A Belated Happy Birthday to Mikhail Gorbachev

Gorbachev's birthday, it arbitrarily turns out, fell last week.  Desultory Eclecticism features him today because 1) Gorbachev had an op-ed published in the Sunday Times 2) Desultory Eclecticism was recently reminded of a relic from the early post-Communist past 3) Desultory Eclecticism has been too busy to provide you with its usual probing analytic insights and just needed to throw something together.  Promises of better stuff to come this week.


An excerpt from the Times op-ed, which provides some nice first-hand context for Russia 25 years after Перестройка (perestroika for the less pretentious):


...What were our goals, what did we want to achieve? We came a long way in a short time — moving from trying to repair the existing system to recognizing the need to replace it. Yet I always adhered to my choice of evolutionary change — moving deliberately so that we would not break the backs of the people and the country and would avoid bloodshed.


While the radicals pushed us to move faster, the conservatives stepped on our toes. Both groups must bear most of the blame for what happened afterward. I accept my share of responsibility as well. We, the reformers, made mistakes that cost us, and our country, dearly.


Our main mistake was acting too late to reform the Communist Party. The party had initiated perestroika, but it soon became a hindrance to our moving forward...


And a relic from the ensuing chaos of the Yeltsin years (extra context: Desultory Eclecticism recalls this commercial airing during the seminal tragedy of the 20th Century):