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November 2003

Gorbachev speaks on communism’s fall

Mikhail Gorbachev holds Katya Drysdale, 4. Katya was born in Russia and adopted by Chip and Dianne Drysdale.

Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev recently gave a UNF audience some insight into the fall of communism in his country and the reasons why he concluded the Soviet system was doomed.

Gorbachev, 72, said the original land reforms enacted by Lenin benefited farming families, such as his. As a young man, he thought communism was a viable form of government. However, farming families were exploited under Stalin, and he said he quickly saw the weaknesses of the system.

After going through World War II, an experience he said would live with him forever, he became active in the Communist Party.

Gorbachev said the basic weakness of the system was its inability to introduce new leadership. At the time, he was considered a young leader, but the Politburo was dominated by old leaders who, he said, were unable to comprehend the need for reform.

“They were trying, as they say, to pour old wine into new bottles,” he said.
He was particularly shocked by policies under Nikita Khrushchev. “It opened my eyes,” he said, ”to what was happening in Russia.”

When he was selected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, he said he knew he could not move too quickly.

“I had to move slowly at first, otherwise, they would have fired me like they did Khrushchev,” he noted.

As he started to change the membership of the Politburo, he said he was able to begin changes in the government. For a time, he said he thought the Soviet system could be reformed. But after he was elected president in 1988, he determined that wholesale change was needed.

“I knew that the government had to be accountable to the people. The Communist monopoly had to end,” he said.

Similarly, Gorbachev said other former Soviet Union satellite countries had to be given the same rights as he was extending to Russians.

“We could not refuse our friends free choice. We had to give them freedom,” he said. This policy led to the end of communist governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia and, ultimately, the fall of the Berlin Wall as East Germany collapsed.
Gorbachev received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Gorbachev’s speech was sponsored by the International Forum Institute and the Ponte Vedra Federated Republican Women’s Club.

Michael Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan, served as moderator of the discussion.