The current Russian president, Vladimir Putinand the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachevhad for years a love-hate relationship exacerbated by criticism of the democratic involution and the aggressive foreign policy of the Kremlin.
“It cannot be that all decisions come together in one person. No one has a monopoly on the truth,” Gorbachev said in an interview with the recently defunct daily Novaya Gazeta.
Gorbachev had been one of the biggest critics of the management of Putinfrom which not only more than twenty years separated him, but also his total rejection of authoritarianism and his support for a pragmatic relationship with the West, especially in the field of nuclear disarmament.
Putin He did not hesitate to respond to criticism on occasions, but, unlike other opposition leaders, he never dared to criticize a man with undeniable international prestige.
ODIOUS COMPARISONS
While the last Soviet leader is an idolized figure in Westwhere he was known as “Gorbi“, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and was a leader respected by second and third world countries, Putin has become enemy number one USA and the European Union.
Gorbachevwhose grandparents were victims of the Stalinist purges, tried to reform the ussr to give it a “human face”. Putin, who admits that he never threw away his party card, tries to rehabilitate the figure of Stalin and revive the Soviet empire by force.
While the first went down in history for knocking down the Iron Curtain and end the Cold Warthe second does not accept its result and wants to review the internationally recognized borders since 1991.
Gorbachev was a shareholder of “Novaya Gazeta“, whose director received the Nobel Prize, which did not prevent the Russian authorities from later removing that masthead, while Putin he is known for his animosity towards the press.
Also, Putin was raised to power by the main rival of Gorbachevthe first democratic president of Russia, Boris Yeltsinin exchange for guarantees for him and his family, which included oligarchs as his treasurer, Roman Abramovich.
SAVE THE USSR
Putin always blamed Gorbachev that he failed to reform the planned economy in time, the key to saving the Soviet system.
“We had to fight for the territorial integrity of our state more insistently, consistently and boldly, and not bury our heads in the sand, leaving our asses in the air,” Putin said.
By comparison, he maintains that the situation in the Russia of the end of the 90s of the last century “was much more dramatic than in the last years of the USSR”.
“The economy would have collapsed as a result of the 1998 crisis, the social sphere was at zero and the Army ceased to exist. And we ran into the aggression of international terrorism, separatism, and a civil war broke out. Y Russia was on the brink of disintegration,” he asserted.
To avoid it, Putin launched an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, imposed a power vertical, shut down the most critical media outlets, and restricted the most basic freedoms.
According to historians, the freest period in the history of this country was the five-year period from 1988, in the midst of “perestroika” and “glasnost” (restructuring and transparency), to the bombing of the White House by order of Yeltsin in 1993.
MONOPOLY OF KREMLIN POWER
After several attempts to return to the political scene with a social democratic project, Gorbachev he was a residual figure in the opposition until government fraud in the 2011 legislative elections unleashed the biggest anti-government protests in 20 years.
So, he did not hesitate to take sides in favor of the opposition led by a young Alexei Navalni with phrases that were very bad in the Kremlin such as “Russia United is a bad copy of the CPSU (Communist Party of the USSR)”.
“The best step on the part of the authorities would be for them to present their resignation,” he affirmed and even demanded the annulment of the elections for fraud.
In the months and years that followed, he did not hesitate to call for overcoming “authoritarian tendencies” in Russian politics and accused Putin of believing himself to be God, when the recovery of Russia “It was mainly due to the high prices of oil and gas in international markets.”
He also demanded a constitutional reform to create a “real democracy” through a referendum that would put an end to “the autocracy” once and for all, and urged Putin to give up looking for a non-existent “fifth column” in Russian society.
Months later, Putin back to Kremlin following four years as prime minister and did just the opposite.
He first passed laws that restricted freedom of assembly and classified the new enemies of the people – opponents, journalists and activists – as foreign agents, and then promulgated a Constitution through a dubious referendum that allows him to remain in power until 2036.
PUTIN, THE LORD OF WAR
The current Russian military campaign in Ukraine separated them once more, since two days following its start the Gorbachev Fund called for the urgent cessation of hostilities and the start of peace negotiations.
Descendant of Ukrainians, the brief statement from his institution highlighted that “in the world there is not and cannot be anything more valuable than human life.”
Gorbachev ordered the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan (1989). Putin has used force since 1999 in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine.
EFE
