By Alexander Karavayev
VK’s commentary:
In connection with the recent 20th anniversary of the USSR collapse, the ex-president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, has made a number of recommendation to the current Russian government. However, some experts doubt whether the results of his political career give him a right to give such advice. It was during his presidency that scholarly discussions on certain aspects of the history of Soviet peoples turned into bloody riots and inter-ethnic wars that ruined the lives of countless Soviet citizens and the consequences of which still weigh on all post-Soviet countries.
During the first official visit of Vladimir Putin to Azerbaijan he visited the commemorative Alley dedicated to the victims of January, 1990, when Soviet punitive squad entered Baku. Azerbaijani government read this gesture as a condemnation of the actions of Gorbachev’s government by the current Russian rulers.
Each January two very different post-Soviet states – Azerbaijan and Lithuania – commemorate similar tragic events: mass murder of civilians by Soviet troops following mass political protests.
The blood spilt there and in some other Soviet capitals in now believed to be one of the key reasons for the Union’s disintegration and a moral ground for creation of new states. Another important aspect of this topic is the degree of moral, legal and historical responsibility of the supreme Soviet leaders of that epoch, including the Secretary General of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev.
This issue raises a whole series of questions. Would it be adequate to legally pursue Gorbachev’s lack of reaction to nationalist pogroms and inadequate use of military force against political protesters later? Wouldn’t it turn into a political ‘witch hunt’? Is it possible for the different countries’ human right organizations to unite and submit an action against Gorbachev and would they find any support in Russia? And is there any difference between his legal and moral responsibilities in this matter anyway?
All these questions are not easy to answer and usually are being avoided. However, I find it necessary to address these issues as they could present useful lessons for modern politicians.
Winners are not judged
Of course, if the China model of communist system reorganization would have been enacted in the Soviet Union, if it managed to survive bloody repressions by introducing efficient economic reforms, only descendants would have posed the question of the government’s moral responsibility for shooting…
However, it is true that repressions could not keep the Union together, as after Brezhnev’s rule the Union’s leadership lost all its moral and ideological authority whatsoever. That makes Soviet reality of 80s-early90s completely different from that of China. If Chinese government managed to win as it had the support of the majority of Chinese people (despite the numerous repressions against separatists, protesters, etc.) and thus couldn’t be judged, Soviet repressions resulted is strengthening of centrifugal and anti-communist trends. In addition, the Chinese Communist party remained united as far as the most principle political issues where concerned.
During Gorbachev’s reign the Soviet Union passed a point of no return and its disintegration became imminent. The party and the government system were corrupted from within and had no inner strength to carry on. The Kremlin lost its ideological monopoly, Soviet economic system failed to compete with the principle of private property. Gorbachev could only officially seal the fact of the collapse of the Soviet ideological and economic system and thus the end of the Soviet statehood itself. In 1990-1991 Mikhail Gorbachev had no real means of influencing the events apart from the use of military force, while in China official Peking had some ideological leverage. Both State Committee on the State of Emergency putsch attempt and the plan of a new Union treaty were ‘late answers’ to the problem that has already resolved itself in quite a different way.
The responsibility of the events of this period can’t be put on the shoulders of Mikhail Gorbachev; however, it is his fault that he hasn’t done anything to prevent this scenario when he still had control over the Soviet state. His actions on the post of the Secretary General became the symbol of the demise of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s partisans use these arguments as pros, but not all liberals free him from all historic responsibility.
It is true that the collapse of the USSR ruined the lives of a great number of Soviet citizens, so it is not surprising that a lot of civic groups are being organized in order to seek legal action against Gorbachev. In my opinion such claims are legally unsound; however, Gorbachev could be pursued under more concrete charges: as the governor of the country he is responsible for the blood of peaceful protesters shot by Soviet troops and of those citizens who were hurt in pogroms due to the lack of action from the part of the central government.
Why couldn’t the police and the KGB prevent the well-planned Sumgait pogrom of February, 1989, or the events in Baku in January, 1990? Or even the anti-Azerbaijani actions in Armenia in 1987? Why did the central government remain inert when the first sparks of the future Karabakh conflict manifested themselves?
Georgians could pose similar questions. Why didn’t the Kremlin take decisive action when Georgian-Abkhaz tensions spiked in 1989? Why did the troops act inadequately during the Tbilisi demonstration of 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 19 protesters? Why couldn’t the central government enact preventive measures instead?
And finally, why didn’t the Kremlin try to negotiate with national elites when the failure of the use of brutal force was evident? Back in 1989 Gorbachev refused to take the responsibility for Tbilisi events and blamed the army. These questions were researched by Anatoly Sobchak’s commission.
In 1990, when the events of the ‘Black January’ took place in Baku, KGB has already lost the control over Azerbaijani-Iranian border, and the Karabakh conflict has already erupted and claimed lives of Azerbaijani people. Mass protests against the inertness of the central government were organized in Baku, the people were organizing forces for national defense, Nakhichevan autonomous republic declared its secession from the Union. If Gorbachev wished to bring the situation under control he should have acted much earlier or at least a week later, when anti-Armenian pogroms took place in Baku. Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who later became the first President of Armenia, pointed out in his address on radio ‘Svoboda’ that Soviet troops were introduced to Baku not to protect Armenian population (it has already feed the city by than), but to try to hold the Union together. 132 Azerbaijani citizens, including women and children, died in vain in a desperate attempt to rescue the agonizing state.
As for the Vilnius events of January, 1991, by that time it was obvious that Lithuania and other Baltic republics were already lost for the Union. The tragedies in Baku and Tbilisi had already happened. So why did Kremlin make the same mistake over again? As a result, another 14 Soviet citizens died and more than 600 were injured.
Not the party’s fault
The Union’s law enforcement authorities investigated all these incidents. However, the Sumgait pogrom wasn’t regarded as a single case; it was divided into 80 minor actions. Only one of them was regarded by the Supreme Court of the USSR. 94 participants of the pogrom, mainly young people, were arrested, 80 of them were prosecuted, but mostly as regular hooligans. This very approach prohibited the court to seek out and arrest the real masterminds of the ethnic pogrom, s well as to punish local authorities for criminal omission.
Sobchak’s commission that took up the incident in Tbilisi managed to recreate the real picture of the event, but failed to find out who gave the soldiers the order to shoot the protestors. Forensic experts claimed that some victims sustained cutting wounds and chemical poisoning; however the army denied using any cold weapons and chemical weapons against the protestors. Meanwhile, new demonstrations broke out in Tbilisi and martial law was enacted there. The republics government had to resign and criminal actions were enacted against some of its members; however, in 1990 the charges were dropped due to ‘the change in circumstances.’
USSR Chief Prosecutor’s Office also investigated Baku events, however, couldn’t find corpus delicti in the actions of the military, so the action was stopped.
As you see, the authorities tried to punish all but those truly responsible: the CRSU Central Bureau and the KGB chief officers. Foreign intelligence also proved to be a very efficient scapegoat.
Gorbachev didn’t recognize his responsibility back then and he didn’t change his position in 20 years that followed. He didn’t even apologize to the victims and their relatives, thus ensuring that the destructive role that he played won’t ever be forgiven and forgotten. Today’s authorities should study from this mistake; however, in the past 10 years Kremlin has been demonstrating the same unwillingness to admit its mistakes, to take responsibility for its failures and the catastrophes they caused – it is possibly viewed as a manifestation of weakness by the elite.
Today’s situation
Reviewing the possibility of a legal action against Mikhail Gorbachev, we should take into account the ambiguous evaluation of his political heritage in the modern world. We also should remember that the tragic events of 20 years’ prescription have grown a thick layer of myths and interpretations, as well as new dramatic episodes.
Today Gorbachev positions himself as a critic of the current political system in Russia, of the ruling party and its leader, Vladimir Putin. His current actions won the support of the West and of young democratic movement in Russia. Some old-school democrats, decedents of the 60s and 70s praise Gorbachev for ‘perestroika’. However, some still can’t forgive him for the use of force against protestors. For example, last year Vladimir Bukovsky (Russian decedent of Sakharov’s and Solzhenitsin’s magnitude) tried to submit an action for Gorbachev’s arrest to London Court accusing him of violent repressions in Baku, Tbilisi and Vilnius.
Other Russian political forces, far from liberal, for example the ‘Syndicate of Russian citizens’, also organize themselves to launch legal prosecution of Mikhail Gorbachev. The ‘Syndicate’ has already addressed the state committee of inquiry and hopes to submit an action, inviting all those who see Gorbachev as the culprit of those tragic events to join the action.
And finaly, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Lithuania after 20 years of deliberations, in May, 2011, submitted a request for Gorbachev’s inquiry to Russian government. However, Moscow refused referring to a clause in Russian-Lithuanian agreement on legal cooperation stating that a party can refuse any request that could ‘endanger the sovereignty of the state and affect its inner stability.’
Azerbaijan launched an action against Gorbachev in 2003; however Baku wasn’t ready for a conflict with Moscow so the investigation ended in nothing.
But the very fact that the ex-Soviet republics don’t forget about possible prosecution of Gorbachev even 20 years later speaks for itself.
Current topic is very ambiguous and uneasy to discuss. Mikhail Gorbachev certainly has to answer some questions, but it is important not to turn this investigation into harassment. The problem has to be discussed by experts to be viewed objectively, and it is not a matter of a short period of time. It still impossible to prove Gorbachev’s involvement in giving orders to shoot protestors by any documents. But it is still important to conduct an investigation – not to execute revenge, but to create an efficient mechanism of making ex-governors responsible for their mistakes.
