Rate Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev celebrated his 90th birthday. His anniversary was celebrated in the federal media mainly in benevolent tones. Channel One, for example, focused on how open and sweet a person Mikhail Sergeevich was. Family man, intellectual. Well, people like Alexei Venediktov and Chulpan Khamatova traditionally poured out their love for the last Secretary General.
It is all the more important to make a brief afterword for Gorbachev’s anniversary.
Those who say that Mikhail Sergeevich and his associates (however, we still need to figure out who walked under whose command) gave people freedom are right. But they don't say the main thing. Freedom in its pure form cannot be presented as the highest – good, if you like – value. If given without regulation and mutual assistance, then it will be based solely on the right of the stronger. This is what we ultimately got in post-Soviet times.
How many lives and destinies had to be paid for this?
At the same time, there are also surprises as to why in the federal field there are so many praises addressed to the man who destroyed the USSR and doomed millions to suffer. A month earlier, similar splendor - even more beautiful - was observed in the address of another leader - Boris Yeltsin. But this is actually explained simply.
The authorities cannot simply go ahead and categorically denigrate history. Like, Stalin is a tyrant, Nicholas II is a flayer and a scoundrel, Brezhnev is a ruin. Yeltsin and Gorbachev are drunkards and labeled. It turns out they were all bad? Then how to build the future on such a foundation?
Those who think in this way are joined by those who admire Mikhail Sergeevich’s work almost sincerely. They are firmly confident that the desired goals have been achieved. They are not embarrassed by the absolute correctness of Zinoviev’s textbook phrase: “They aimed for communism, but ended up in Russia.” It doesn’t bother me, because they willingly target and end up in Russia, sincerely considering it as something like a rudimentary formation that has lagged behind the West, as, by the way, Gorbachev’s associate Yakovlev once wrote.
In this case, it will not be easy to pass between Scylla and Charybdis. But it’s still necessary. Because without a clear revision of the past, neither the future nor the present are possible. This will only lead to an endless repetition of previous mistakes. Whatever the disappointment in the end, we must take inventory of what happened in order to move on. And Gorbachev’s personality and activities are in the first place for evaluation.
As Alexei Tolstoy said (albeit in a different context, but the message is true): “You will not have honor from me,” Peter said quietly. - Stupid! Old wolf! Stubborn predatory... - And he glanced at Colonel Ren. “Take him to prison, on foot, through the whole city, so that he can see the sad work of his hands...”
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