propitiated something that the Soviet strategy wanted to prevent since 1945, the formation of a powerful united Germany. Without Gorbachev it would not have been possible. But without the men who took advantage of it and carried it out, either. Gorbachev emerged and worked on the logic of the Soviet system, but he had to put the finishing touches to a sclerotized system. Equal parts architect and victim, history will judge his legacy.
#Perestroika #glasnost #collapse