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[https://nationalpost.com/opinion/george-jonas-mikhail-gorbachev-wanted-to-fix-the-soviet-empire-not-nix-it
George Jonas: Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to fix the Soviet empire, not nix it
The last leader of the Soviet Union believed communism was worth reforming, and was capable of being reformed by 'glasnost'
George Jonas Publishing date: Aug 31, 2022
[ https://nationalpost.com/opinion/george-jonas-in-his-own-words ]
Nearly a decade ago, the National Post commissioned several columnists to prepare advance obituary columns for some of history’s aging giants. George Jonas, who had fled communist Hungary after Soviet troops crushed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, was asked to write about former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who was then 81. Gorbachev, who died Tuesday, ended up outliving Jonas, who died in 2016. We present here Jonas’s reflections on Gorbachev, written in 2013 but never published until now.
Remember Gorbachev? Amazingly, there are people who don’t, including some students of political science. We should all remember him, though. Millions might not be in a position to remember anything if someone else had been at the helm of the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who presided over the implosion of the Evil Empire - and not only presided, but had a hand in setting it off - was a Soviet patriot: Soviet, not just Russian. He had a higher regard for the Marxist monolith he became instrumental in pulling down than his predecessors who had done everything to put it on the map. He assumed his fellow citizens liked being Soviet just as he did.
Gorbachev did come to see that the Soviet empire was flawed, but not that it was evil. He wanted to fix it, not nix it. Yet within six years after he assumed leadership, to the astonishment of all, the mighty system that ruled one sixth of the Earth and influenced much of the rest, suddenly folded. Liquidated on Gorbachev’s command, the Soviet Union went out of business. It surrendered, virtually without firing a shot. Considering its coercive might, including its fearsome apparatus of internal repression, the Soviet realm became probably history’s first empire to give up so much with so little resistance.
What happened? Simply put, what happened was Gorbachev: A communist who believed that communism was (a) worth reforming and (b) capable of being reformed by democratization (or glasnost - “openness” - as the Russians called it.) Gorbachev was not the first communist to believe this, but he was the first such communist to achieve supreme power, and thereby give effect to his belief. Inevitably, he also became the last. He wouldn’t blow up the world to save his job. For that, he deserves to be remembered as a good man.
The collapse of the mighty empire happened so quickly, essentially in the last two years of Gorbachev’s six-year reign - in historic terms barely the blink of an eye - that it took friend and foe, Soviet or foreign, dupe or detractor, reform or old-guard communist, appeaser or unapologetic cold warrior, equally by surprise. Puzzled people embrace outlandish theories. They abounded at the time, trying to understand why Gorbachev would allow, if not facilitate, his country’s rude awakening from the Marxist-Leninist dream or nightmare. Some went as far as to suggest that “Gorby” was a CIA asset.
I think the answer is simpler, and Gorbachev provided it himself. About six months before the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered from the mast of the Kremlin for the last time (Dec. 25, 1991) Gorbachev travelled to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. On June 5, 1991, he said:
“I consider the decision of your Committee as a recognition of the great international importance of the changes now under way in the Soviet Union, and as an expression of confidence in our policy of new thinking, which is based on the conviction that at the end of the 20th century force and arms will have to give way as a major instrument in world.”
Since it’s impossible to rule a nation, let alone an empire, without either coercion or consent, in committing himself to renouncing coercion Gorbachev must have felt assured of consent. This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. In the West “consent” is commonly taken to mean electoral democracy, but the consent of the governed can be secured by other means. Many societies secure it by exploiting or creating a genuine and popular belief in the historic mission or divine rights of their rulers. There are kingdoms or theocracies that may be called legitimate because they do enjoy the consent of the governed, though they’ve never had elections.
When a system is neither a democracy nor a kingdom of faith, however; when it has neither the reasoning nor the unreasoning support of its people, it ceases to be legitimate. Not being legitimate, it can be held together only by coercion.
Soviet-type communism has been such a system, undoubtedly in Europe, and probably elsewhere as well. Being illegitimate, it could only be propped up by bayonets. It was quite plain to many people that if the bayonets were removed, the system would collapse, but it wasn’t plain to Gorbachev. He had faith in glasnost.
It’s interesting to note that Gorbachev didn’t emerge from a reform-communist faction of the Soviet leadership. The people who promoted him as he rose through the party hierarchy included such orthodox communists as ex-KGB chief Yuri Andropov, who followed Leonid Brezhnev’s long rule as Soviet leader, and Gorbachev’s immediate predecessor, Konstantin Chernenko, almost a caricature of the old-style denizen of the deepest Kremlin.
Some say his orthodox mentors misread Gorbachev, but if so, it wasn’t his mind they misread but his soul. Gorbachev never came to believe the Soviet empire wasn’t worth saving; he just thought it didn’t need to be saved from reform. When U.S. president Ronald Reagan called out in Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” Gorbachev did. He didn’t think it was a retaining wall, but it was. The rest is history.
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 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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