The Prophet is not in his Fatherland

In Ukrainian comments about his death, they mention almost exclusively about the events from his last years of his life: his critical position on Putin and the present war, on the one hand, and his approval of the annexation of Crimea and the vision of Ukraine's future with Russia, on the other. Video of the day is so arranged by our personal memory. It is short and does not reach for several years. In addition to personal, there is even longer, historical.

This is when we remember what happened to us: the baptism of Russia, the Cossack revolution of Khmelnytsky, and the like. Between the short and long, the blind area of ​​the middle memory lies. Gorbachev's biography falls into this blind area - and in this area the most important events took place. The greatest can be said by Gorbachev's world merit that he headed the collapse of the USSR. The paradox is that he did it not, but even contrary to his will.

This paradox, however, becomes better understandable, if you take into account the fact: Gorbachev was one of the last Mohicans of the sixties generation. It was the same generation that gave rock culture in the West, in Central Europe, the leaders of the velvet revolution 1989, and in the USSR - Russian and Ukrainian Sixties.

The common traits of people of this generation were that they did not directly suffer the burden of World War II-because they were either children at the time of the war or were born immediately after it, and their youth fell at the time of well-being and optimism of the 1960s. Accordingly, it was a generation of a great dream. His leaders sought to change the world for the better - to give him a "human face" - and believed that it was in their power. Gorbachev was a Soviet sixties.

Like others, he believed that Stalin was bad, but Lenin is good, and that the Soviet system can be restarted ("rebuilt" and "accelerate") if you eliminate the distortion of Stalinism and the stagnation of Brezhnev region. He had no idea that this system was not reformed. How did Gorbachev's "perestroika" joke: what can be accelerated in a falling body, besides accelerating his own fall? The Soviet system was built on terror.

Although this terror lost its scale and sharpness after the death of Stalin, at the time of Gorbachev's arrival, the KGB made the perfect job: he cleared the entire Soviet space from dissent. All real or potential dissidents either sat in prison, or were sent to the USSR or were tamed by the authorities. Hence the hatred of the Kedebists to Gorbachev: his ill -advised reforms, he "killed" their achievements. And they were right: take away from the Soviet system its terrorist rod, and it falls.

Ernest Gelner called Gorbachev's policies "the Bible without the Bible, the Encyclopedia without the Encyclopedia - and, we will add, from ourselves, the Soviet five -year -old without a five -year plan. The lack of vision in Gorbachev was especially noticeable in the national issue. This issue has always been a "blind spot" for Marxists, and the blindness of Gorbachev himself was especially noticeable in the Ukrainian case. An example is Gorbachev's visit to Lviv in February 1988.

This visit was not planned. Gorbachev was to visit Donetsk, but because of the bad weather, his plane had to sit in Lviv. The Lviv residents were jumped by the unexpected appearance of the Secretary -General in the city center, and in general showed his kindness. Immediately after Gorbachev said in a private conversation: “Lviv was especially fascinated by me. When we hear the words "Western Ukraine", "Western Belarus", we think about Bandera, forest brothers and 1939.

It turns out, however, that Ukrainians, especially the most refined among the intelligentsia, do not have problems. They look in 1939 and not reunion, as a historical phase in their nation. And this helps us understand other aspects of the national issue. " Advisor Gorbachev Anatoliy Chernyaev, who quoted these words in his memoirs, added: “Comments here are superfluous. It was "WISHFul Thinking", reality was blurred with a comfortable "international look".

Gorbachev believed that Ukraine is different from the Baltic republics. In his opinion, the Russification here was spontaneous: Ukrainians did not want to send their children to Ukrainian schools, especially in cities. Only Ukrainian writers think about Ukrainian: who will read their books in Ukrainian? In general, he believed, the language and history of Ukrainians, Russians and Belarus are so linked and similar that it is difficult to distinguish Russian from a Ukrainian or Belarus.

Gorbachev divided the fate of all those leaders who did not have the prophets in his Fatherland. It was not for his homeland to be born in which he was born, and not Ukraine, where his mother came from. His homeland was the Soviet Union, where, as he hoped, the Russians, Ukrainians and other peoples could live and get along. Ultimately, neither Ukrainians nor the Russians nor other former Soviet people love it. They do not like for various reasons, but do not like the same.