Good evening, gracious sovereigns and gracious ladies!
In this post, I will briefly touch on a topic closely related to the 80th birthday of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.
So, after the events referred to in Russian historiography as a putsch and which took place from 19 to 22 August 1991, the collapse of the Tri-series became a fait accompli. However, there were still several months left before the legalization and this political fact. Therefore, formally, until December 1991, the USSR existed as a state recognized by the notorious international community. And the pivot of the Soviet Union since its inception has been the Communist Party.
I would like to recall the outline of events preceding the aforementioned coup. So in July 1991, the last XXVIII Congress of the CPSU was held, which adopted a new party program and, thereby, determined new vectors for the development of the Tri-series.
Structurally, the party by this time was already not an integral organization, but a set of parties of the Union republics, which was recorded in the new changed composition of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, which consisted of the General Secretary (Gorbachev), his deputy (Ivashko) and the first secretaries of the Central Committee of the Union republics.
Such a structure was already a harbinger of the collapse of the Tri-series, and the main role in this fact was played by the formed Communist Party of the RSFSR. It was she who became the factor that finally broke off allied relations within the CPSU, making it the sum of allied communist parties. The superstructure was no longer needed.
At the same time, within the framework of the entire quasi-state structure of the Tri-Serie, the process of developing a new order of internal political interaction was taking place, the basis of which was to be a new Union Treaty. The old one, signed in 1922, no longer met the new realities. The signing of this agreement was scheduled for August 20, 1991 ...
It is difficult to say with complete certainty what this putsch was. I, like many of my politically engaged colleagues, believe that M. Gorbachev himself was the main customer of this. As evidence, one can cite, firstly, the indecision of the actions of the putschists, and secondly, their flight to M. Gorbachev after the failure of the putsch itself. It seemed that they simply did not follow the order, and now they were eager for new instructions. But be that as it may, the failure of the event and the collapse of the USSR that followed it became historical facts.
Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation from the post of President of the USSR happened after the signing of the Belovezhskaya Agreements, but from the post of General Secretary of the Bolshevik Party - already on August 22, 1991 from the birth of Christ! Moreover, M. Gorbachev not only left the party, but also offered the party to dissolve. Why?
Let's try to figure it out.
All activities of M. Gorbachev in the post of general secretary of the Bolshevik party were reduced to reforming it and, as a result, reforming the entire quasi-state structure of the Council of Deputies.
The reforms of the last secretary general were comprehensive.
First of all, they concerned the political sphere and represented a large-scale democratization of the entire social and political structure of the Tri-series. In the Bolshevik language, this phenomenon was denoted by the word "perestroika".
Perestroika touched upon the issues of party building, changes in the national-state structure of the Tri-series, breaking up the party and state apparatus. Particularly significant was the change in foreign policy, which turned into a means of saving the USSR itself and its transformation into a more mobile modern society.
The mass media received great openness. Television, radio and newspapers gradually began to more objectively consider not only historical events, but also contemporary events for their readers, radio listeners and viewers.
Freedom touched theater, cinema, literature, painting.
Celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus became an unprecedented affair for the atheist Council of Deputies. As well as the relatively independent elections of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (one official of the Council for Religious Affairs told the author an interesting detail of these elections. In particular, the Central Committee received a unique order for the first time: not to interfere in the elections, just watch).
Secondly, the economic sphere was reformed. This process was named “acceleration”.
The acceleration was aimed at developing the industrial and agrarian potential of the Soviet Union. However, industrial acceleration was followed by a rethinking of industrial development from military to civilian sphere (conversion). As a result, market relations, enshrined in the law on cooperation, were officially introduced in the Council of Deputies. Previously, this relationship was a criminal offense and existed only clandestinely (black market, shop assistants, etc.).
Finally, in the third head, the spiritual realm was reformed. The name of this trend is “glasnost” and “new thinking”.
Glasnost has opened many historical archives of past eras. As a result, whole oceans of new information were sent to the zombie Soviet slaves. Particularly painful was the information concerning the period of the rule of I. Dzhugashvili (driven by Stalin). The cult of V. Ulyanov (drove - Lenin) was still afraid to plan. After all, they were still following the "faithful Leninist course." However, other historical periods of the Council of Deputies were subjected to an unprecedented ideological reevaluation. Perhaps the second historical myth, which was touched on to a lesser extent during the reign of M. Gorbachev, was the myth of the so-called “Great Patriotic War”.
The new thinking related more to the foreign policy of the Tri-series and was a way to inspire confidence in the normal highly developed countries of Western Europe, the USA and Japan. They even started talking about convergence, by which they understood the mutual absorption of the Council of Deputies and Europe. For this purpose, nuclear tests were suspended, negotiations on disarmament began, and all-round relations between the USSR and the United States improved.
All three directions not only constituted a whole, but were also generated by one team, or, if you like, the matrix of the development of the Bolshevik Party and the Council of Deputies created by it.
The reforms affected all the diversity of Soviet life. Moreover, new ideas were followed by even newer and more radical ones. As a result, each year of M. Gorbachev's rule brought new results.
In particular, perestroika very quickly became not only a household word, but also made global changes in the entire "socialist camp". One after another, the Bolshevik regimes collapsed in Eastern Europe, and the Bolshevik regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America were looking for new patrons (mainly in the person of China) and also began timid transformations.
But if in Czechoslovakia it rather peacefully collapsed into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, then the collapse of the SFRY was accompanied by long ethno-confessional conflicts, the centers of which still exist.
Within the Tri-series itself, delimitation on ethnic and ideological grounds also began to take place. Like mushrooms after the rain, national movements grew in the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Transcaucasia, Turkestan. Soon, these nationalist sprouts bore fruit.
As a result, by 1991, a huge power was concentrated in the hands of M. Gorbachev: the general secretary of the Bolshevik party and the president of the Tri-series. But the very mechanism of control of these two monsters began to get out of hand. This led to an irreversible denouement.
As I wrote earlier about the essence of the Council of Deputies, the party was the very core around which everything existed.
Moreover, the merger of the party and quasi-state structures was so multi-level that a significant number of top leaders held simultaneously the highest party and state posts.
This influence allowed party leaders to always remain in the shadows. Whatever happened, the responsibility fell on the state. And within the party itself, mutual responsibility flourished.
We can say that it was the Bolshevik Party that was the living tissue of the entire Soviet slave society. Cancer tissue. But still alive. But the quasi-state organization was just a shell that protected Bolshevism from external and internal threats.
This real state of affairs explains why in the Council of Deputies it was possible to reform everything, but not the Bolshevik Party itself.
Look for yourself: during the period from 1917 to 1991, when the openly outright Bolsheviks were in power, they managed to carry out various "transformations".
The Bolsheviks managed to destroy millions of people, break the backbone of the Russian peasantry in the course of collectivization, expel or deprive the intelligentsia of death, at the cost of incredible efforts and victims to win with the help of the Anglo-Saxon peace in the Soviet-German war, carry out numerous reforms and repressions in the so-called Red Army, up to the reduction of officers, several times to break the system of workers 'and peasants' militia, to reduce and transform the KGB apparatus.
But nobody succeeded in reforming the Bolshevik Party itself!
In the 1920s, those who wanted a different path quickly went to the Lubyanka basement. Some got in the equatorial country with an ice pick on the head.
I. Dzhugashvili himself could have destroyed thousands of party workers, but he did not change the essence of the Bolshevik party.
N. Khrushchev's attempts to reform it led to his imminent resignation!
Leonid Brezhnev did not reform the party - he ruled calmly.
For Y. Andropov and K. Chernenko, history has given up very little time for the Bolshevik Olympus.
M. Gorbachev became the last reformer of the Bolshevik party. It was the reforms in the party itself that led to its death and the death of the state it created.
I dare to assume that such a reformer as M. Gorbachev simply understood the impossibility of changing this particular organization. And therefore he offered to destroy it, which later happened.
The ideology born in hell itself, through the Jewish retrospectives K. Marx and F. Engels, slowly crept into the heads of the Russian revolutionaries. Having passed the incubation period in the heads of the Russian intelligentsia, the satanic ideology was born as a terrible Bolshevik godless monster, ready to swallow the entire human world. The edge of the sting of this monster was directed against our Lord Jesus Christ himself and the entire Holy Trinity.
The members of the party became the cells of this terrible monster, and the party itself became the body. It was she who, having created a protective shell from the Soviet state, absorbing the human, technical and natural resources of Russia, became the most poisonous squad of the owner of hell! The real head of the Bolshevik Party is the devil himself.
It was precisely the fact that the party itself belonged to hell and its master, Satan, that did not allow any leader to change the imprisonment of the Bolshevik party for a world revolution. It was precisely this confinement and its real curators from hell that did not allow the Council of Deputies to be turned into a normal state (and this was what N. Khrushchev, L. Brezhnev, and M. Gorbachev tried to do), and the Bolshevik Party from being transformed into a normal political organization.
After the collapse of the Tri-series, the body of the party disintegrated into its cells. These cells have partially merged into various communist organizations in the former USSR, the largest of which is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
But after the death of the party, the skeleton of the Council of Deputies itself remained. Since this skeleton reproduces precisely the party structure, it is sharpened to fulfill the same goals that the Bolshevik party pursued, or rather its demonic masters.
As a result, the Russian Federation became the legal successor of the Council of Deputies, inheriting from the latter the walls, ceilings and other frames of the building itself. Unfortunately, the current inhabitants of the Kremlin do not understand this. Therefore, they are trying to fill the quasi-state soviet structure with a new liberal-democratic content (and often they do not try, they simply go with the flow, plundering the natural and technical resources remaining from the Tri-series).
Thus, the creation of United Russia was an attempt to recreate the CPSU. But hell doesn't need United Russia. The owner of hell - Satan - needs members of this party, but not herself. That is why the “help” goes sluggishly.
Symbols (mausoleum, red stars, eternal fire, toponymy, architecture, sculpture, etc.) remained from the Bolshevik Council of Deputies in the Russian Federation, which on a mystical level create an inevitable conflict with Divine Energies emitted by Orthodox Temples.
As a result, the collapse of the current unviable regime of the Russian Federation is inevitable, unless a miracle happens and a renewed Russian Orthodox Kingdom does not arise on the ruins of the Tri-series!
God bless you!
Mikhail Gorbachev was born in the village of Privolnoye, Stavropol Territory on March 2, 1931, into a peasant family. From the age of 13 he had to combine studies with collective farm work. At the age of 15, he started working as a combine operator's assistant. At the age of 18 he received his first award - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. At the age of 19 he became a candidate member of the CPSU. After graduating from school with a silver medal without exams, he entered the Moscow State University. Lomonosov.
Party work
In 1955, after graduating from university with honors, Gorbachev was sent to work in the prosecutor's office of the Stavropol Territory, but almost immediately transferred to the Komsomol work. He started as deputy head of the propaganda and agitation department of the Stavropol regional committee of the Komsomol, and by 1961 he became the first secretary of the Stavropol regional committee of the Komsomol. Since 1962 Mikhail Gorbachev has been at party work.
Initially, he was in charge of the department of organizational and party work, and in 1970 he was the first secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU. In this position, he worked until 1978.
Work in the Central Committee of the CPSU and the President of the USSR
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was a member of the CPSU Central Committee from 1971 to 1991. From 1980 to 1991 - Member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.
On March 11, 1985, at an extraordinary plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, and from October 1, 1988, he also held the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet and thus combined the highest positions of the state and the party.
On March 15, 1990, at the extraordinary third Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected President of the USSR - the first and last in the history of the Soviet Union.
Reforms
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev made the largest attempt in the entire history of the USSR to reform the Soviet state and society. The campaign was collectively called "perestroika". Officially, it was planned to carry out a "renewal of socialism" and give additional impetus for its further development.
However, all these actions eventually led to the emergence of a market economy, free elections, the destruction of the monopoly power of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR.
Among the most striking populist campaigns organized by Gorbachev, it should be noted: the anti-alcohol campaign, the fight against unearned income, the law "On individual labor activity."
Foreign policy
In his foreign policy, Gorbachev put forward a number of peace initiatives and proclaimed a policy of "new thinking" in international affairs. Unilaterally introduced a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. However, all these actions were regarded by the West as a manifestation of weakness, and it was in no hurry to meet halfway.
With Gorbachev's help, the Warsaw Pact organization was abolished, which did not improve relations with NATO.
With his light hand, in fact, the communist regimes in Eastern Europe ceased to exist, and the unification of Germany took place.
All this together, according to many analysts, became a symbol of the USSR's defeat in the Cold War.
End of reign
On December 25, 1991, after the signing of an agreement on the termination of the existence of the USSR, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR.
Mikhail Gorbachev is a statesman and public figure of the 20th century who entered the political world during the Soviet era. He became the first and only president of the USSR, the results of whose activities left a deep imprint on Russian history, and also became important factors in the development of the rest of the world. Assessment of the role of Gorbachev in the fate of the country in society is of ambiguous importance - some believe that he brought more benefit to the people than harm, while others are sure that the politician became the cause of all the troubles of modern Russia after the collapse of the USSR.
Childhood and youth
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in the Stavropol village of Privolnoye. Father Sergei Andreevich and mother Maria Panteleevna (Ukrainian by nationality) were peasants, so the childhood of the future president of the USSR passed without wealth and luxury. In the early years, young Mikhail had to endure the German occupation of Stavropol, which left an imprint on the character and political position in the future.
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Mikhail Gorbachev in his youth
At the age of 13, Gorbachev began to combine his studies at school with work on a collective farm: at first he worked at a mechanical tractor station, and later became an assistant to a combine operator, whose duties were extremely difficult for a teenager. For this work, Mikhail Sergeevich in 1949 was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, which he received for overfulfilling the plan for harvesting grain.
The next year, Gorbachev graduated from a local school with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of Law at Moscow State University without any problems. At the university, the future politician headed the Komsomol organization of students, where he was charged with the spirit of free thought, which influenced his further worldview. In 1952, Mikhail was admitted to the CPSU, and 3 years later, after successfully graduating from the university, Gorbachev received the post of first secretary of the city committee of the Komsomol of Stavropol.
Politics
Mikhail Gorbachev's political career developed rapidly. In 1962, he was appointed party organizer of the Stavropol territorial-production agricultural administration, where Gorbachev, during the reforms of the then Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev, earned a reputation as a promising politician.
Politician Mikhail GorbachevGorbachev did not have any special charisma or memorable external data (a man has an average height of 175 cm), so he made his way only with skills and working qualities.
Against the background of good harvests in the Stavropol Territory, Mikhail Sergeevich has established himself as a leading expert in the field of agriculture, which later allowed him to become the ideologist of the CPSU on the development of this sphere.
In 1974, Gorbachev was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he headed a commission on youth problems. In 1978, the politician was transferred to Moscow and appointed secretary of the Central Committee, which was initiated by the former leader of the USSR, Yuri Andropov, who considered Mikhail Sergeevich an unusually highly educated and experienced specialist.
In 1980, Gorbachev became a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Numerous reforms in the market economy and in the political system fell under his leadership. In 1984, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the politician read out a report "Living Creativity of the People", which became the so-called "prelude" to the restructuring of the country. The report was received with optimism by Gorbachev's colleagues and the Soviet people.
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee
Having won support and created an image of a global reformer, Mikhail Sergeevich was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in 1985, after which a global process of democratization of society began in the USSR, later called perestroika.
Becoming the leader of the second most powerful state in the world, Mikhail Gorbachev began to pull out the stagnant country. Lacking a clearly formed plan, the politician made a number of changes in the foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet Union, which eventually led to the collapse of the state.
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail GorbachevOn Gorbachev's account there is "dry law", the exchange of money, the introduction of self-financing, the end of the war in Afghanistan, the end of the long-term Cold War with the West and the weakening of the nuclear threat. Also, by the hands of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, who then had full power over the country, the USSR liberalized society and weakened censorship, which allowed Gorbachev to gain popularity among the population, with whom the politician for the first time in the history of the Soviet state communicated in a free, and not in a "reigning" style ...
First president
The main mistake in Gorbachev's policy was the inconsistency in the implementation of economic reforms in the USSR, which led to a sharp deepening of the crisis in the country, as well as to a decrease in the standard of living of citizens. During the same period, the Baltic republics headed for a distance from the Union, which did not prevent the Soviet leader from becoming the first and only president of the USSR, whom Gorbachev was elected in 1990 according to the country's amended legislation.
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Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Gorbachev
However, the weakening of control over society led to a dual power in the Soviet Union, the country was swept by a wave of strikes, and the economic crisis led to a total shortage and empty shelves on store shelves. At that time, the 10th part of the country's gold reserves was "eaten", the situation in the USSR was close to a critical point. Mikhail Sergeevich could not prevent the collapse of the Union and his own resignation from the presidency.
In August 1991, Gorbachev's allies, including a number of Soviet ministers, announced the creation of the State Emergency Committee (State Emergency Committee) and demanded that Mikhail Sergeevich resign. Gorbachev did not accept these demands, provoking an armed coup d'etat in the country, called the August putsch.
Read also Gorbachev himself could be behind the Emergency Committee - mediaThen the resistance to the Emergency Committee was put up by the political leaders of the RSFSR, among whom were the then president of the republic, and Ivan Silaev. In December 1991, 11 union republics signed the Belovezhsky agreement on the creation of the CIS, which became evidence of the end of the USSR, despite the objections of Mikhail Sergeevich. After that, Gorbachev resigned and retired from politics.
On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced the termination of his activities as president of the USSR and signed a decree transferring control of strategic nuclear weapons to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
The signing of the document was preceded by events that have taken place since the mid-1980s on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Changes in the economic and political life of the country led to the deepening of contradictions between the center and the union republics, striving for independence.
In 1990, all the Union republics adopted, establishing the priority of their laws over the laws of the Union.
To stop the collapse of the USSR, on March 17, 1991, a referendum was held to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 76.4% of those who took part in the vote were in favor of preserving the Union.
On the basis of the results of the all-Union referendum, the working group authorized by the central and republican authorities within the framework of the so-called Novo-Ogarevsky process in the spring-summer of 1991 developed a project to conclude a federation treaty "On the Union of Sovereign Republics", the signing of which was scheduled for August 20.
But it never took place due to an attempted coup d'etat undertaken by the conservative wing of the USSR's top leadership on August 19-21, 1991.
The failed coup d'état marked the beginning of the process of spontaneous destruction of the union statehood.
From August 20 to October 27, 1991, eleven union republics decided on independence (secession from the USSR).
The Communist Party of the USSR ceased to exist. Also, the activity of almost all government bodies of the Soviet Union ceased.
On the same day, the leaders of 11 states also signed the Alma-Ata Declaration, which confirmed the main goals and principles of the CIS.
On December 25, at about 19:00, Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree "On the resignation by the President of the USSR of the powers of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the abolition of the Defense Council under the President of the USSR."
At 19.00, the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev spoke on the air of the central television with a statement of resignation.
"Due to the current situation with the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I am terminating my activity as President of the USSR. I accept this decision for reasons of principle. I firmly stood for the independence, independence of peoples, for the sovereignty of the republics. But at the same time, for the preservation of the union state, the integrity of the country. Events took a different path. The line on the dismemberment of the country and the separation of the state prevailed, with which I cannot agree, "the statement said.
Further, Mikhail Gorbachev gave his assessment of the path traveled as first the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and then the President of the USSR since 1985 and thanked all citizens who supported his policy of renewal and democratic reforms.
At 19.38, the state flag of the USSR was lowered from the Kremlin's flagpole and the state flag of the Russian Federation was raised.
After the televised speech, Mikhail Gorbachev gave a short interview and returned to his office in the Kremlin to hand over nuclear codes to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. The farewell meeting between them did not take place. Gorbachev was met by the USSR Defense Minister Yevgeny Shaposhnikov. Yeltsin, dissatisfied with the content of Gorbachev's last speech, refused to accept nuclear codes in the former president's office and suggested that this procedure be carried out in another Kremlin building, on "neutral territory." But Mikhail Gorbachev did not agree with this proposal and without any television cameras transferred two colonels to Shaposhnikov's subordination, who everywhere and constantly accompanied the head of state, being responsible for the "nuclear briefcase."
There were no other procedures for seeing off the President of the USSR.
The last farewell dinner took place in the Nut Room, surrounded by five people from the close circle of Mikhail Gorbachev.
On December 26, Mikhail Gorbachev met with journalists at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel. The conversation went on for two hours.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
On the day of the 80th birthday of Mikhail Gorbachev, he is well deservedly praised for glasnost, perestroika and the end of the Cold War. All this has long taken its rightful place in history textbooks. But the question arises: why was Gorbachev elected as the new Soviet leader on March 1985 evening, and not someone else?
This is a key point, but it still remains largely misunderstood.
This was largely due to Gorbachev as a person, as well as to the miserable state in which the Soviet leadership and the whole country were then.
In his early years, Gorbachev was not a radical. As a child, he witnessed the horrors of World War II; later he saw the shortcomings of the Soviet state, from the persecution of his grandfathers in the Stalin years to the economic stagnation under Leonid Brezhnev. Gorbachev also understood that a huge military-industrial complex was sucking life's juices out of the system, forcing ordinary people to live in poverty. Nevertheless, Gorbachev kept many of his observations to himself, climbing the steps to the pinnacle of power.
Gorbachev received a powerful boost from the former head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, who became Soviet leader after Brezhnev in 1982. Andropov's own attempts to change the inert system turned out to be too sluggish, and were doomed to failure. But he did an important job when he saw a promising man in Gorbachev. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gorbachev experimented with timid innovations in agriculture and economics, giving peasant groups more autonomy, and recruiting like-minded scientists who wanted change. When Andropov died in early 1984, Gorbachev thought he had a chance to succeed him. However, the old guard extinguished his hopes at the last moment, choosing the decrepit Konstantin Chernenko instead of Gorbachev.
This time Gorbachev was ready.
That evening, a Politburo meeting was held in the Kremlin. As I wrote in my book The Dead Hand, about 20 minutes before the meeting, Gorbachev met with the patriarch of the old guard, Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, in the Walnut Hall, where Politburo members who had every right to vote. Gromyko was a key figure in deciding who would be the next general secretary. Earlier, Gromyko sent a secret emissary to Gorbachev with the message that he would support him in the struggle for power, if in return Gorbachev would give him the opportunity to leave the post of foreign minister and take the easy but honorable post of chairman of the Supreme Soviet.
Gorbachev recalls how he told Gromyko: "Andrei Andreevich, this is a critical moment, we need to unite our efforts."
“I think everything is clear,” Gromyko replied.
When everyone gathered, Gorbachev informed the members of the Politburo about Chernenko's death. Usually, the person who was elected head of the commission for organizing the funeral became the new secretary general. The question arose about this commission. Gorbachev headed it, and the next day became the new Soviet leader.
Gorbachev was not elected because of the United States, not because of Ronald Reagan or his Strategic Defense Initiative, as many assumed. The Cold War was an important reason for everything that caused suffering and pain to the Soviet Union, but that was not the main reason for Gorbachev's election.
No, rather Gorbachev was chosen for the reason that he was like a bright light in a gloomy hall. Five out of ten members of the Politburo were at that time over seventy, three over sixty, and only two over fifty. At 54, Gorbachev was not only the youngest member of the Politburo. He was 13 years younger than the average age of voting members of the Politburo.
The next day, during the meeting, Gromyko set out strong arguments in favor of Gorbachev, speaking in a manner unusual for such cases, without a piece of paper and without hesitation. “I’ll speak bluntly,” said Gromyko. - Gorbachev is absolutely the right choice. He has an indomitable creative energy, strives to do more and do better. "
Georgy Shakhnazarov, who worked for Andropov and later became Gorbachev's adviser, recalled that Gorbachev's coming to power was by no means predetermined. Gorbachev did not have an impeccable and full-fledged biography that made him a natural choice. And the Politburo could well have chosen another old-timer to continue slowly moving forward. But according to Shakhnazarov, there was one unofficial factor that, nevertheless, could not be ignored. "People are terribly tired of participating in a shameful farce ... They are tired of seeing leaders with shaking heads and faded eyes, knowing that the fate of the country and half of the world is in the hands of these pitiful semi-paralytics."
After agonizing years of stagnation, the deaths of leaders and disappointments, Gorbachev was elected primarily due to the fact that high hopes were pinned on him as the man who would set the country in motion. We usually forget about this, but Gorbachev's achievements in ending the Cold War were not his first goals. They grew out of his desire to bring about radical change in the country, from his powerful impressions of what went wrong. Gorbachev did not seek to change the world, he wanted to save his country. As a result, he did not save the country, but the world is quite possible.
