I was saddened to hear of the recent passing of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union (USSR), although he enjoyed a full life. Gorbachev died at the age of 91, outlasting all his predecessors. I believe his abstemiousness regarding alcohol had something to do with his longevity. While head of the Soviet state, Gorbachev cracked down on drunkenness with a series of widely unpopular measures in a land where drinking strong spirits seemed to be a national pastime. Some academics associate alcoholism with northern climes, where winters are long and harsh, but the dreariness of life for ordinary citizens in the Soviet Union undoubtedly also contributed mightily to this phenomenon.
I arrived in Moscow for a tour in the US embassy just two months after Gorbachev replaced the last of a series of aged proto-Stalinists seeking to preserve the failing system there. He quickly made clear his intention to revamp the political system in fundamental ways, reflecting a new generation’s desire to distance itself from the lingering remnants of Stalinism. Not surprisingly, there were many who remained skeptical of this new figure, claiming he was simply a younger face behind the same old system. For example, the US intelligence community was long dubious that “Gorby,” as many nicknamed him, was really prepared to change the very structure of the Soviet state.
My position in the political section of the US embassy was Asia-watcher. That required me to meet regularly with counterparts in other embassies, including the Japanese embassy (shrewd analysts, particularly as it concerned their regional interests). I also reached out tentatively to representatives in the Chinese embassy, and soon established some regular contacts at a higher level than my modest first secretary status warranted. They told me that the US embassy had not shown much interest in the past. One of my contacts, Zhang Deguang (張德廣), later returned to Moscow to serve as China’s ambassador to Russia, following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Then-US president Richard Nixon’s 1972 opening to China made it easier for me to engage my People’s Republic of China (PRC) counterparts in China’s Moscow mission. Most of them were steeped in Russian/Soviet culture, having served numerous tours in the USSR during the tense years when Beijing’s relations with Moscow were strained, to say the least. At the same time, they were also suspicious of Gorbachev and what to them seemed a tenuous commitment to communism. My ability to communicate in Chinese facilitated my contacts. I found them evincing growing curiosity concerning the question so many were raising: Is Gorbachev just a “prettier” face following the same old policies, or was he a totally new type of leader?
Just as I was trying in my reporting cables to convince skeptics in Washington that things were really changing in Soviet politics under Gorbachev, I found myself making the same case to counterparts in the PRC mission. I think now that it was probably not that easy for them to argue to superiors in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing that things were truly changing, but my contacts in the PRC embassy could also cite a source in the US embassy to bolster their argument. As part of this sea change in Sino-Soviet relations, Beijing was also tentatively relaxing its stringent policies toward Taiwan. More academics began traveling both ways across the Taiwan Strait, usually transiting Hong Kong for face-saving purposes. Business deals also became easier, given the relaxed political environment.
We had our own skeptics in Washington, but the critical turning point was on April 26, 1986, the day of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. I was temporarily back in New York for the birth of our first child, Michael, born that same day. My wife and I were stuck in a maternity ward that weekend, watching TV, when we started hearing news out of Finland, Poland and Sweden suggesting unusual levels of radioactivity in the prevailing winds blowing north from the power plant. A couple of weeks later, Gorbachev made a live television appearance to admit that his country had suffered a serious nuclear accident. The Soviet leader — breaking a longstanding tradition of never reporting negative news — went on to seek emergency assistance from the global community to combat this unprecedented disaster. That was the day glasnost (openness) was born in the Soviet state. Gorbachev had made a bold decision, but it took some time for those of us seeing this up close in the US embassy to convince hard-bitten analysts in Washington this was for real.
Gorbachev had his critics within the senior circles of power in Moscow, but he had presciently surrounded himself with top advisers who buttressed his position. Among them were then-Soviet minister of foreign affairs Eduard Shevardnadze, academic Yevgeny Primakov and then-Moscow party secretary Boris Yeltsin. Unfortunately, a young and ambitious KGB agent working in eastern Europe at the time, Vladimir Putin, drew a much more pessimistic conclusion from these historic events at home, and now appears determined to undo all of Gorbachev’s progress and designate himself strongman for life in today’s Russia.
I am getting ahead of myself. Gorbachev seized the opportunity of Chernobyl to begin opening the reclusive Soviet political system, changing his country so dramatically that just five years later, it dissolved into the Russian Federation and fourteen other states. For that he has changed the face of the world forever and earned the gratitude of uncounted millions of people in eastern Europe who found their own voice. At the same time, he remains unpopular with many in Russia who harbor nostalgia for the days when Moscow ruled over a vast empire. That said, I was struck by the thousands who lined up to file past Gorbachev’s open casket in downtown Moscow.
One of Gorbachev’s legacies was to end decades of hostility toward China. then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) responded positively to these overtures, and thus lessened the danger of a war between two nuclear powers. Meanwhile, Putin’s Russia appears to be reverting to archaic Cold War thinking, coupled with inexcusable revanchist action. Among these are his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine this past spring, as well as fierce intimidation of the other sovereign states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev’s critics forced him from power in a palace coup in 1991. To my mind, life for ordinary Russians has not improved much under Putin, who has stayed at the apex of Russian political power for more than two decades. So let us raise a glass to Mikhail Gorbachev, who bravely tried to push his country into the modern world. That is a legacy worthy of the man. I hope in afterlife he is rejoined with his beloved wife, Raisa.
I will close with a small anecdote from Gorbachev’s 1988 visit to Washington. I was working on the Soviet desk then and was part of the small delegation that saw Gorbachev off at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, following his remarkable visit hosted by then-US president Ronald Reagan. It was a chilly November night. As I walked Mr Gorbachev to his plane and shook his hand goodbye, I gestured back toward the swarm of US and international press to tell the Soviet leader what an amazing impression he had made in my country. The Soviet leader gave me a big smile, then waved goodbye as he climbed up the stairs to his awaiting plane.
Stephen M. Young served in the American Institute in Taiwan four times: as a consular officer (1981-1982), as a language student (1989-1990), as deputy director (1998-2001) and as director (2006-2009). He visits often and writes regularly about Taiwan matters. Young was also US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and consul general to Hong Kong during his 33-year career as a foreign service officer.
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