“He liquidated our USSR and killed our future…” Irina, a tired forties, does not have enough harsh words against Mikhail Gorbachev. This mother, who alternates household chores and odd jobs in a store in a medium-sized town in Siberia, confided in herself long before the death of the last Soviet leader. Today, like the vast majority of Russians, Irina will not mourn Mikhail Gorbachev, and will continue to support Vladimir Putin. Because, in deep Russia, the father of perestroika is as hated as the current head of the Kremlin is loved.
“Putin, he rebuilt Russia and gave us back our honor”, continues Irina. The Russians, who have had no real democratic experience, compare the exhausting years of post-communist transition under Mikhail Gorbachev, then those of his successor Boris Yeltsin, to the new Russia of Vladimir Putin, strong president of a country convinced of not can only be led by authoritarian leaders.
The former blew a wind of freedom but embodied the weakness of power. Under their presidency, Russia lost its influence and felt humiliated. The current president represents quite the opposite: in the country, he brought stability; on the outside, he transformed the mocked and marginalized pariah into the ubiquitous and menacing hawk. Suddenly, the popularity of Vladimir Putin, real although strongly maintained by the propaganda of the Kremlin, is largely explained by the unpopularity of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Nostalgia for the Soviet regime
“The USSR had a long-term economic and social project. Why destroy it like Gorbachev and then Yeltsin did? », wonders among others Andreï who, retired, condemns the reforms of the two heads of the Kremlin behind the chaotic transition between the USSR and the new Russia. This former worker does not hide his nostalgia for the Soviet regime. Not for Stalinist terror. But for a system that guaranteed day-to-day stability and plans for the future. “At least, before Gorbachev, we had the certainty of building something big”sighs Andrei.
“Above all, we had a stable and secure life. Hhospitals and schools were free and of good quality”, adds Elena, his wife. Another argument far from Western praise for the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize celebrated for “having peacefully ended the cold war” : Gorbachev is seen as a powerless leader taken by events that have become uncontrollable, subject to foreign pressure from former enemy countries.
“He opened us to a new world”
The perception of the legacy left by Gorbachev is very different in the new middle class in Moscow, educated and affluent. “For me, who entered primary school in 1985, the year he came to power, he was the man who made political discussions possible! »recalls Barbara, in her thirties, employed in various environmental NGOs and international cooperation. “In class, we were told that democracy = glasnost and pluralism. I grew up with Gorbachev. He opened us to a new world”concludes Barbara.
Even the most reforming of this new Muscovite elite, however, do not forget the hard hours of daily life under perestroika. “I see the empty store shelves again. And the long queues to buy some groceries”remembers Marina, in her forties, in charge of communication in a chain of modern hotels. “It was a crisis in the truest sense of the word: we were in a transition phase. It hurt! A necessary evil… “, philosopher Marina. A minority voice in today’s Russia.