Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the leader of the USSR from 1988 until its collapse in 1991. Thus, he was the last person to serve as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev was one of the biggest leaders of the USSR. He was the first communist leader to meet with the President of the United States, namely Ronald Reagan. His strategic moves during the Cold War played a great role in ending the war, and he was the one who ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party in the USSR. For all of the above, Gorbachev received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Additionally, he is considered as one of the most democratic communists in the history of Russia.
Last week (on Monday, Feb. 21, 2011), Mikhail Gorbachev made a very important statement, which was actually a description of the current government in Russia. Specifically, he called it: “An imitation of democracy.”
This is how he described Putin’s administration of today, accusing the country’s leaders of exhibiting deceit and contempt towards the voters.
In his hardest criticism of the Russian government to date, the former leader of Russia accused Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his protégée Dmitri Medvedev of distorting democracy. Gorbachev’s accusations are based on their statement that they will agree between them who will be nominated for president in the March 2012 elections.
Gorbachev said that such statements denote “unbelievable arrogance” and disrespect towards Russian citizens. He obviously based his argument on the fact that Russia is supposed to be a democratic nation, where every citizen has the right to vote for his or her new president. Gorbachev is known to be a very democratic politician, who has tried several times to form a more democratic party in Russia in order to compete against Vladimir Putin. However, he never succeeded.
As a Nobel Prize winner, Mikhail Gorbachev firmly believes that such an administration is not respecting the fundamentals of democracy and for that reason he directly accused Putin himself, for the first time.
To quote Gorbachev: “This is not within Putin’s jurisdiction. This is something that must be decided by the nation in the elections. Doesn’t anyone have the right to run for [the] presidency?”
In the past, Gorbachev had avoided criticizing Putin directly. Putin continues to be the most powerful man in Russia since he became prime minister following two terms as president. Putin is expected to run for the presidency once again in 2012.
Gorbachev, who will turn 80 this week, said that Russia has an “imitation” of a parliamentary and judicial system.
He also accused the pro-government party United Russia of being a “bad copy” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and warned that the government’s attempts to cut off all its political opponents will work against it. “Monopoly leads to decay and hinders the development of the economy,” he said.
Such criticism is especially tough and also unheard of in Putin’s Russia and the fact that it is spoken by a former leader of the country like Gorbachev makes it even more bitter.
For many years now, Putin has been in complete control of Russia and exercises great influence on most of the countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev accuses Putin of denouncing democracy and he bases this on certain facts that are reasonable, but not absolute. The whole event may sound really ironic since one of the greatest communist leaders of all time suddenly presents himself as the protector of democracy and the savior of the Russian voters, but it is actually not. Gorbachev had been accused of being too democratic and liberal since 1985 when he served as the General Secretary of the USSR.
He was always against war and believed in modern communism, influenced by the fundamentals of democracy. That is exactly why he dissolved the Soviet Union and tried to form democratic parties in the Russian political scene. Such statements must put Vladimir Putin in a very difficult position, as they are spoken by a great Russian leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and zealous supporter of democracy.
