Gorbachev Leaves Behind Foreign Policy Achievements, Failed Domestic Reforms - Experts

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd September, 2022) Mikhail Gorbachev has left behind a mixed and contested legacy as the Soviet leader whose foreign policy earned him accolades in the West but whose domestic reforms ended up unraveling the Soviet Union, for which he is still derided by many in Russia, experts told Sputnik.

The last leader of the Soviet Union passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91 in Moscow after a long and serious illness. He will be laid to rest at the Novodevichy cemetery in the Russian capital after a public farewell ceremony on Saturday.

In the wake of his demise, leaders from all over the globe offered their condolences, praising Gorbachev's vision and courage and noting his role in bringing an end of the Cold War as well as commitment to multilateral and peace.

This praise stems from Gorbachev successfully signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Ronald Reagan and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with his successor, George H.W. Bush, as well as helping to overcome tensions between Moscow and the West, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1990.

He is also highly regarded for ending the Soviet war in Afghanistan, presiding over peaceful reunification of Germany and eschewing the use of force when responding to social and political unrest in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, despite notable exceptions such as suppression of the protests in Baku and Vilnius.

"Gorbachev wanted to create a better world, and he saw the major threats to this world in nuclear proliferation, ideological division and environmental catastrophe. He did not succeed of course (and this was not just down to him) but he went someway to creating peace and unity in Europe, and he made great strides in reducing the threat of nuclear conflict as well as ending the war in Afghanistan," Mark Sandle, a professor of history at The King's University in Edmonton, Canada.

Susanne Sternthal, a lecturer in post-soviet government and politics at Texas State University, noted that in his foreign policy, Gorbachev abandoned the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, which allowed the Soviet Union to interfere in the affairs of other Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe to preserve the socialist rule there. The Soviet leader also emphasized common values and interdependence over class conflict, stressed primacy of politics over military solutions and mutual security over absolute military advantage.

"The transformations that took place in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union were allowed to unfold without any interference from the West. This was difficult for Gorbachev and others to accept as they believed in the viability of the 'socialist choice,'" Sternthal added.

According to David Rowley, an emeritus professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Platteville, many in the West think that Gorbachev was intimidated into the arms control negotiations as well as acceptance of unified Germany and the end of the Communist bloc in Europe.

"I don't believe this. I see no reason to doubt that Gorbachev wanted to end the arms race for humanitarian reasons and that he truly wanted democracy not only for the Soviet Union but for Eastern Europe as well," Rowley stated.

The expert also took aim at the so-called "cold warriors" in the West who did not trust Gorbachev due to his desire to "return to the socialist democratic ideals of the 1917 Revolution."

"For people who think that socialism must inevitably end in totalitarianism, this was proof that Gorbachev was dangerous and untrustworthy," Rowley said.

One of the ironies of history is that, being popularly remembered as the person who helped usher democracy and capitalism into the Soviet bloc, Gorbachev took control of the party as a staunch Leninist, eager to imbue his country with dynamism that he associated with the founder of the Soviet state.

"Gorbachev was a believer of Communism. What he sought was to legitimize the Communist Party's leading role and make it a competitive, popular alternative. He envisioned something along the lines of Enrico Berlinguer's popularly elected Italian communist Party (except that in the Soviet Union the revamped Party would be in power)," Sternthal explained.

She noted that Gorbachev wanted the Communist Party to play the leading role in his reforms, "not understanding that the Party was ultimately irreformable."

With these lofty ideals in mind, Gorbachev embarked on an ambitions program of economic and political transformation, which, however, ended up undermining the Soviet Union and causing its subsequent break-up.

Some have argued that Gorbachev was simply unlucky and had to contend with difficult circumstances, such as the Chernobyl catastrophe and the drop in oil prices, which complicated the implementation of reforms. Others, like Vladislav Zubok, a professor of international history at the London school of Economics and Political Science, see Gorbachev's reforms as the Primary cause of the Soviet Union's dissolution.

"In my book (Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union) I write that the oil prices were not a major cause for destabilization of Soviet finances, just like Chernobyl and the Armenian earthquake. Much more consequential were his misguided economic reforms and political liberalization that led to rapid loss of control over money printing and finances in general," Zubok explained, adding that "even at better times, Gorbachev's perestroika would have led to the same dismal result it had done.

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According to Sandle, the Soviet leader made a number of mistakes and was influenced by the worldview that was instilled in him by years of working within the party.

"I think that having started on the reform programme of perestroika - and having decided to sequence the reforms in the way that he did - it was almost inevitable that the USSR would not have survived," he said, noting that "the problems Gorbachev encountered made it much more difficult to find workable solutions, and meant that the whole thing careered out of control very rapidly."

He also noted that while Gorbachev was good at destroying the existing system, he was less than stellar in rebuilding it.

Anthony D'Agostino, an emeritus professor of history at� San Francisco State University, stated that the� democratization, open discussion and government reforms� that Gorbachev championed� "ran away from him because of the politics of the succession struggle and his intellectual failings."

"Gorbachev followed the genuinely misbegotten advice of (economist) Abel Agenbegyan on the economy. He took up (reformist intellectual) Boris Kurashvili's fatal notion of popular fronts for perestroika in the Union republics. He fell in love with (political scientist) Andronik Migranyan's advice to be a centrist and authoritarian," D'Agostino explained, adding that "in general, he should have gone much slower and thought more seriously about the USSR as a nation among other nations in a world that is ruled informally and not by moral and sentimental norms."

The historian highlighted the impact of Gorbachev's glasnost (open discussion) policy, criticizing the lack of genuine discussion of of the Soviet history, resulting in "the thought that the only proper attitude of Russians about their history was shame and repentance" as well as "the rise of the most confused advisors, (Alexander) Yakovlev, (Georgy) Shakhnazarov, (Alexander) Tsipko, and others."

Meanwhile, Rowley thinks that if the Soviet Union had been united behind Gorbachev's reforms, the disaster that accompanied his rule could have been overcome. He also drew attention to Gorbachev "failing" to take into account the constitutional right of any Soviet republic to secede and the role of Russia in the collapse.

"The problem was that the key to the continued existence of the Soviet Union was Russia. Any (or all!) of the other Union republics could have 'freely seceded' from the USSR, and Russia could have continued its experiment as a Soviet Socialist Republic. The Russian Republic, after all, was the territory containing most of the population, wealth, military forces, and governing institutions of the USSR. Russia's secession from the Union meant that the Union could not survive," Rowley said.

The expert added that this development could not have been foreseen and put the blame for the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Boris Yeltsin, who was Gorbachev's main rival for power and who actively worked to achieve Russia's independence from the Soviet Union.

Both Rowley and D'Agostino lamented the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the former saying that "the great tragedy of the Gorbachev era was that at last an experiment in really democratic socialism was underway and was destroyed" and the former suggested� that the collapse is "bad thing which has made my own country (the US) less influential and more endangered."

As any leader who was in power and actively participated in a watershed period of history, Gorbachev track record is vied differently by people in the West and in Russia, with the former viewing him as liberator and many of the latter blaming him for the economic hardships and loss of international stature that followed his reforms.

"The western focus on personal freedom - and their own sense of security that Gorbachev brought them - has led to them downplaying the problems his time in power bequeathed to the peoples of the former Soviet Union," Sandle noted, adding that when it comes to the Russian perspective, "the perceived sense of loss, and the legacy of economic collapse in Russia has obscured his bigger vision for the world, and the ways in which he brought greater personal freedoms for many Russians."

The historian also suggested that in order to have a better understanding of Gorbachev legacy it is necessary to hear not only the perspectives of Russians or Westerners but also other Soviet peoples and those from Eastern Europe. He also spoke in favor of a more holistic approach in assessing Gorbachev, which involves taking into account his life before and after perestroika.

"He has displayed a remarkably consistent commitment to the ideals of humanism, to the fight for democratic rights, and the need for international co-operation to combat the threats of environmental catastrophe and nuclear conflict. We need also to remember his devotion to his wife and family, in order to better understand Gorbachev the human being," Sandle concluded.