A hero or a pariah?: How Russia & the West remain divided over Gorbachev's legacy

In the 1996 Russian presidential elections, Boris Yeltsin secured 54.4% of the total votes. He easily managed to defeat his nearest rival Gennady Zyuganov who secured 40.8% votes, to become post-Soviet Russia’s first leader.

Among the eleven candidates who were in the fray, six received less than 1% of the votes. One of them was Mikhail Gorbachev who could win the favour of only 0.5% of the voters.

This was a stunning defeat for a man considered one of the world’s most powerful people until five years ago.

During campaigning, Gorbachev came across more protesters than supporters.

He met with “traitor” chants when he visited Volgograd city on 8 May 1996 to mark Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in WW2. In the final stages of campaigning, many local officials refused to provide him with a venue to hold rallies.

The verdict was clear: Russians blamed him for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing economic and political chaos in the region.

On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev who was the first president of the Soviet Union announced his resignation.

This event also marked the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or the Soviet Union which comprised 15 national republics.

Gorbachev quit active politics after the 1996 polls. In the years that followed, he was occasionally seen at public events at times with current Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The anger against the former Soviet leader had not been subdued but his post-political career obscurity meant that the populace was unaffected by his presence at public forums.

The reception Russia gave him was in major contrast to the West where he is seen as a hero who helped bring an end to the Cold War and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Gorbachev’s reforms paved way for revolutions

Gorbachev did not seek the Soviet Union’s dissolution, what he did want were reforms popularly known as glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).

While glasnost pushed for freedom of speech and press, perestroika aimed for decentralisation of economic decision-making. This meant that the state was loosening its iron grip.

The unintended consequences of these reforms combined with the frustration with the authorities among the masses were revolutions in the late 1980s.

Demonstrations were not limited to the Soviet republics but also swept the Eastern bloc which included communist nations allied with the USSR.

Ordinary people took to the streets to topple communist governments in countries like Poland, Hungary and Romania.

But the most prominent event during this period happened in East Germany where on 9 November 1989, people brought down the Berlin Wall that cut off West Berlin from the communist-ruled East.

Germany was reunified a year later.

In 1949- four years after the end of the Second World War- Germany was divided into the US-backed allied-controlled West Germany and Soviet-controlled East Germany.

‘There must not be bloodshed’

Unlike his predecessors, Gorbachev refused to intervene militarily to counter the revolutions.

Years later in an interview with the BBC in 2019, Gorbachev explained the reason behind this decision.

He said, “There must not be bloodshed. We could not allow that, over an issue of such magnitude for Germany, for us, for Europe, the whole world. So we declared, we won’t interfere.”

While Gorbachev’s policies shaped Europe as we know it, in Russia he became the symbol of the ruin of an erstwhile superpower.

This was evident in Putin’s first reaction to Gorbachev’s demise. He initially “expressed his condolences” but later called Gorbachev “a statesman who had a huge impact on the course of world history.”

However, Russian leaders did not mince their words.

Comparing the collapse of the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany’s defeat in WW2, Russian MP Vitaly Milonov said that Gorbachev left a legacy “worse than Hitler for our country."

The division between Russia and the West over Gorbachev’s legacy has been visible both during the leader’s lifetime and after his death.

While Germany has announced that official flags in capital Berlin will be lowered at half-mast in honour of Gorbachev, Putin has decided to skip the last Soviet leader’s funeral in Moscow due to “scheduling issues.”

Putin’s move is hardly surprising. In the past, he dubbed the dissolution of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

Will history be kind to Gorbachev?

Away from the political circles, some Russians especially those who faced a crackdown from the authorities for their opposition to the Ukraine war, will perhaps see Gorbachev in a better light.

Dmitry Muratov- the Russian journalist & chief editor of Novaya Gazeta newspaper, who won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize hailed Gorbachev as a leader who “valued peace over personal power.”

Gorbachev used his prize money from the Nobel Peace Prize to set up Novaya Gazeta in 1993.

In March, the newspaper suspended publication in Russia following the start of the Ukraine war.

“Gorbachev despised war. He was convinced that the time to resolve issues of the world order by force had passed,” Muratov said.

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