The Daily - How Gorbachev Changed the World

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Few leaders have had as profound an effect on their time as Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who died this week at 91.It was not Mr. Gorbachev’s intention to liquidate the Soviet empire when he came to power in 1985. But after little more than six tumultuous years, he had lifted the Iron Curtain and presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, ending the Cold War.Guest: Serge Schmemann, a member of The New York Times’s editorial board.Background reading: Adopting principles of glasnost and perestroika, Mr. Gorbachev weighed the legacy of seven decades of Communist rule and set a new course, decisively altering the political climate of the world.With the war in Ukraine, Russia’s current leader, Vladimir V. Putin, is trying to unravel Mr. Gorbachev’s legacy.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Mikhail Gorbachev set out to reform the Soviet Union, but the social and economic forces he unleashed ended up destroying it. I spoke to New York Times editorial board member Serge Shmemin about how Gorbachev changed the world and how Russia's current leader, Vladimir Putin, is trying to change it back. It's Thursday, September 1st.

Serge, nice to see you. Good to see you. The last time I saw you in person, I think, was in Moscow in a New York Times apartment in 2000. You were visiting your family, I think, at the time. And I was a recently hired New York Times freelance reporter. And you were this reporter extraordinaire who knew Russia so deeply and I admired so deeply. And you had been covering the place for years. That's probably it. Yeah, it's been a long time. And a lot has happened back in Mother Russia

since. Not all of it good. Yes. So Serge, I'm going to start with the current moment, the war in Ukraine. I was in Kiev during the invasion in February, and it really struck me that Putin, in this violent takeover, was essentially trying to put the Soviet Union back together again, you know, effectively undo what Gorbachev did. So on Tuesday when Gorbachev died, I thought, you know, there's a strange symmetry here. It's kind of a full circle moment in a way. Like we're living in a world that Gorbachev made, but that Putin is at war against. So I wanted to start with that world that Gorbachev made, but that Putin is at war against. So I wanted to start

with that world that Gorbachev made. Where does that story begin? Well, the Soviet Union, into which I arrived on the first day of 1980, January 1, 1980, was a world in which the economy had basically ground to a halt. It was remarkable, even after everything we had read, to see the shops that had nothing. A loaf of bread was gray because it was made half with wheat and half with stale bread that they had gathered elsewhere. Milk was grayish because they added something else. I don't know what it was to it. You know, there were very few cars on the streets because nobody could buy cars. The trams were constantly stalling because they were old and decrepit. It was really a dismal scene. Really a dismal scene. And the rulers, too, had become decrepit.

They mostly could barely walk. Brezhnev, who was in charge, Leonid Brezhnev, the man who presided over 18 years of this decline, could barely get through the opening of a speech without stumbling and making some silly mistakes. The one thing that continued to function was repression. opening of a speech without stumbling and making some silly mistakes. The one thing that continued to function was repression. The KGB and informers were ubiquitous. Everybody suspected they were being followed or watched. The dissidents would meet us in a bathroom with the water running.

It was a very repressive time and a time when nothing else was moving. And all of its enormous resources were poured only into the military race with the West and into the repressive mechanism. race with the West and into the repressive mechanism. So into this stagnant swamp comes Mikhail Gorbachev, a fresh, intelligent, young, he was 54, man with a brilliant smile. And it was like the sun rising. I don't exaggerate. He was a Pollard Bureau member in charge of agriculture. And he had risen with that post to the number two slot in the Pollard Bureau because he was one of the few who could walk and talk. That is the way people phrased it. And even though he had this southern accent and had been a peasant's son, he had finished the Moscow Law School.

He was married to Raisa, a woman who was cultured and well-dressed. So he came with a kind of a total freshness into a scene that had been totally dismal. freshness into a scene that had been totally dismal. And the impact was immediate and huge, even before he introduced the radical change that became his trademark. And what was that change? The change was, first and foremost, the very recognition that change is essential. That had never been part of the Kremlin propaganda or rhetoric. The notion was that everything is perfect. The phrase they used was further perfectioning. Gorbachev from day one declared that no, it was not perfect. And from the very beginning, he began to use terms that came to define his rule.

The first, which is not that familiar in the West, is novae muschlenia, new thinking. And that was kind of the broad overarching concept that not only should there be new thinking, but that people should be allowed to start thinking, which had essentially been banned until then, that you need a kind of creative input from the bottom, and that this would come in the form of perestroika and glasnost. Perestroika is rebuilding, restructuring. Glasnost is best translated, I think, as openness. And these were very, very bold concepts. In fact, he said this in a speech to Congress in 1986, using these terms talking about a need for reform, for restructuring,

for openness. So what starts to happen? How does this reform effort go? The societal change that he introduced was quite astounding. There were movies coming out that had been sort of sealed for decades because they were considered anti-Soviet. Books were coming out, the literature, the poetry, you know, there was always a very have come out despite the authorities. Under Gorbachev, he would get credit. Gorbachev, you know, has ushered in this great new book. So now, instead of being considered an obstacle to culture, he was being considered a source of creativity. People started talking, talking freely in public. You know, it became almost a gab fest. Everybody was out sort of saying all the ideas that they weren't allowed to even have years before. So people were hungry for this.

People were hungry. They were starved. So there was a transformation, a kind of a release of creative juices all across society, which also translated into, you know, an almost worshipful popularity for Gorbachev. He became, you know, a hero. And in the West, he was sought after, you know, he was this incredible figure who had emerged from a system which wasn't supposed to produce people like that, who had given it kind of energy and light almost overnight. And what about the economic reform? How does he start taking aim at the central planning in the Soviet economy? On the economic front, the part that was perhaps most visible to people was a permission to form what they called a cooperative. I remember one on the Ring Road, a Georgian family began baking bread and we would line up to buy bread. A few little garages appeared, kiosks on the street to sell basic stuff. So a little dollop of free enterprise did surface. But beyond that, in his speeches, in his pronouncements, he was urging a greater efficiency and making clear that he believed that the Cold War was the major drain. There were

references to the arms race, to how expensive it was, and also to how perhaps immoral it was, this enormous threat to life. There was enough rockets on both sides to wipe out the planet many times over. This became a theme that he referred to, that there needed to be an end to the Cold War. The notion of curbing the arms race as a way to release the forces of the economy to free them from this massive burden was a theme that began to surface in those years. So it sounds like he's realizing that the Soviet military and its participation in the arms race was a massive drain on the Soviet budget. And the Soviet Union was effectively, you know, broke or close to it. And he knew that he couldn't keep that up, that the system wouldn't hold.

And he knew that he couldn't keep that up, that the system wouldn't hold. Yes, that's right. This armament on an arms deal, of course, put enormous focus on the meetings he would hold with Ronald Reagan. General Secretary Gorbachev and I have held comprehensive discussions covering all elements of our relationship. Ronald Reagan, of course, had come to office as a staunch anti-communist, and yet there was this new reformer, and when they met in Geneva in 1985, there was enormous excitement. I came to Geneva to seek a fresh start in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union,

and we have done this. Mr. Reagan, how's the meeting going? We haven't started. Well, how'd it go yesterday? Fine. Are you getting along? The New York Times sent eight reporters, which even in those extravagant times was a lot.

See that, can't you? Well, that's a picture. Tell us. We covered every aspect of it. You know, what Raisa wore, what they did, what they visited, every word they said. You think it might get a little heated on the question of human rights, Mr. President? Not going to comment on that. We had a very lively discussion of everything. But friendly.

It was portrayed as a hugely important meeting, and the entire tone was around reducing this arms race, of reducing this huge threat to mankind that the Cold War had created. And, you know, both of these men were very well suited to this. Reagan with his actor's skills and his charm and Gorbachev with his kind of earnest delivery. You know, you could feel that something was bound to happen as it would. And the next time they met in Reykjavik in 1986. Late this afternoon, I made to the general secretary an entirely new proposal.

Secretary an entirely new proposal, a 10-year delay in deployment of SDI in exchange for the complete elimination of all ballistic missiles from the respective arsenals of both nations. They meant to have full disarmament. So long as both the United States and the Soviet Union proved their good faith by destroying nuclear missiles year by year, we would not deploy SDI. And yet at the same time, Reagan was introducing this concept of Star Wars, you know, taking the arms race to space. And for the Russians, this was something quite frightening because this would mean a whole new area in which they would have to invest their limited wealth and industrial output.

So there was also the sense of a deadline. We better get some agreement going before America takes this step. Welcome to the White House. And in 1987, the two men met in Washington. This ceremony and the treaty we're signing today are both excellent examples of the rewards of patience. To announce an end to the arms race. We have covered a seven-year-long road

replete with intense work and debate. One last step towards this table and the treaty will be signed. They had reached a deal and signed the INF Treaty, in effect ending the Cold War. May December 8, 1987 become a date that will be inscribed in the history books, a date that will mark the watershed separating the era of a mounting risk of nuclear war from the era of a demilitarization of human life. It was a major achievement for both of them. And here I do think one important factor is that to a certain degree, Gorbachev, he actually changed Reagan's thinking. had thought of communists as people with little red horns,

and coming up against this man, meeting with him, having these personal discussions, he began himself, I think, to believe that maybe the two of them could do something for humanity, for the world, for peace. So I think that Gorbachev did, simply through his tone, through his presence, through his style, and through what he was, he did have an impact, a personal impact on Reagan, which paved the way for that agreement. So at this point, it seems like things are on track for Gorbachev, right? I mean, he's doing this opening up, and he's beloved around the world for it. He's this rock star on the international stage. He was indeed.

The whole Gorbachev kind of phenomenon had spread through East Europe, where regimes were also beginning to liberalize, to become freer. The whole notion of glasnost and everything was taking hold. The Germans really suffered. They were divided as penance for World War II. And, you know, there was a sense that perhaps this penance, this period of punishment was coming to the end, punishment was coming to the end, that this man might be the ticket to reunification. The GDR turns 40 on the 7th of October 1989. There was this moment in October of 1989 when he goes to East Germany,

and it was the 40th anniversary of the East German state. Gorbachev is the guest of honor at the celebrations. People are hungry for change. They want perestroika, restructuring, like in the Soviet Union. And Mahonecker, who was the hardline leader at the time, had organized these huge festivities and invited Gorbachev. There was a torch-lit parade. Thousands of young Germans marched through the streets with torches.

And Gorbachev formally, officially, on record, said all the things Honecker wanted to hear. This is a great country. You're doing a great job, carry on 40 more years, good luck. But that was almost completely disregarded. It was his presence and the subtext of what he said. I mean, at one point he said, any country that fails to change in time will end up on the dust heap of history, whatever the cliche is. This was what people heard. And in a month, the Berlin Wall was gone. I'm Peter Jennings in New York. Just a short while ago, astonishing news from East Germany,

where the East German authorities have said, in essence, that the Berlin Wall doesn't mean anything anymore. The flood was too much for the hapless East German border guards. At Checkpoint Charlie, they were swamped. They simply gave up, opened the gates, and allowed thousands through the one crossing point that had remained firmly closed. I had been there two months earlier. It was bristling with guns and tanks and all kinds of stuff.

I went there a few days after the wall came down, and there was nothing. There was a tower. All the phones had been ripped out, wires were dangling. It was like it just vanished in smoke. And I don't think Gorbachev, and certainly not many of us, realized that all this made the end of the entire system, of the entire communist system, inevitable. It was not yet evident that we were approaching this cataclysmic end of an era. Essentially, no one yet knew that this was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. No, I don't think so. I certainly did not. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

So Serge, after the Berlin Wall fell, what was the thinking? I mean, did Gorbachev still believe that the Soviet Union could be fixed and stay intact? Of course, in retrospect, we know the days the Soviet Union were numbered. But there is no evidence that Gorbachev saw that or even feared it yet. He was prepared to let the East European countries make their own choices. Czechoslovakia obviously was moving towards a democratic regime and other countries as well. One after the other, the governments were falling. East Europeans were making a choice to become Western countries. But I think he presumed that a reformed Soviet Union would survive and might even flourish. And yet, already then, there were signs to the contrary. The Soviet economy was not flourishing. The reforms that he had launched or tried to launch had not undone the reliance on a central command system, on massive enterprises that were in effect small empires unto themselves, run by tough bosses, enterprises that held control over people's lives. They provided the schooling,

the food stores, and everything else. All that remained in force, and Gorbachev did not seem to be too certain of what to do about this. And there was, to me, a feeling that Gorbachev began floundering. They tried what is now known as the 500-day plan. It was a program of shock therapy, in effect. The economy was to be totally reformed in the space of 500 days. Price controls would be dropped. Factories would have to become self-reliant. factories would have to become self-reliant. They would not be told what to do. It would have meant an abrupt and radical release of control over the economy. But after adopting this program, Gorbachev appeared to become afraid of what it would mean. And so he drew back and went in the opposite direction. He kind of got cold feet and didn't go all the way, it would mean. And so he drew back and went in the opposite direction.

He kind of got cold feet and didn't go all the way, it sounds like. Well, he had every reason to get cold feet. I remember one economist with the World Bank telling me that if they follow this plan through to its logical conclusion, most Russians will freeze this winter. Do you mean that literally? In effect, we don't know because it didn't happen. But the entire distribution of oil was not based on supply and demand. It was based on the government's decision of where oil should go. And because of that, because you didn't have to compete or pay for your supplies, for example,

heating in Moscow buildings was enormously inefficient, enormously wasteful. And I think what the economist meant when he said that to me was that if oil was set at the prevailing global price, Russians couldn't afford it. Right. Because it was being distributed by a centralized system. And that was just one example. Everything was distributed, food, by a centralized system. And as I look back, I simply cannot imagine how Gorbachev could have allowed a massive shock to the economy so the system stayed more or less the same, locked into its stagnation.

So the societal opening up is happening. I mean, it's really happening. It's working. But on the other hand, the economic reforms are not working at all. That was the tragedy that people had received this ability to say everything they wanted, which enabled them, in effect, to complain a lot about what was not happening. Their lives economically were not changing. And for Gorbachev, the problem was compounded by the fact

that all around him, the house was collapsing. Today, two million residents of the Baltic states linked hands to protest not only what happened 50 years ago, but to send a message of defiance to Moscow today. Here's ABC's Jim Moore. One by one, the republics were breaking away, led, of course, by the Baltic republics, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. As a Lithuanian flag was raised and they sang the national anthem once banned by the communists,

Lithuania proclaimed that it had returned to the status it enjoyed up until the Soviet Red Army invaded in 1940. And then the others, Georgia, Azerbaijan. Armenia. On a vote of 183 to 2, Armenia joined Latvia and Estonia in a gradual move towards sovereign statehood. Right. Once these republics got some independence, they wanted total independence. It's almost as if he thought that, you know, you could be in favor of independence and keep the Soviet Union together. And it turns out, as we see, that you couldn't have both.

Yes, that's right. It was something a friend of mine told me. Gorbachev was smart enough to realize that the system needed to be reformed, but not smart enough to realize that any change would mean its collapse. So when it's clear that none of this is really working, how did it all end? It ended with a remarkably pathetic attempt at a coup. It began in a typically Soviet way. Back in the Soviet days, when some major announcement was about to be made, all the broadcasting would stop, and they would just start, you know, looping some symphony orchestra

or something, and then you just sat there and waited. Whenever some major chief died, whether Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Ustinov, whatever, they would just stop broadcasting and then they would take their time to prepare a dramatic announcement. And in this case, in August of 91, broadcasting suddenly stopped and the television, which was still controlled entirely by the state, began looping Swan Lake, of all things. The ballet, familiar, of course, to all Russians, is by Tchaikovsky. And so everybody knew something big is about to happen. Rumors spread.

And finally, this group of hardliners who were still in the Politburo, in the government, including the head of the KGB, the interior minister, came on TV and announced that they were establishing an emergency committee to run the Soviet Union, that Gorbachev was out of office. With tanks in Red Square, the official word from the new government calling itself the National Emergency Committee was that the architect of Glasnost and Perestroika was too ill to continue in office. Ladies and gentlemen, what President Gorbachev has been doing for the last six years. and perestroika was too ill to continue in office. And thus began sort of the last gasp of the old power structure to regain the control it had had for so many years over the society. On Sunday at 1800 hours, I learned that all my telephones were cut off. I had no further communication with the outside world.

Gorbachev, who was in the South, remained defiant. But the real hero was Boris Yeltsin. The democratically elected president of Russia was soon striding out of the building to address a crowd of supporters. Boris Yeltsin had begun as an ally of Gorbachev, a close ally in Perestroika and Glastonists, a close ally in Perestroika and Glastonists, but moved farther and farther away. He had resigned from the Communist Party, and he had built a new power base in the Russian Federation. Russia was just one of the component republics in the Soviet Union, and it had always had its own government. And Yeltsin had taken that government over. He had held elections.

He was, in effect, the first elected president of Russia. And in that position, he had been steadily taking power away from the Soviet government, from the Kremlin. from the Soviet government, from the Kremlin. So Yeltsin mounted a tank outside the headquarters of the Russian government. He climbed aboard one of the Red Army's own tanks and said the coup leaders had disgraced the Soviet Union. And defied the plotters to, you know, come and get him. ...our prestige in the world community

brings us back to the era of the Cold War and the isolation of the Soviet Union from the world community. you know, come and get them. And this became kind of the rallying point of opposition. Thousands of people came out and camped around Yeltsin, around that area. And it was an amazing kind of scene. The defenders were expecting that the leaders of the coup would send tanks and forces to crush them. And they built these huge barricades out of buses and steel and all kinds of junk. Everybody stayed up all night waiting for these tanks to come. We stayed up all night.

We're all waiting. And then the sun came up and it got warm. Then suddenly everybody realized that there were no tanks, that nobody was on the side of this coup, that it was over. There was a strong kind of sense that something dramatic had shifted, that these thugs from the army and the KGB and the interior police and all that would never again be able to take charge. And of course, Yeltsin emerged from this as the hero, and in many ways, as the real leader in Moscow. By the time Gorbachev came back, Yeltsin actually treated him almost with disdain. He no longer treated

him as the leader that he would automatically obey. So what began here was the endgame. So when did the Soviet Union finally die? Like, what was the precise moment? It was a long and painful death that began that morning. Gorbachev continued trying to order reforms, but by now, fewer and fewer of the Republican leaders were taking him seriously. Yeltsin that fall met with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, and they formed a kind of an agreement where they basically decided to abandon the Soviet state. Power was ebbing away from Gorbachev very, very rapidly. And finally, the president who returned to power from house arrest after the failure of the August coup never recovered his authority and tonight paid the political price.

On December 25th, our Christmas Day for Russians, not Christmas at all, just a horrible day with slush falling on Moscow, he resigned. I always spoke for freedom, independence of the people, to the sovereignty of the republics. And I also spoke for the unity of our country. He gave a speech in which he sort of admitted that it had failed, that he had tried to do his best to reform the system, but the whole system collapsed before Nguyen was ready

and that he was now stepping down as president. Of course, we could have avoided some mistakes. We could have made new stuff better. But I'm sure that sooner or later, our common efforts will give fruit. As sooner or later, our common efforts will give fruit. Our people will live in a growing, prospering, democratic society. I wish you all the best. I rushed off in the evening to write the story about it for the Times.

I was the bureau chief. So I sent my wife and my kids out to Red Square to celebrate a bit of Christmas because I was in the office and would be there for a long time writing about Gorbachev, I thought. And it was wet and dreary. But as they walked across this vast, empty space. There was nobody out there because of the weather. Suddenly they saw the old red Soviet flag with a hammer and sickle came down over the Kremlin and the Russian flag, white, blue and red stripes went up. It was in a truly dramatic moment. It was 7.32, my wife reported. And yet, all that happened on Red Square was some drunk yelling, some, you know, quarter hour. So the chiming of those bells and this one drunk yelling was kind of the only celebration on Red Square to mark this moment. And so I wrote an obituary for the Soviet Union. We could finally declare that the Soviet Union,

after 70 tempestuous and often cruel years was finally dead. And that was perceived by many Russians, including, of course, a young KGB operative, Vladimir Putin, as a disaster, or at the very least as a loss. It was indeed. And, you know, Gorbachev had anticipated this in a speech he gave when he said Russians were not likely to take lightly the loss of empire and greatness. And to young people like Putin, this, of course, built a certain resentment, a certain notion that something that he had been raised to defend and to be proud of was being

destroyed. In him, it nurtured this humiliation that he is now so skillfully exploiting in other Russians through the propaganda of this fallen empire. He described the fall of the Soviet Union as one of the great disasters of the century. And many Russians might not agree with that, but many, even on the liberal side felt that Gorbachev had set about destroying a system, but no new system was there to replace the one he was dismantling, while conservatives and nationalists held him responsible for dismantling a great empire. So on both sides, he perhaps figures today as a somewhat negative figure. Serge, in the end, Gorbachev failed to reform.

He failed to do the thing he was trying to do. It was essentially an unreformable system. And it unleashed forces beyond his control. And that was kind of the original sin for someone like Putin. So when you see what's happening in Russia today, you know, the repression, the violence in Ukraine, the crackdowns, knowing everything you know about what came before, what do you think? Knowing everything you know about what came before, what do you think?

When I see what's happening in Russia today, everything that Putin has wrought, this unthinkable invasion and all that, of course, I see a great tragedy. But I find it difficult personally to link it to Gorbachev, to what he did, to how he did it, to his failure. What I see Gorbachev is not as somebody who tried and failed. I prefer to see him as somebody who gave Russia an extraordinary moment of hope and maybe set it on a brief but exciting journey that has shown and maybe will show again what Russia can and should be. Unnecessarily, this kind of crowd of thugs in the Kremlin today sending troops on an extraordinarily cruel and meaningless mission, that is not what Gorbachev had in mind. It is certainly not what he would have done. I see him more as somebody who showed what could be and what should be. And that is certainly something for which I do hope history gives him credit. He was personally a very decent man. He never sort of wallowed in corruption. He could have made millions in retirement, but did not.

in retirement, but did not. I mean, he was a decent man who showed that Russia can be ruled by a decent man toward a decent goal. You know, when I heard of his death yesterday, really among the first thoughts were just that euphoria that I remember really so well, the euphoria that we felt in 85, 86. It was a remarkable period of my life and certainly of Russia's life. He was a man who promised so much, who created such extraordinary expectations,

and to know where it has all led. Of course, it's sad, but you can't change history, and you've got to be grateful for the great moments he gave us. Serge, thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first new formulation of the coronavirus vaccine, one that targets Omicron variants. Roughly 90,000 infections and 475 deaths are still being recorded every day in the United States.

Booster shots of the new vaccine will be available next week. And a little-known Democrat, Mary Peltola, won the special election for Alaska's only House seat, beating a field that included the former Republican governor, Sarah Palin. Peltola, who is 49, would become the first Alaskan native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the House seat. Her victory adds to a series of recent wins for Democrats. to a series of recent wins for Democrats. Today's episode was produced by Will Reed, Jessica Chung, Michael Simon-Johnson,

and Stella Tan. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Paige Cowett and fact-checked by Susan Lee. It contains original music by Dan Powell and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.