Mikhail Gorbachev is a world-historic figure, and I cannot do justice to him in a brief post. But I have recalled a couple of interviews — one I did with Condoleezza Rice in 1999, and one I did with Lech Walesa in 2010.
Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union — the one who presided over its dissolution — died today at 91.
Maybe I could excerpt my piece on Rice, in 1999:
Conservatives, Rice maintains, “underestimate Gorbachev’s role” in the conclusion of the Cold War: “The Soviet Union might have been weak internally, but when people say, ‘Well, he had no options’ — oh, he had options! He had 390,000 troops in Germany. He could have provoked a tremendous crisis over the Berlin Wall.” Gorbachev did take repressive steps in the Baltics, but, “for some reason, he always pulled up short of using maximum force, and we should all be very grateful for that.”
Have a little more, because it furnishes food for thought:
Conservatives, Rice summarizes, underestimate the importance of Gorbachev; liberals underestimate the importance of Reagan; and “they all underestimate the importance of George Bush,” her old boss. Is this Rice the analyst talking or Rice the loyal staffer and friend? “Well, ask yourself,” she replies: “Was it inevitable that Germany unified on completely Western terms, within NATO; that Soviet troops went home, with dignity and without incident; that American troops stayed; that all of Eastern Europe was liberated and joined the Western bloc? No, it was not inevitable — and that leaves a lot of room for statecraft.”
I believe that is right.
In 2010, I asked Walesa about the Nobel Peace Prize that went to Gorbachev in 1990. (Walesa had won the prize in 1983.) Remember, he is an electrician and union leader — in addition to a statesman — and his language can be direct and earthy. Said Walesa, “Gorbachev had the instruments of rape, and he did not use them.” In other words, Gorbachev had the brute power to suppress rebellion, as his predecessors had done, but he refrained from using it.
(The exception to this is the bloodshed in Lithuania, which took place in January 1991, a month after Gorbachev received his peace prize. Soviet troops killed 14 people and injured about 140.)
Continued Walesa, “Every male has the instrument of rape. Should we all be awarded Nobel prizes for not raping?” A good question, and a cheeky one. Still, this “not raping” was extremely important.
PHOTOS: Mikhail Gorbachev
The Soviets killed in Berlin in 1953. They killed in Budapest in 1956. They killed in Prague in 1968. Mikhail Gorbachev refused to follow suit. He had almost 400,000 troops in Germany, as Rice said. They did not stir. They were not ordered to stir.
Gorbachev, like Pharaoh (for a while), “let the people go.” In the process, he “lost” the Soviet Union. Many Russians, and others, hate him for this. Vladimir Putin is one of them. I say, we — we the world — were damn lucky.