Mikhail S. Gorbachev / Imagination, the Unexpected (1931 - 2022)

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

 

"Politicians alone cannot address all the challenges of today's world. Politics must interact with civil society and the intellectual community. Consequently, dialogue is absolutely indispensable, a high-spectrum dialogue to help us develop bold and feasible approaches to be able to solve the challenges of our globalised world. The world needs a vision oriented with the will and perseverance to turn it into reality. We need to cultivate a new culture and foster new approaches, because the world needs a culture of peace”.

With these words Mikhail Gorbachev opened the third meeting of the World Political Forum, held in Bosco Marengo, Italy, on 8 July 2002. At that time, the former President of the Soviet Union had already become one of the most important figures in history. Once again, as I listened to him, I thought of the mistake Western leaders were making in disregarding the words of someone who had set an example, with extraordinary imagination and skill, of resolving one of the most important challenges of the contemporary world without the use of weapons, without a single drop of blood. Obsessed with their accounts and dividends, they followed the guidelines of their specialisation: to look the other way. This failure to look in the right direction has led humanity to the current systemic crisis.

On 15 December 1984 Gorbachev arrived in London at the head of a delegation from the Supreme Soviet. It was the first visit by a Soviet delegation to Britain for some 15 years. His speech to the House of Commons was extraordinarily bold: the nuclear age demanded new "political thinking"; the danger of war was a reality; the cold war constituted an abnormal state of relations conducive to the danger of warlike confrontation; in a nuclear war there could be no victors; no state can build its own security by threatening that of others; in the limitation and elimination of armaments, and in particular of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union was prepared to go as far as its Western interlocutors wished... In his speech, one phrase was particularly widely used: "Whatever else may separate us, we live on the same planet. Europe is our common home; a home, not a battlefield". It is clear that Mikhail Gorbachev was already speaking a different language.

On that occasion he displayed a large map on which all the major nuclear arsenals were marked. "Each one of these small squares is enough to wipe out all life on earth... Thus, with the accumulated stockpile of nuclear weapons, we could annihilate our civilisation a thousand times over.  His address to the British Parliament on 18 December had a major impact in both the UK and the US.

In October 1986 the Issyk-Kul Forum met. Mikhail Gorbachev himself described it as follows: "In October 1986 an event had taken place which was to be of considerable importance in the years of perestroika. I am referring to the meeting at the ISSYK-KUL lake, which brought together leading artists from all over the world, including Arthur Miller, Alexander King, Alvin Toffler, Peter Ustinov, Zulfu Livanelly, Federico Mayor and Afework Teklé... Its initiator was the writer Chinguiz Aitmatov. They spoke of nuclear dangers, ecological catastrophes, and the progressive lack of dignity, including in politics. My meeting with the participants of that Forum took place on 20 October, a week after Reykjavik...".

It was after the meeting by the Issyk-Kul lake that that distinguished group of intellectuals and creators  —to which must be added James Baldwin, Augusto Forti, Rustem Khairov, Yaser Kemal, Lisandro Otero and Claude Simon— had an extraordinarily interesting meeting with the Secretary General. I was entrusted with the chairmanship and it was a memorable occasion for me to hear the vision and approaches of people who spoke not only of freedom but also of responsibility, and of how we could best advise the General Secretary of the Soviet Union so that he could bring about the necessary transformations. How could we help to implement perestroika?

In order to give a better understanding of the context in which the first Issyk-Kul Forum meeting took place, I would like to highlight President Gorbachev's statements at a press conference he gave on 14 October 1986 following the Reykjavik Summit. Gorbachev underlined all the proposals made to President Reagan on the reduction and elimination of nuclear armaments, with extensive verification facilities; total elimination by the Americans and the Soviets of "medium-range" missiles; the situation in Asia and the difficulty of establishing forecasts... Gorbachev openly described that, at one point, a "real battle" of the two approaches to world politics —including the termination of the arms race and nuclear warheads— had begun... "I realised," Mikhail Gorbachev said, "that the American President is in thrall to the US military-industrial complex.  This statement is particularly relevant and had already been made by President Eisenhower at the end of his term in office.  "I believe that the President of the United States and I must come to an agreement on my next visit to Washington.  Otherwise, a great historic opportunity would have been lost".

In October 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  He was unable to attend the ceremony in Oslo because he had urgent duties to attend to.  For this reason, he delivered the "Nobel Lecture" in Oslo on 5 June 1991 in which he spoke extensively and profoundly about the need for peace to prevail over all other conditions.  He expressed his confidence that solidarity and change had been accepted by the "whole world to meet global challenges". 

How formidable! Who would have thought that a politician from the Soviet Union would, with great imagination and skill, be able to end the "Cold War" without a single victim, peacefully... when President Reagan was talking about the "Star Wars"...?

Mikhail Gorbachev, very concerned about preserving the quality of human life, created in Geneva, a "Green Cross International" which has as its objectives the global challenges of security, eradication of poverty and environmental degradation. Alongside the Green Cross, President Gorbachev founded "The World Political Forum", accompanied by Andrei Grachev, in this case, as well as Alexander Likhotal in the case of the "Green Cross". 

I would like to mention the emotion I felt at the event held in the great Albert Hall in London  —filled to overflowing— on Gorbachev's 80th birthday in 2011. "The man who changed the world", stood in the centre of a great arch in the huge Hall. The man who redirected so many erroneous trends unfortunately found himself confronted by impassive, short-sighted and irresponsible leaders and men, incapable of benefiting from such unexpected historical inflections. And, amidst the cheering, I thought of what I had written in 1991: "The Berlin Wall crumbled because a system based on equality had forgotten about freedom. Now, the alternative system will also crumble because, based on freedom, it has forgotten about equality. And both of justice”.

On the first day of October 2016, Moscow joined the "Disarmament for Development" campaign sponsored by the International Peace Bureau in Geneva, led by Ingeborg Breines and Colin Archer, to achieve 10% of the colossal daily investments in arms and military expenditure. In Berlin, the symbolic city, we paraded in large numbers "unter den Linden". We counted on the support of Gorbachev and that of Pope Francis. But, as it is now the norm, in the media, "his master's voice" did not give it the slightest importance. But there have been and will be many more who will be inspired by Gorbachev's fabulous record. His imaginative and unexpected proposals have been and will continue to be very relevant guidance in my daily behaviour.

Gorbachev is a giant, shining star to guide the courses of tomorrow. His legacy will remain, as glimmers of hope for a future that is yet-to-be-made.

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