Facebook reactions to Mikhail Gorbachev’s death prove that people, not only in Armenia, but all over the world, are guided not by sober assessments of historical services and failures of this or that politician, but by mythical ideas about that person.
Most of the people living in Armenia today were not particularly happy when, after 1985, the strict restrictions were gradually removed, and people started to read, write, and speak about what was forbidden until then. I understand that it is not important for many people.
The representatives of the middle generation may have heard from their grandparents that Gorbachev was an agent of the West and destroyed the “beautiful” country at the orders of dark forces, and their parents may have informed them that the Koltso operation took place at Gorbachev’s orders, and with his permission, hundreds of Armenians were brutally killed and tortured in Sumgait and Baku. Hence the prevailing mood of posthumous curses.
In fact, the process of the collapse of the Soviet Union, inter-ethnic conflicts, the aspirations of the national (mainly communist) elites in the Soviet republics for independence were much more complex, multi-layered processes. They cannot be attributed to the good or bad will of just one person.
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Could Gorbachev have slowed down these processes and taken more decisive steps towards creating a new union? He probably could have. But, it should be taken into account that if there is no center from which clear and unconditional orders are given, if there is no powerful and ruthless repressive apparatus which carries out those orders, if there is finally no single party which exercises, in fact, uncontrolled power, then that vast country would be very difficult to save.
The whole problem is that we wanted and maybe now we want everything to happen at the same time. Freedom, independence, social guarantees of a prosperous life, open borders, crowded supermarkets, a safe life. In short, all the advantages of the “Soviet” would be preserved, but all the benefits of the West would be added to them. It doesn’t happen that way. No Gorbachev could provide that.
Aram Abrahamyan
