Gorbachev and Putin

By Rich Kozlovich 

Well, Gorbachev is dead, Putin won't go to his funeral, and the internet is filled with stuff about he and his wife. 

Here's Dan Mitchell's take on this and quotes from others in his piece, Gorbachev , Reagan, and the Much-Deserved End of the Soviet Union .

The world is much freer today than when I was born, largely because the “Evil Empire” collapsed. The Soviet Union was awful. It killed at least 20 million of its own people (some say as many as 60 million). It enslaved and impoverished its own citizens, as well as those who languished behind the “Iron Curtain.” Ronald Reagan deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the collapse of communism – in part because he restored America’s economic vitality and built up the nation’s military, but also because he directly condemned the immorality of Marxism (often using humor).  But since the last dictator of the Soviet Union just died, let’s examine Mikhail Gorbachev’s role...........

• Failing upward into the world’s gratitude, Mikhail Gorbachev became a hero by precipitating the liquidation of the political system he had tried to preserve… Like Christopher Columbus, who accidentally discovered the New World, Gorbachev stumbled into greatness by misunderstanding where he was going. …Gorbachev’s most noble facet, his “extraordinary reluctance” to use violence to hold the Soviet system together.

• Gorbachev was happy to give up domination of Eastern Europe… Gorbachev tried to save the Soviet Union but ended up hastening its destruction. When it became clear in late 1991 that his great project was doomed, he could have lashed out, mobilizing the military to save him and what was left of the U.S.S.R., at the risk of civil war. Instead, he bowed out with dignity.

I subscribe to Foreign Affairs and while there's some good stuff there I often wonder what planet some of their contributors are from, but I thought this piece  The Gorbachev Vacuum, How the Soviet Leader’s Legacy Helps Explain Russia’s Wars by Michael Kimmage was pretty good because it makes clear the reason for Gorbachev's failure, and Putin's upcoming failure and probably the end of his rule. 

He, like most writers, viewed Gorbachev as a fundamentally decent man, noting that:

Ultimately, the mystery of Gorbachev rests on a distinction between Gorbachev the man and Gorbachev the statesman. They were two very different people. 

 Gorbachev was a Soviet through and through, and believed in the concept of Leninism, and that was his problem.  He wanted to end the tyranny of communism, but wanted to have communism still be in control of everything.  Which seems to me a clear case of cognitive dissonance. Result?  He had no vision to offer, no end goal, no new system for Russia other than capitalism and that wasn't what he believed in.  Result, if you don't have a destination then it doesn't matter how far you travel.

The only real thing Gorbachev and Putin had in common was their distaste for each other. The difference between Gorbachev and Putin is a matter of vision.   

Gorbachev wanted a "let's just all get along" world, with no plan and no end goal that could be defined.  If you have a political philosophy that can't be outlined, planned and defined, it doesn't exist.  On the other hand, Putin wants a Soviet style Russia back in power in all the former Soviet and Russian Empire states.  He's defined that vision with military planning and action, with a clear end goal.  But his problem is that's an end goal vision without any potential for happening.  That will bring Putin down as he wastes young Russian men's lives and the nations wealth in order to be a modern Czar. And unlike Gorbachev who willing stepped down from power, Putin will not!