Thou Gorbachev, Just Like Brutus!

Farooque Chowdhury

Gorbachev’s was a betrayer’s life. He’s the person who led a band of betrayers to dismantle the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—Soviet Union. The biggest country in the world stretching from the Pacific to the Black Sea, from the Arctic to the Caspian Sea, with Tundra, Steppes and the Urals, was created with toil, blood and love of millions of toiling people coming from factories, workshops and farms. It was decades of struggle by the millions. This heroic people defeated armies organised by imperialists from around the world, and defied imperialist blockade. This courageous working people defeated the Nazi marauders.

But the Betrayer Band led by that person named Mikhail Gorbachev stabbed from inside—from inside the party, from inside the state machine.

Imperialists, the bourgeoisie, war traders, traders with hunger and poverty, businessmen trading death and destitution, feudal lords and their retinue, all the exploiters laughed aloud with the job Gorbachev accomplished—tear down Soviet Union, flatten all the achievements the toilers made, raze to the ground all the advancements the exploited, the prisoners of starvation made. The exploiters named the land “Evil Empire”—appropriate to characterise by the blood suckers. It was evil to the exploiters, it was enemy to the imperialists, and it was one of the barricades to the forces organising war against peoples around the world. Gorbachev played a catalyst role in the dismantling of this enemy of the imperialists-bourgeoisie-exploiters. His position comes to daylight when enemies of the exploited praise him. So, he was like, as he titled one of his books, Alone With Myself. The exploited feel no sympathy, no appreciation for him. The exploited just despise him, just condemn him.

A village boy, Gorbachev, once admitted the system in Soviet Union, which very often but wrongly identified as communism, “gave him the opportunity to earn everything he had.” One can question—was betrayal to the cause of the exploited also among those earnings?

With his work, the farm mechanic, the harvester driver, at the age of 17, became one of the youngest recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour—a prestigious award. He joined the Communist Party/Komsomol. Then, almost like Brezhnev, rose from ordinary position to Politburo of the party. Brezhnev was one of his main sponsors. To Andropov, he was “My Rough Diamond”. Birds of the same feather!

Gorbachev’s Uskorenie, policy of acceleration, Perestroika, reform or rebuilding, Glasnost, openness, were attempts by a faction of the ruling coterie to resolve contradictions in the economy and politics that the revisionists were promoting since usurping power in the Communist Party of Soviet Union and the state. The economy, state, and the party, communist party in name, were experiencing decay, stagnation, corruption, bureaucracy, dictatorship of the coterie. Many others outside of Soviet Union began assuming socialism has been established in the land, and all contradictions have been resolved successfully. That was a wrong assumption, an imagination, an idea that ignored reality; but the reality is in economy, in politics, within contradictions.

Gorbachev in his Perestroika cited revolutions in France, UK and USA—more than one to consolidate and refine power of the bourgeoisie. His report “October and Perestroika: The revolution continues” also had the same saying. [Brezhnev’s “Virgin lands” in his Trilogy (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1980) also tells many nice words about the Communist Party, management, participation, decision making process, and heroic deed by and sacrifices of party members.] Then, what about Soviet Union? He indicated more than one revolutions are required.

But the “visionary” failed to see, or recognise, contradictions between capital and labour, between capitals, between imperialism and people.

Within the society he was leading, the leader guided the party he was at the helm of, actually a coterie, the contradictions in favour of the money put under carpets, in favour of the coterie. Consequently, loot began, the rich and powerful informally living within the party and the state came out to daylight, and started grabbing public properties. The class struggle within the society formally moved in favour of the rich, the imperialist propaganda machine named them the oligarchs, which is the same billionaires in other imperialist/capitalist countries having different phases of origin, but all had, broadly and basically, the same primitive accumulation.

He was telling about “the sovereign right of each people to choose their social system”, in mid-1989. Imperialist masters liked it as they understood that the statement means the right to throw away socialism or post-revolutionary system with struggles to move toward socialism. Gorbachev actually accepted the masters’ interpretation. The masters loved him.

The villain of the Soviet system once admitted the reality of dismembering Soviet Union and disuniting the Soviet state.

So, it’s not strange to hear from Mr Joe Biden to praise Gorbachev: “When he came to power, the Cold War had gone on for nearly 40 years and communism had gone even longer, with devastating consequences.” To Mr Biden, Gorbachev was a “man of remarkable vision”. This helps understand the person—Gorbachev, helps understand the interests the person secured.

Gorbachev felt the US needs a Perestroika. But, he denied admitting the fact that the system shall never voluntarily step on a stone, which will open a floodgate of its dismantling process, similar to the process of dismantling of the USSR.

Bourgeois media talks a lot about democracy, people’s voice, vote; but how many times have the media talked about the 1990 referendum in the USSR about the preservation of the union? In that referendum, the majority of the voters voted for the preservation of the USSR. But, the verdict was ignored, and the USSR was dismantled. Gorbachev was part of the process of dismantling of the USSR, of denying the voters’ verdict. It was one of his acts like Brutus—stabbing, following a conspiracy, while posing as submitting a petition. This was Gorbachev praised by the bourgeoisie.

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Frontier
Vol 55, No. 12, Sep 18 - 24, 2022