Retrospectives at the Gorbachev Foundation Valentin Tolstykh (Chairman, Svobodnoye Siovo) One of the greatest politicians of the twentieth century, Charles de Gaulle, said after analyzing the results of May 1968 events in Paris that we live during an epoch when everybody wants changes, but usually without realizing precisely what kind. This need for changes and transformations is felt, expressed, and brought to reality by leaders: either reformists or revolutionaries. Mikhail Sergeevich, you, without a doubt, are an outstand- ing leader of the twentieth century who has changed the face and course of events in the contemporary world. Even your enemies and people hostile to you, who take advantage of every possibility to curse you, admit that. I would like to ask you a question: What do you consider yourself to be? Reformist or revolutionary? Now, ten years later, after everything that took place and happened, are you happy about everything you started in April of 1985? The term perestroika is accepted and interpreted now in a different way. And the first person who should be glad and happy with this difference of ideas and expression will be you, Mikhail Sergeevich. The best definition 1 ever heard of the meaning and essence of perestroika was the one given by an intelligent man whom 1 met by accident two years ago. In my opinion, his description was surprisingly precise and bright: "Gorbachev took the muzzle off the country, that's all about it." And 1 would like to add that he took the collar off as well. We definitely underestimate everything that happened in April 1985. It's only now that everybody became brave, courageous, and far-sighted. Look, for example, how resolute Boris Yeltsin became-look how he dismantled the Soviet Union, promised everyone as much sovereignty as one would be able to swallow; look how he attacked the Parliament with tanks, look at the kind of slaughter he made in Chechnya. And where would he be and what would he do now if Gorbachev had not started perestroika in 1985? Almost for sure, he would still be the secretary of Party Committee of Sverdlovsk oblast or if he were promoted he would have become one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In connection with this, 1 would like to ask you, Mikhail Sergeevich: now that your name is constantly pronounced and tied to the name of Yeltsin, and it is said that Yeltsin finished what Gorbachev began, to what extent is it true, if it is true at all? Mikhail S. Gorbachev The easiest question: Were the reforms necessary? Common people just say: "Mikhail Sergeevich, you initiated the reforms. We trusted you. Just perhaps, were they not necessary? We live a lot worse then before." This is a human, true-life question. I'll answer sincerely: to me, a person dedicated to active policy during forty years, the question is clear. 1 knew our system from within, and I-as a person-realized the necessity of changes long ago. The higher 1 was climbing along the nomenklatura hierarchy, the career ladder, the stronger this conviction 7 8 DEMOKRATIZATSIYA hecame. When 1 was young, I faced many problerns, but then I thought that 1 was simply unable to understand and solve many of them, that there were many people, institutions , and organizations that could solve them. Then I began to forro part of these organizations myself-first at the regional level as a member of the Central Comínittee, the first secretary of the enormous territory with everything there was in it. And 1 realized that there are limits to what 1 could do even having the power, that 1 was bound hand and foot by the system itself. 1 used to think then that the system could be improved by making the necessary changes in staff, that "I... realized the necessity of the new generation of people changes long ago. The higher I would blow away the old was climbing along nomenklatura nomenklatura. During that decade-I have noticed it hierarchy ... the stronger this myself-the flow of new people conviction became. " was very limited, everything --Mikhail Gorbachev was done under the slogan of stabilization of cadres, stabi- lization of the institutions, stabilization of the political system. But this stability gradually led to stagnation of the staff and the system itself with far-reaching consequences. The system whose backbone was a fossilized staff ceased to accept the demands of the life. I repeat that 1 was still thinking that the problem consisted mainly in the lack of staff and the need of new people. This belief stimulated my activity and made me sure that it was possible to give some oxygen to the system itself. That's how perestroika began when 1 became the head of the party and the state--and under those conditions it was the same thing. That was the beginning of my reforms. So, today 1 am convinced, sure , positive: the reforms were necessary. Their necessity was objective. We felt it very keenly since the middle of the 1970s. Other people felt it earlier. 1 mean the period of reforms ¡nade by Khrushchev and Kosygin. There were other intents, including the dissident activities. Finally, there were discussions and critical opinions in the ideological field whose outcome usually favored the system. The system defended itself by all its means and methods. But 1 would like to add that reforms were not invented by people who took power in 1985 and who suddenly became "enlightened." We were prepared by the same life and the growing understanding that the country needed reforms. The same impulses carne from outside. The Hungarian events [of 1956] took place a long time ago. Then they were considered as the intents of imperialist forces to impede the process of building socialism in Eastern Europe, to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union, to split "the new Soviet Empire." That's how we perceived and evaluated them; 1, myself, believed and considered it to be true. By the way, even now 1 would be able to produce a lot of documents from abroad proving that it was not a children's game, that this kind of policy existed and was followed by the West. Well, that "signal" could have been interpreted in that way. How can we estimate the Prague Spring, the demonstration of the Czech people in favor of socialism "with a human face"? Was it an intent to answer to the demands of a global, scientific-technological revolution? Was it not clear Perestroika: Ten Years Later 9 that the cultural level of contemporary society demanded a new understanding of the human being and society itself? Here we have to remember the beginning of the wave of reaction, the cruelest persecution and repression of different trends of thought: in general, any search at all. That was what marked the stagnation and complication of all our internal contradictions. Under the conditions of that system of power we were deaf to signals that carne from incide and outside of the country, we were not able to understand them the way we should. And what is more important, we were not able to adopt, politically and intellectually, the new concepts, new policy. This had not happened. 1 can only add that under that system the country was also losing its economic power, which it used to have due to its natural and human resources, due to the rates of growth. From the beginning of the 1970s we lost even that advantage. We realized that we were losing out from the historical point of view. And the reform- minded people said that there was only one way out-modernization, democratization. We understood that without them the country would not be able to reach new horizons. Then we still were-in our actions and thought-within the framework of the existing system. So, the understanding of the necessities of reforms was nurtured, 1 would say, suffered by the society. And reformers' task consisted not so much in inventing new models and obligating society to stick to them as in removing the restrictions and brakes, ridding society of lack of liberty, and giving it a possibility to further develop within the framework of the common civilization process. As a matter of fact, the Soviet Union and Russia were excluded from this common civilization process as the result of the Bolshevik Revolution. Thus, 1 am answering your first question and the questions of the participants of this meeting. 1 am sure that reforms were of vital necessity, as they are necessary now. Another matter is what carne out of them. But this is another "We realized that we were losing question that must also be outfrom the historical point of answered. view.... And reformers' task In connection with this, I consisted not so much in would like to discuss a popular inventing new models and thesis that has become today almost a cliché-"Gorbachev obligating society to stick to them and his mission." Yes, Gorbachev as in removing the restrictions and other thinking representatives and brakes." of the government elite of that time realized the need for reforms of the system. Yes, we thought that it would perish otherwise, and we undertook the task of saving it. Yes, we planned to give the system some oxygen via reforms, and thought that it would work due to it. Nave? But, let's remember, today's young and not-so-young clever men, what you were saying on the eve of the Nineteenth Party Conference in 1988 in the book lnogo ne dano [There Is No Other Way]: we are for "socialism with a human face, democracy, democratically renovated society." All the most zealous, the most convinced democrats, especially those who revile perestroika today and call it katastroika-are the authors of this book.