GLAS-NAUGHT AND PERESTRICKEN
A year that’s somewhat struggled to generate true starpower among its hits has picked up the pace in recent weeks, and has rounded off the summer with one of the most pivotal figures of the 20th century. Yup, there’ll be no tearing down the crypt wall for splotch-forehead Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, for whom it’s (iron) curtains aged 91. Figures across the globe are mourning a man who did much to steer the world in a safer direction, though his old kick dancing buddy Zangief has yet to be reached for comment.
A farmer’s boy in his youth, Gorbachev was politically involved as soon as he was out of college, and his young activist mind was often at odds with the crusty Soviet leadership though strongly influenced by Khrushchev’s public rebuking of Stalin. He worked within the system, where he became an innovative power player in the Stavropol region with primarily agricultural roles. By the late 70s he joined the loftiest bodies in the Soviet hierarchy, the Central Committee and the leader-deciding Politburo. After the death of caterpillar-browed Leonid Brezhnev, the Politburo typically selected frail septuagenarians as new heads of state – Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko – and the end result was the Soviet Union cycling through leaders like if the US kept electing William Henry Harrison. Rather than continue this Matryoshka doll song-and-dance, they deduced that it was time to go with someone a little younger.
Gorbachev cut a markedly different figure from previous Soviet leaders, for his relative youth, energetic disposition, and his reform-oriented ideology. With the stagnant economy evident, he was cognizant that the corrupt, repressive regime of years past wasn’t viable for the long term. He presented himself much more humbly than his predecessors, frequently visiting commoners and forbidding the cult of personality that insulated many a Soviet leader. Initially, he acted in the cautious reformist mould of his mentor Andropov, but soon realised starker action was necessary. The crux of Gorbachev’s relaxation strategy was the two-pronged glasnost and perestroika. Glasnost meant “openness” and promoted freedom of expression – the press and people were now free to criticise the government and discuss taboo issues, while the horrors of Stalin were no longer whitewashed. Glasnost was intended to pave the way for perestroika – “reconstruction” – a total revamp of the Soviet economic structure.
His reforms accomplished a lot of good. Many corrupt old-timer officials were uprooted from the hierarchy. Multiparty elections were permitted, and among those elected to parliament was Andrei Sakharov, who Gorbachev freed from exile. He withdrew from the bloody, futile Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His diplomatic overtures to Thatcher and Reagan paid off in spades – his famed meetings with the Gipper led to a Soviet downsizing of its nuclear arsenal, and a thawing of US-Soviet relations and by proxy the Cold War. For many years, any sort of bond between the two countries seemed as preposterous as a B-list movie cowboy being half of that equation. Nuclear armageddon fears, once pervasive, were quelled (despite the best efforts of sods like Trump and Putin today). That is testament to Gorbachev at his best.
If a man of great ideas and ambition, his hesitance at key moments proved fatal for Gorbachev. Perestroika was largely unpopular with the Russian populace by the late 80s, and Gorbachev stalled in face of public pressure. The narrow route to successfully implement the policy had closed. His intentions with glasnost and perestroika were never to dissolve the Soviet Union, but the freshness of freedom left many of its members yearning for full-fledged independence. Gorbachev was praised for going with the flow for many of the fallen dominoes, from Poland to Czechoslovakia to Germany, but he more stubbornly tried to keep the Baltic trio of Estonia, Latvia, and especially Lithuania wrested to the Soviet Union. He initially and ignobly used force, then resorted to embargoes and implementing laws that muddied Baltic independence manouevres. Baltic independence was as inevitable as the other Soviet satellites, and Gorbachev eventually acquiesced.
Gorbachev also struggled with much of the personnel in Moscow, and was often outfoxed by his successor, occasional ally and frequent rival Boris Yeltsin. The fatal blow was the August 1991 attempted coup that saw old-timer hardliners hold Gorbachev hostage for three days. Yeltsin hammered out a deal with the hardliners, and the portly lush secured safety for Gorbachev at the cost of much of Gorby’s political capital. Gorbachev limped on for months, but his political fate was sealed and he resigned that December, marking the dissolution of the Soviet Union with it.
The ramifications of his tenure left Gorbachev a lauded figure in the Western world, though derided by Russia in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He founded a namesake research organisation and received numerous honours, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He threw his hat in the political ring one last time in 1996, but finished with .5% of the vote. Still .5% more than anyone who runs against Putin tbf.
And now the bit you were all waiting for. An episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! in which an actor playing Gorbachev is inspired by Mario and Luigi to start up his own pizzeria proved stunningly prophetic – Gorby himself later starred in a bizarre Pizza Hut commercial that commentated on his divisive reputation in his homeland. And admittedly he did it to fund his foundation. He was no stranger to unusual advertisements – with Soviet governmental approval, a weird anime Gorbachev was used as the face of the Tetris-esque puzzle game Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen (Gorby’s Great Pipeline Strategy).
Mikhail Gorbachev initially welcomed the seeming stability of Vladimir Putin, only to become an ardent critic while Putin returned Russia to the oppressive regime that Gorbachev tried to consign to history. Though he occasionally agreed with Putin (he supported the annexation of Crimea), he skewered the horrific invasion of Ukraine from his hospital bed. As Putin gruesomely attempts to create his own Soviet Union, another wall was being torn down – that being a good chunk of Gorbachev’s legacy. Yet if Gorbachev had his flaws, and if miscalculations in his ambition made his reforms within Russia seem a fever dream, the modern Europe will remain testament to a man who reshaped the world and largely for the better.
Gorbachev was in ill health for years, and rumours he gave up the ghost after no longer being able to order Pizza Hut cannot be confirmed. Putin eulogised him (though snubbed the funeral), as did BoJo and Kissinger. If we were in Gorby’s shoes, we’d delay our inevitable as long as possible too. He was picked in every DDP year where records are available, though waited until 2020 to shoot into Drop 40 glory. 48 comrades uncork their vodka bottles – among them a whole row of political themes, c.a. daver, Jumptheshark, Madonna’s Hand of Bod, and Deathlist.net. Our sister site has had a lean year thus far, but at least they’re spared the embarrassment of a Gorby miss.
Mikhail Gorbachev
2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022, aged 91
48 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 8 POINTS)