Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
The former President of the USSR inadvertently admitted the fact of his high treason, responding to Vladimir Putin’s critique for committing a historical mistake.
Mikhail Gorbachev at the moment of historical time isn’t a deceased man, the fact of which doesn’t give him the right to count only on kind words, or silence in his direction. And I intend to use his specific lack of this right in full.
I will say directly — I personally have absolutely nothing to love him for. It is precisely because of this “benefactor”, who played a fatal role in the disintegration of the Soviet Union, that my parents – honest and law-abiding toilers, my father a railway engineer, and my mother a doctor-therapist, found themselves in their old age in the basement of the five-storey building where they lived in Transnistrian Bendery, where they escaped from the shelling of Romanian-fascists. And 25 years later, already I personally – also in my old age – dropped everything and left Ukraine, which was captured exactly by the same nazis who Gorbachev, by his dismantlement of the country, already at that time paved the way to power for.
That’s why I, as a person from a family twice refugees, which we transformed into from being normal and quite successful citizens of the great State – because of his idiotic “Catastroika”, I can honestly say and with the full right to do so that I heartily despise him. In the same way that many millions of people who he deprived of the Motherland in the most vile way despise him.
But today these emotions don’t concern this affair. Because for this conversation there is an absolutely special occasion. Which demands not emotion, but an absolutely impartial and objective assessment.
The fact is that on June 13th, the President of the Russian Federation — deeply respected by me and the vast majority of honest people, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin gave a critical evaluation of Gorbachev’s activity at his post of the President of the USSR. Specifically the question was about his negative role in the fact that today troops of NATO significantly advanced to the east, and stand already at the very borders of Russia.
Here is what the President said:
“Yes. Then, when the issue of reunification of Germany and of the subsequent withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe was resolved, then the officials in US and the NATO Secretary General, everyone said that the Soviet Union can be sure of one thing: that the eastern border of NATO won’t be pushed further than today’s eastern border of the German Democratic Republic… This was not recorded on paper. It was a mistake, on Gorbachev’s part. It’s necessary to fix things in politics, even recorded things are often violated. He simply had a talk and decided that everything was over. It wasn’t so.”
Putin said everything absolutely correctly. And that the West perfidiously deceived us. And that the Soviet leadership of that time frankly made an error, having relied on the most important geopolitical question on the verbal promise of such inveterate liars as the western politicians. Moreover, the President still softly formulated his claim, speaking only about the error made by Gorbachev. I personally will allow myself not to believe that the head of the world’s superstate was such a naive pushover and that he, besides phenomenal naivety, didn’t have another reason for such unprecedented in world history betrayal of the interests of his own country.
But the most curious thing started already after Putin’s statement. Gorbachev counted himself offended and started snapping.
“I wonder what caused this statement of the President of the Russian Federation,” he said to “Interfax”. “Historical meetings of the heads of the US and the USSR in Geneva, in Reykjavík, in Malta took place. They, eventually, led to the creation of the prerequisites and signing of the termless Treaty on the complete elimination of all missiles of average and smaller range (Russian International Affairs Council), the Treaty on the restriction of strategic offensive arms of the START-1, Treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe, the unification of Germany and, at last, to the end of the cold war. As for Gorbachev’s ‘mistake’, in those conditions even to discuss such a question was legally impossible. Until July, 1991, there were two military-political block — NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Member countries of the Warsaw Treaty Organization didn’t raise this question.” At this time Gorbachev emphasized that the expansion of NATO started when he already stopped being the president for a long time — most active process was ongoing since 2000.”
This mere verbiage is Gorbachev in a nutshell. With all his extreme disgrace, total absence of State responsibility, and branded falsity. But I promised to do it without emotion, so let’s continue in points.
So. It is unclear for Gorbachev what caused such a statement from the Russian President! You only ponder – NATO tanks and missile bases already on the borders of Russia and Belarus. While for him it it is still unclear – why Putin got so agitated? And you know – I believe Gorbachev, that he sincerely doesn’t understand. Why to stress and worry – relax and derive pleasure! As he did during his time. Such is the “Freudian slip”.
Then the former head of the USSR launched into a description of his unprecedented achievements. “Historical meetings” with American Presidents, at which he actually handed over – one after the other – our strategic positions. The end of the “cold war”, which the US bluntly and not without reason calls the victory over the Soviet Union. It turns out that he also considers the reunification of Germany as his achievement! As if he was not the Soviet president, but the German one. And Treaties on a reduction of missiles, which he joyfully grabbed his ankles with such terrible force that even those missile systems that weren’t under any Treaties also went under a press. SS-23 “Oka”, for example.
And, of course, Gorbachev forgot to add to this victorious list those so-called “feats of his”, for which all our former country still curses him. For the fact that he allowed disintegration of the State entrusted to him — the Soviet Union, which he as the President was obliged to defend to a last drop of his blood. For destruction of the system of military-political unions, providing our strategic invulnerability and world influence. And, of course, for awful consequences of the crashing of a huge country with millions of victims, destruction of the world’s largest economy, and the total robbery of all the population.
And further – frank distortion and lies start, which from the mouth of the President of the USSR – even if a former one, sounds like a death sentence to his State and human dignity. Let’s quote this place once again:
“As for Gorbachev’s ‘mistake’, in those conditions even to discuss such a question was legally impossible. Until July, 1991, there were two military-political block — NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Member countries of the Warsaw Treaty Organization didn’t raise this question…”
But after all, what does “it was legally impossible” mean? Gorbachev obviously counts on absolute ignoramuses, thanks to the oldness of the event, can sell any fable. He pretends that he forgot that already a long time before July, 1991, when the formal document on the dissolution of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was signed, the organization already was near death and it was impossible to take it into consideration.
But me personally, I didn’t forget anything. Because at that time I was already an officer of the Soviet army and served in the Southern group of our troops in Hungary, which by July, 1991, already stopped its existence owing to the same decision of Gorbachev on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe.
By that time, the withdrawal of troops had been ongoing for already three years. And Gorbachev, in he had the desire, had bags of time in order to obtain from the West any – even “cast in stone” obligations about the non-advance of NATO to the East. Especially as the countries of the Warsaw pact, and he knows it perfectly well, had no power to decide anything, and all key issues were resolved exclusively in Moscow. Today he refers to the fact that the West didn’t raise such a question? And for what reason did the West have to raise it if the card anyway perfectly laid down in its advantage, and Russians were leaving Europe without any conditions?
But why didn’t Gorbachev himself raise it? The person who ordered Soviet troops to unilaterally leave the territories of East European countries, and more precisely, to disgracefully run from them? After all, he perfectly saw that behind the back of these running troops a deep strategic vacuum will form, which someone will surely try to fill. He saw it, but didn’t lift a finger in order to secure his country for the future!
In fact, Gorbachev, by this statement, directly and, I think that he unexpectedly-for-himself recognized that until July, 1991, although the withdrawal of Soviet troops was already at full speed, he in general didn’t raise in front of the West the question of the non-advance of NATO to the East and didn’t try to obtain an adoption of any formal obligations in this issue. I.e. in general he never raised it, because after July of that year he was already a political vegetable.
This can’t be called anything other than an especially heavy crime, a crime by the highest-ranking official of the State — in the form of high treason. Not to mention that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Eduard Shevardnadze, who was the direct performer of his will, as he admitted later, did everything possible at that time so that the Soviet Union stopped to exist as soon as possible. Good personnel policy was pursued by the main defender of interests of the USSR – its President! There is nothing to say! He placed traitors in the most key positions!
And this extremely doubtful character, who prison still awaits, still has the nerve to today object the President of Russia when the latter, in a very soft form, points to the erroneousness of the actions of Gorbachev in that historical situation. And he not simply objects, but also tries to accuse Putin of advancing NATO to the East, frankly connecting this process with the beginning of Putin’s presidency — in 2000! While it is clear even for a child that the latter couldn’t at all counter this, having received in his hands a bloodless army and country dismantled by Gorbachev and his henchmen.
Generally, judging by this statement of Gorbachev, the known saying that time heals, here, categorically doesn’t apply. But another one suits well, which says that only the grave can straighten the hunchback.