The only time I saw Mikhail Gorbachev in public was November 9, 2014. I remember that date very well: we were celebrating the 25e anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Living memory of the 1980s, Gorbachev was the guest of honor. We didn’t expect him to say much interesting. After all, the fall of the Berlin Wall had happened by accident: Gorbachev hadn’t planned anything like it. He had no intention of breaking up the Soviet Union or promoting freedom. He presided over the last days of a cruel and bloodthirsty empire, but without having wanted to. Hardly anyone in history has left such a profound mark on their times by understanding them so little.
“A system without a human face”
Gorbachev was born in Stalinist Russia. He started his career during the “thaw” post-stalinian. It then became possible to openly acknowledge some truths, but not all. While still a student at Moscow State University, one of his closest friends was a Czechoslovakian student named Zdenek Mlynar.
Both believed that communism could be reformed if only corruption and violence were ended. Mlynar’s beliefs led him to become one of the leaders of the Prague Spring, a 1968 movement that began by demanding a “reform communism” and one “socialism with a human face”. This movement was crushed by Soviet soldiers, which proved that corruption and violence were inherent in this faceless system.
Yet Gorbachev remained committed to the idea of a “reform communism”an idea he revived when he took over as leader of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1985. Although he knew that Soviet society was stagnant and Soviet workers unproductive, he had no idea why.
Haro on vodka!
His first impulse was not to think that the system needed democracy, or even economic liberalization. Instead, he said to himself: Russians drink too much. Just two months after coming to power, he limited vodka sales, raised the age at which you could drink alcohol
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Source of the article
The Atlantic (Washington)
Anticipation is one of the strengths of The Atlantic since its creation in 1857. This venerable publication, where write the most prestigious feathers of the moment, knew better than any other American magazine to take the turning Internet, by making of its site a very dynamic place of reflection and debate. Intellectual and placid, like its hometown, Boston, the magazine embellishes its pages with poems and sophisticated illustrations. Founded by a group of writers a few years before the Civil War, it made it its mission to be the spokesperson for the American idea. The publication of the first texts of Mark Twain, the war reports of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Letter from Birmingham Jail (vibrant defense of non-violence, 1963) by Martin Luther King does not deny this ideal.
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You can also consult there, for a small fee, all the articles published since the first issue, which appeared in November 1857. Theatlantic.com claims 4.3 million monthly users.
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