Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/052592/05259927.000

Text File | 1992-09-10 | 6KB | 129 lines

                                                                                DIPLOMACY, Page 51

A Chat with the Gorbachevs


The former Soviet President slips easily into the role of senior
statesman, showing no regrets about the past and still eager to
help shape the future

By BRUCE W. NELAN


    Nothing about Mikhail Gorbachev's triumphal two-week tour
of the U.S. suggested that he was a politician removed from
power. Americans, who still see the last President of the Soviet
Union as the man most responsible for ending the cold war,
received him with standing ovations from Stanford University to
the New York Stock Exchange to Capitol Hill. Though he resigned
his office more than four months ago, he has lost neither the
aura nor the trappings of a major political figure.

    Nothing about Gorbachev himself, when he met for an hour
with TIME's editors at the Waldorf Towers in New York City last
week, suggested a diminution of power either. This was, his
press representative explained, not an interview but only an
informal conversation, and he could not be quoted directly.

    Riding the transcontinental wave of applause and buoyed by
his days of high-profile meetings, the ex-President was as
ebullient and voluble as ever. He looked fit and sounded feisty.
This was not a man nursing a sense of regret or meditating on
mistakes he might have made. Though his visit to the U.S. was
ostensibly to raise funds and make contacts for his new
political think tank, the Gorbachev Foundation, it also eased
him smoothly into the rarefied ranks of senior statesmen whose
pronouncements are expected to reverberate around the globe. His
theme is a corollary of his own perestroika: the whole world is
in need of change and reorientation.

    Gorbachev's speaking style, usually discursive and
indirect, is more hortatory than ever, almost condescending in
its certitude. He can pontificate, but then compensates by
flashing his grin, bouncing in his chair and making a sweeping
gesture to pull in his listeners. There is much that is
theatrical in his performance, beginning with his voice, which
he projects like an operatic baritone. He takes many questions
as personal criticism and obviously believes the best defense
is a good offense, demolishing the questioner's premise as he
bulldozes into the points he wants to make.

    Gorbachev would not be drawn into an admission that
socialist theory had failed or that communism was dead. An
alternative between capitalism and socialism is in the offing,
he said. The use of force for political ends is being
discredited. The 20th century has little to teach the 21st, and
new thinking is needed.

    Looking back at perestroika and glasnost, he did concede
that he had no idea what those changes would lead to. He
thought at the outset that he could tinker a bit to ease the
pressures on the Soviet economy and make society more
comfortable. He blames the system for making that impossible.
Initially, he said, some progress was visible, but when senior
officials of the party and state saw how the reforms might
threaten their power and positions, they put on the brakes. If
the ruling hierarchy's grip was to be broken, he decided, a more
democratic form of politics would have to be introduced. He
assumed that power would have to be decentralized and that he
would have to give up some of his authority. But he could not
and did not know where it all was headed.

    His wife Raisa interrupted to recall that she too is often
asked whether she would have supported his reform plans if she
had known what was going to happen. She is the wounded one,
plainly marked by the trauma of losing power, and she was
willing to speak on the record. "Had I known all that I know
now," she said, "I still think I would have decided to support
him." Despite her pride in what she called "the tremendous
breakthrough" of pere stroika, she says the past seven years
were full of "traumatic events" and that 1991 was "tragic." She
cited "the 73 hours spent under arrest" in the hands of coup
plotters last August, "the betrayal by people who had worked
closely with my husband," the collapse of the economy, "the
rupturing of the spiritual links of our culture," and the
dismembering of the Soviet Union. "I cannot regard Ukraine as
some kind of foreign country," she said. "Ukraine is us."

    Gorbachev aptly noted that he was the first Soviet
President who was neither buried nor arrested but continues to
play a visible public role. Russians don't know what to make of
this and are suspicious. His foundation and his other
activities, he observed, could lead to conflicts with the newly
arrived crop of politicians who have much to learn about the
give and take of democracy.

    He shrugs off threats to his personal safety. She is
openly worried. They were in physical danger once and could be
again, she fears. She sees threats all around: the Russian
press, she says, is mounting an anti-Gorbachev campaign,
printing reports that he has bought houses in foreign countries
or has smuggled vast sums of money abroad. In a rough-and-tumble
society like Russia's, this spells uncertainty at least.

    Gorbachev is outspokenly weary of criticism, from radical
reformers and hard-line communists alike. Both sides hated and
vilified him for years, he says, but offered no solutions. He
calls on those who can solve Russia's problems to speak up and
those who cannot to keep quiet. What passes for decisive
leadership today, he says -- naming no names -- has done nothing
to dampen continuing outbreaks of nationalist upheaval and
ethnic bloodletting.

    Despite the economic and political crises in the republics
of the former Soviet Union, Gorbachev projects an overwhelming
optimism. Russia is down, he says, but will rise again.
Although he vows he will not become part of the opposition and
has no political ambitions, his continuing involvement in high
policy implies he may see himself as the once and future
President. His country is in no mood to recall him to power now,
and he cannot be sure it ever will. But if it does, his
undiminished self-confidence indicates that he is ready to
answer.