Mikhail Gorbachev was my first introduction to politics. I was very small, in a car being driven by my father, squashed in the backseat between relatives. Everyone was loudly arguing about Gorbachev this and Gorbachev that — so much so that even my slightly older cousin voiced an opinion. As I recall, it was a negative opinion. A sparsely populated Ukrainian countryside flew by, and it was probably dingy, but then again, everything seemed dingy in the dying Soviet Union. The car drove on.
The last leader of the Soviet Union lived just long enough to witness his native Russia turn full fascist before he died this week. It must have been very bitter for him. Already derided for decades by Russians who believed that giving a tiny bit of freedom for the Soviets — which Gorbachev authorized — was a bad move, he was also blamed for the poverty, disillusionment, and societal dislocation that followed the USSR’s inevitable collapse.
Today, millions of Russians firmly believe that Gorbachev should have used bloody violence to keep the USSR together. Their government’s barbaric war on my native Ukraine is an extension of this ideology.
It’s a nation that allowed fear to morph into violence
From where I sit, Russians should fucking get over themselves. Enough is enough. Everyone is always at fault for their problems, and for years, Gorbachev was just another convenient boogeyman as Putin consolidated his power and marched himself and his country confidently into hell. “Don’t challenge Putin, we don’t want to go back to how it was in Gorbachev’s times!” It’s pathetic. While sanctions are slow to take effect, Russia is never going to be the same after this war. It’s a nation that allowed fear to morph into violence — not for the first time either.
I’m tired of the excuses people come up with for Russian bloodlust. I’m saying this as someone who is related to a bunch of Russians, even though at this point in my life, I really wish I wasn’t. “They just want their sphere of influence.” “They just want their former glory, the poor dears.”
Fuck glory. If you say this about Hitler and the people who embraced him, you get rightfully cast out from polite society. Why the fuck should Russians be treated any differently? Oh, they put a man in space? Great. Oooh, they had Tolstoy. So what? There is no excuse for genocide and there is no sense in pretending that Russian aims in Ukraine are anything short of genocide. Their officials and foaming-at-the-mouth propagandists say it every damn day. The mask is fully off, and there is a zombie underneath it, a dead, hungry thing that wants everything around it to also be dead.
He was a product of the Soviet system, and tried to save this system, but he was in possession of a moral compass
Gorbachev chose not to murder. That is, perhaps, his greatest legacy. He did not want glory at all costs. He felt things. He liked people. He was not a zombie. He was a product of the Soviet system, and tried to save this system, but he was in possession of a moral compass. The Russians who hate him today have triumphantly chucked away theirs.
Steve Bannon once said that “darkness is good.” He believes it to be powerful. He thinks that Darth Vader had some good ideas, as did Satan. But darkness is a refuge of weakness, of making up for your hurt fee-fees — whether it’s Anakin letting doubt and pain corrupt him or Satan getting butthurt and jealous over God’s powers of creation. We know how those stories ended.
Here’s an idea for everyone rushing to shake their heads at how badly things went wrong since Gorbachev:
The Soviet Union was never going to end cleanly. There was too much concentrated pain and anger. There were too many crimes left unpunished. Too many echoes in the night. Too many ritualistic human sacrifices to the god of totalitarianism.
I remember when the unraveling started, and I don’t know if I’ll be alive to see it end, but I do know one thing: Gorbachev did the right thing.
The right thing isn’t always easy, or glorious, or even dignified. The Russians who won’t mourn him should get it through their heads eventually, one way or another.
Image: Mitya Aleshkovsky