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Notes on the 40th Anniversary of Perestroika

Andrey Filimonov

Exactly 40 years ago, on April 23, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev announced the beginning of Perestroika in the USSR. The date was chosen deliberately. The day before, the entire country, as usual, celebrated the anniversary of Lenin's birth. Considering himself a "true Leninist," Gorbachev apparently deliberately timed the launch of his new project to coincide with this date. Perestroika was intended to be a return of Soviet society to its roots, that is, to Lenin's teachings.

As is well known, the leader of the world proletariat died at the age of fifty-three, having changed the face of Russia beyond recognition. Gorbachev, who assumed the post of General Secretary of the CPSU at the age of fifty-four, was considered a "young leader" compared to the aging General Secretaries Andropov and Chernenko.

He did what his predecessors had not dared to do: he publicly acknowledged the painful state of the socialist economy, which could only function, for better or worse, thanks to oil production, which allowed food (primarily wheat) to be imported from the “decaying West.”

In 1987, Gorbachev wrote a book Perestroika and New Thinking, in which he diagnosed the Soviet method of management:

"Financial strain in the national economy was mounting. Extensive access to global markets for oil and other fuel, energy, and raw materials didn't help, but rather drove the problem deeper. The foreign exchange earnings from their sales were used primarily to address current needs, rather than to modernize the economy and overcome its technological backwardness."

Under Brezhnev and his successors, the Soviet Union produced enormous amounts of oil: approximately 600 million tons per year. However, the country was not destined to become the "Communist Emirates." An inefficient economy devoured profits. Investments in the oil industry increased annually: from 3,8 billion rubles in 1975 to 17 billion rubles in 1991. Meanwhile, it was possible to extract less and less oil from Western Siberian fields. By 1991, production had fallen to almost 500 million tons. Hydrocarbons were no longer sufficient, let alone enough to support the energy sector in Eastern Europe.

"We only thought we were in control, but in reality a situation was developing that Lenin had warned about: the car was going in a different direction than those at the helm thought," Gorbachev figuratively described the situation.

Take as many sovereignties as you want

Oddly enough, there's still a popular belief in Russia that "Gorbachev destroyed the country," and that he did so practically on CIA orders. Yet it was he, the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who kept the USSR from collapsing, tried to punish Lithuania for its independence, and sanctioned the dispersal of a "separatist" demonstration in Tbilisi.

It was he who refused to sell the Southern Kuril Islands to the Japanese for 28 billion dollars, even though this money could have been very useful to the Soviet budget at a time when food had almost completely disappeared from stores in Sakhalin and the Far East.

Historian Vladislav Zubok, a professor at the London School of Economics and author of the study "Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union," believes that one of the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR was the standoff between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, which escalated in 1989 amid the Supreme Soviet elections, the emergence of political opposition, and the strengthening of centrifugal tendencies in the union republics. Mikhail Sergeyevich was ultimately defeated by his ideological inflexibility. His dogmatism lost out to Yeltsin's pragmatism, who, with extraordinary ease, swapped the red flag for the tricolor and abandoned his claims to 14 republics in favor of establishing his own rule over the fifteenth.

At first, no one paid attention to Gorbachev's Leninist rhetoric, which had become so ingrained that it bounced off the younger generation like peas off a wall. But ultimately, looking at it all from here, from the distant future, you realize that it was precisely with Leninism that he cracked open this can of long-rotted ideology. In fact, it was Lenin who federalized the country. He insisted in his discussions with Stalin that there should be a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, not a Russian Federation. Clearly, Lenin was a Bolshevik dictator and had no intention of granting the republics any bourgeois freedom. He wanted them all to unite into a single force to build communism and undermine the entire world for the benefit and success of the communist revolution. In other words, the Soviet Union was a transitional stage to world domination. But when it became clear after Lenin's death that there would be no world revolution, federalism proved to be a rather inconvenient and dangerous toy for the USSR's leaders. No one knew what to do with this federalism. Then came the idealist Gorbachev, who realistically, not cynically, perceived Lenin's vision as a path to a brighter future, and in 1988 began discussing major political reform in a very small circle. But the situation was already unfavorable—the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh had begun, and the Estonians had begun toying with the word "sovereignty." And they did it cleverly, citing Lenin. After all, Lenin guaranteed us the right to self-determination.

— So, they beat Gorbachev with his own weapon?

Yes, Gorbachev is beginning to understand that he's in a difficult situation. He needs to implement economic and political reforms throughout the Soviet Union. At the same time, there are very real aspirations on the part of some union republics, so to speak, to "leave." Gorbachev and Yakovlev decide to interpret this as a natural reaction of the people to the horrors of Stalinism, which were a distortion of Lenin's vision. And the only way forward is to respect the rights granted to all peoples under Lenin. However, everyone in the Central Committee already understood that the country was collapsing, and that Lenin's vision, naturally, was no longer in existence. There were only one or two believers in Leninism, besides Gorbachev. In other words, Gorbachev, with his Leninist vision, turns out to be a communist relic from the past. And Yeltsin, who, by the way, left the party in mid-1990, turns out to be the symbol of a future non-communist Russia. And he poses the main threat to Gorbachev. If Russia leaves the Union, then there is no Union. Which is precisely what happened, as we know. Yeltsin "pulls" Russia out from under the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev finds himself without a country. In response, Gorbachev begins talking about a new Union Treaty, essentially rebooting the country according to a new matrix, but this time voluntary. Thus, he himself calls into question the Union Treaty of 1922. Then he recalls that Russia consists of approximately 16 (at that time) autonomous national republics, and he wants to grant them equal rights with the Union republics. This means that Tatarstan and Yakutia will have the same say in the Union Treaty as Georgia and Belarus. But then Yeltsin and his people rear up, realizing that this is, so to speak, an undermining of their own interests. Yeltsin and Gennady Burbulis begin to talk about Gorbachev wanting to dismantle Russia. And it was precisely in this context, in the summer of 90, that Yeltsin traveled around the regions and launched into his famous slogan: "Take as much sovereignty as you want." Not because he was being kind, but because he wanted to get ahead of Gorbachev. When I spoke with Burbulis about this period before his death, he put it this way: we needed to preserve a united Russia, so we promised everything to everyone.
"And as a result of the game between Yeltsin's Russian center and Gorbachev's Union center, the country is truly beginning to fall apart. It was already falling apart, of course. But these two great men greatly accelerated the process by pulling in opposite directions," Vladislav Zubok explained.

The claims were global.

In foreign policy, Gorbachev acted like a patriot and a champion of the state, a ruler striving to preserve the empire. He simply used different methods. He didn't crush recalcitrant vassals with tanks, as Andropov liked, or slam his boots on the UN podium. Instead, he addressed the world with the kind smile of the leader of a superpower capable of reducing the entire world to radioactive ash, but with no intention of doing so.

Gorbachev wanted to create a new image for the USSR on the international stage. He attempted to rebrand the "evil empire" he inherited. And judging by the number of Perestroika t-shirts sold in the West in just a few years, the brand update was a success. For the late USSR, perestroika propaganda proved to be a lifesaving business model. Beginning in the fall of 1986, global oil prices were plummeting, and waving a nuclear baton while simultaneously asking for Western loans was unwise.

So, at Old Square, they decided to embrace the concept of "socialism with a human face." New slogans appeared on the streets of Soviet cities. For example, "Let universal human values ​​triumph." Well, really, what's the big deal? Let them triumph. The new banners stood alongside old ones proclaiming, "We will achieve the victory of communist labor." Although by the second half of the 1980s, many already understood that what kind of "victory" could there be when the General Secretary himself openly wrote about corruption and theft in industry and the fictitious achievements of "production leaders" created by propaganda.

“The world of everyday reality and the world of ostentatious well-being increasingly diverged from each other,” — Gorbachev writes in his book “Perestroika and New Thinking.”

At the same time, the author constantly appeals to Lenin, "Leninist norms," ​​and "Leninist wisdom." For Gorbachev, any note from Ilyich was sacred scripture. "The works of V. I. Lenin, the Leninist ideal of socialism, remained an inexhaustible source of dialectical creative thought, theoretical richness, and political insight for us. And his image itself remains an unfading example of high moral strength, universal spiritual culture, and selfless devotion to the cause of the people and socialism," Mikhail Sergeyevich asserts in a book written five years before both socialism and the "world's first state of workers and peasants" were declared obsolete. Other leaders of the USSR might have made mistakes, but Lenin never did. Criticism of Soviet reality in Gorbachev's book alternates with vows of allegiance to "Marxism-Leninism." Ultimately, ideological inflexibility failed Mikhail Sergeyevich. His dogmatism lost out to the pragmatism of Yeltsin, who with extraordinary ease replaced the red flag with the tricolor and renounced his claims to 14 republics in order to establish his own power over the fifteenth.

Thus, Yeltsin exchanged (in Pelevin’s words) “an evil empire for an evil banana republic that imports bananas from Finland.”
Gorbachev, however, clearly believed in the possibility of pulling the entire Soviet Union out of its hopeless crisis and onto the right path, illuminated by the light of "Leninist genius." Although it was precisely this genius that built a state that had been sustained for 70 years solely by repression and the oil needle. Gorbachev, however, didn't consider changing the socio-political system a viable option. He rebuilt the existing system to narrow the gap between reality and ideology. He had a recipe, again Lenin's: "Socialism is the living creativity of the masses." For the masses to begin creating, they must be stimulated—decentralize the economy, relax controls and censorship, introduce modern technology, allow cooperatives, encourage private initiative—and things will take off. Much like in China.

The Party would remain the "helmsman," and the people, given "creative incentives," would build communism not in words but in deeds. In 1985, Gorbachev believed this was achievable; he just needed to "speed up" and implement the long-overdue reforms.

"Back in 1968, Yuri Andropov, then chairman of the KGB, sent Brezhnev a memorandum stating that the Soviet Union was not investing enough in computerization of the economy and was not sufficiently improving labor productivity. This could lead to the West losing the Cold War," Andropov wrote. This memorandum was found in November 1982, after Brezhnev's death, in his desk, where it remained for 14 years. Fully aware that the Soviet economy was heading in the wrong direction, Brezhnev had neither the desire nor the ability to change this situation," says the Russian-British historian. Sergey Radchenko, professor at the University of Bologna, author of the book “To Run the World: Soviet Foreign Policy after 1945”.

Sergei Radchenko was born on Sakhalin in 1980. When he was seven years old, he wrote a letter to Gorbachev outlining his political views and offering advice to the General Secretary. After reading the letter, Sergei's parents decided it would be better to keep it in the family archive rather than send it to Moscow. Twenty-five years later, Radchenko, a graduate of the London School of Economics, met Mikhail Gorbachev and told him about the letter. They both laughed.

— Sergey, what impression did Gorbachev make on you during your meeting? Did you interview him?

"It's hard to call it an 'interview.' You know, Gorbachev, no matter what you ask, he always says roughly the same thing. For him, I was simply one of those asking questions he'd already answered in his memoirs and many times in other interviews. I was trying to find out something that interested me, to get him thinking. But he only talked about what interested him. For example, I'd ask about the Soviet Union's foreign policy or his visit to China in May 1989, and he'd tell me about his time as a student at Moscow State University. Finally, I couldn't resist and said bluntly, 'Mikhail Sergeyevich, that's not what I asked you about.' And he looked at me sternly and replied, 'Oh, young man...' This apparently meant I just had to sit quietly and listen to him speak," Radchenko recalls.

Gorbachev, with his seemingly good-natured and seemingly simple demeanor, didn't inspire fear in the people. Andropov, with his bathhouse and restaurant raids and his bans on everything, was a different matter! Therefore, the people didn't have much respect for the unintimidating General Secretary. Nor did they have much interest in his ideas. At first, "Perestroika" seemed like just another slogan, just another campaign concocted "up there" for lack of anything better to do. Soviet people more or less remembered that by 1980, they were destined to live under communism, as Khrushchev had promised.

But instead, as the famous joke goes, the USSR hosted the Olympics. Which, incidentally, led to the introduction of a large amount of Western food—butter, spaghetti, chips, Fanta. And it was somewhat reminiscent of communism. At least for the children of the "thaw" who weren't spoiled by delicacies. However, the Olympic goodies soon ran out. By 1982, the USSR imported 45 million tons of grain and 1 million tons of meat (a world record!). The authorities were forced to declare Food Program, which was popularly nicknamed "food by the gram." It was a funny joke, given Leonid Ilyich's heavy diction, reading from a piece of paper shortly before his death: "While the overall caloric intake of the Soviet people corresponds to physiological norms, the nutritional structure needs to be improved. The demand for meat and dairy products is not being met, and there is a shortage of vegetables and fruits."

Mikhail Gorbachev is considered the author of the "Food Program." Less than three years after Brezhnev's speech at the May plenum, Gorbachev himself would lead the country and be responsible for the Soviet government's final attempt to feed its citizens. An attempt, as we know, that failed. By the end of Gorbachev's short reign, grocery stores were almost completely empty, especially in the provinces. Coupons had to be introduced for sugar, flour, fats, eggs—practically the entire so-called "consumer basket."

Meanwhile, in foreign policy, the president of the world's largest famine-stricken country continued to treat Western leaders as equals. He even intended to teach them a thing or two.

"Gorbachev's ambitions were global," says Sergei Radchenko. "He wasn't simply rebuilding the country politically and economically; he wanted to offer the entire world a new development model based on shared human values, on avoiding nuclear war, and on de-escalating conflicts. Hence the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, followed by the peaceful retreat of the Soviet army from Eastern Europe. Gorbachev, it seems to me, was trying on the role of a new leader in international relations. In his view, this wasn't an ideological leadership, but rather a philosophical one, one that few people understood. This became evident in 1989 in Malta, during a meeting with Bush Sr., when Gorbachev declared: 'We didn't lose the Cold War; it was the Cold War mentality that lost.' Bush, I believe, quietly laughed at this formulation. He found it strange to hear. What kind of 'mindset' lost? America had won. And the Soviet Union had lost to the free world. Gorbachev should simply admit defeat. But he didn't want to do that. Instead, he tried to create new "post-ideological" international relations. However, he was left with virtually no leverage over his opponents or any means of recruiting allies. As soon as he eased the pressure on Eastern Europe, the former Soviet satellites began fleeing the "socialist camp."

Much has been said about Gorbachev's policy failures. What would you consider his achievements?

I believe Gorbachev's greatest foreign policy success was the normalization of relations with China. Prior to this, the confrontation between the USSR and China had lasted for almost 30 years. It was essentially a frozen conflict, which Gorbachev managed to resolve by abandoning his "superpower" ambitions and the arrogance of his predecessors. When Li Peng, then the third-largest man in the People's Republic of China, visited the USSR in 1985, he told Gorbachev that China was ready to normalize relations with the Soviet Union, but would never accept the role of "little brother."

Gorbachev replied: "Yes, for God's sake, let us have equal relations." After this, relations with China began to improve, and this was a major success, rarely remembered today. In the interest of strengthening Soviet-Chinese friendship, Gorbachev refused to meet with students in Tiananmen Square. In May 1989, when he visited Beijing, students had already pitched a tent camp there. They asked Gorbachev for a meeting; apparently, Perestroika inspired them, giving them some hope for democratic change in China. But Gorbachev said "no"—the students' protests were China's internal affairs—and declined the meeting. Moreover, he failed to condemn the shooting of students that occurred shortly after his departure from Beijing. That same year, in a meeting with Rajiv Gandhi, Gorbachev discussed the creation of a USSR-India-China "triangle," hoping that this alliance could significantly alter the architecture of international relations.

"So, friendship with China can be considered Gorbachev's political legacy. What lessons, in your opinion, does the current Russian government draw from the history of Perestroika? Everyone remembers Putin's words about the collapse of the USSR as a "geopolitical catastrophe."

"Yes, the lesson is clearly negative, and it's that you can't give the people free rein. You have to clamp down on everything, intimidate everyone, and intensify repression, because otherwise people will publicly protest. And that undermines the prestige of the government. It seems that this is all that the modern Russian elite has learned from late Soviet history, from Gorbachev's attempts to reform the system. Incidentally, the 'Chinese comrades' think the same thing about Perestroika. In China, they're studying Gorbachev's legacy, and Chinese historians have concluded that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused by Gorbachev loosening the screws, allowing people to express their opinions, which led to chaos and a loss of control. Therefore, first the Chinese, and now, it seems to me, the Putin regime, have reached a very simple conclusion: under no circumstances should control over society be weakened, and people should not be given the opportunity for political self-expression. The 'creativity of the masses,' which Gorbachev loved to talk about, is mortally dangerous for an authoritarian regime," said Sergei Radchenko.

Forty years after the "April Plenum," it seems that perhaps the most concise and at the same time precise exposition of Mikhail Sergeyevich's reformist ideas is contained in Yegor Letov's song "Everything is going according to plan":

One grandfather Lenin was a good leader
And all the others, the rest, are such crap...
And perestroika continues to proceed according to plan...

The song, by the way, remains a hit. Perhaps today's teenagers, whose parents were born during Gorbachev's time, only know about Perestroika thanks to Letov—that amazing time when there was no food, no internet, and people lived a spiritual life, subscribing to thick magazines.

Putin, by the way, wasn't around back then either. But a modern teenager can't imagine that.