Mikhail Gorbachev, the son of an agricultural mechanic on a collective
farm, was born in Privolnoye in the Soviet
Union on 2nd March, 1931. When he was a child Privolnoye was occupied
by the German
Army.
Gorbachev worked as a combine
harvest operator before studying law at Moscow University. While a
student Gorbachev joined Communist Party (CPSU)
and married Raisa Titorenko.
After leaving university
Gorbachev became a full-time official with Komsomol (Communist Youth
Organization). In 1955 Gorbachev he was appointed first secretary
of the Komsomol Territorial Committee. Gorbachev made rapid progress
and by 1960 he was the top Komsomol official in Stavropol. The following
year he was a delegate from Stavropol to the 22nd Communist Party
Congress in Moscow.
Gorbachev studied for a
second degree at the Stavropol Agricultural Institute (1964-67) and
in 1970 was appointed First Secretary for Stavropol Territory. His
work in this post impressed Yuri Andropov,
who was at that time the head of the Committee
for State Security (KGB). Andropov now used his considerable influence
to promote Gorbachev's career.
In 1971 Gorbachev became
a member of Communist Party Central Committee.
He later moved to Moscow where he became the Secretary of Agriculture.
In 1980 Gorbachev became the youngest member of the Politburo
and within four years had become deputy to Konstantin
Chernenko.
On the death of Chernenko
in 1985 Gorbachev was elected by the Central Committee as General
Secretary of the Communist Party. As party
leader he immediately began forcing more conservative members of the
Central Committee to resign. He replaced them with younger men who
shared his vision of reform.
In 1985 Gorbachev introduced
a major campaign against corruption and alcoholism. He also spoke
about the need for Perestroika
(Restructuring) and this heralded a series of liberalizing economic,
political and cultural reforms which had the aim of making the Soviet
economy more efficient.
Gorbachev introduced policies
with the intention of establishing a market economy by encouraging
the private ownership of Soviet industry and agriculture. However,
the Soviet authoritarian structures ensured these reforms were ineffective
and there were shortages of goods available in shops.
Gorbachev also announced
changes to Soviet foreign policy. In 1987 he met with Ronald
Reagan and signed
the Immediate Nuclear Forces (INF) abolition treaty. He also made
it clear he would no longer interfere in the domestic policies of
other countries in Eastern Europe and in 1989 announced the withdrawal
of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The following year he was awarded
the Nobel
Peace Prize.
Aware that Gorbachev
would not send in
Soviet tanks there were demonstrations against communist governments
throughout Eastern Europe. Over the next few months the communists
were ousted from power in Poland, Hungary,
Bulgaria,
Romania, and East
Germany.
Gorbachev's attempts to
make the Soviet Union a more democratic country made him unpopular
with conservatives still in positions of power. In August 1991 he
survived a coup staged by hard-liners in the Communist
Party. Gorbachev responds by dissolving the Central Committee.
However, with the Soviet Union disintegrating into separate states,
Gorbachev resigned from office on 25th December, 1995.
(1)
Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika (1987)
Europe is indeed a common
home where geography and history have closely
interwoven the destinies of dozens of countries and nations. Of course,
each of them has its own problem, and each wants to live its own life,
to follow its own traditions. Therefore, developing the metaphor,
one may say: the
home is common, that is true, but each family has its own apartment,
and there are different entrances too.
The concept of a 'common
European home' suggests above all a degree of integrity, even if its
states belong to different social systems and opposing military-political
alliances.
One can mention a number
of objective circumstances which create the need for a pan-European
policy:
(1) Densely populated
and highly urbanized, Europe bristles with weapons, both nuclear and
conventional. It would not be enough to call
it a 'powder keg' today.
(2) Even a conventional
war, to say nothing of a nuclear one, would be disastrous for Europe
today.
(3) Europe is one of the
most industrialised regions of the world. Its industry and transport
have developed to the point where their danger to the environment
is close to being critical. This problem has crossed far beyond national
borders, and is now being shared by all of Europe.
(4) Integrative processes
are developing intensively in both parts of Europe. The requirements
of economic development in both parts of Europe, as well as scientific
and technological progress, prompt the search for some kind of mutually
advantageous cooperation. What I mean is not some kind of 'European
autarky', but better use of the
aggregate potential of Europe for the benefit of its peoples, and
in relations with the rest of the world.
(5) The two parts of Europe
have a lot of their own problems of an East-West dimension, but they
also have a common interest in solving the extremely acute North-South
problem.
Our idea of a 'common
European home' certainly does not involve shutting its doors to anybody.
True, we would not like to see anyone kick in the doors of the European
home and take the head of the table at somebody else's apartment.
But then, that is the concern of the owner of the apartment. In the
past, the Socialist countries responded positively to the participation
of the United States and Canada in the Helsinki Process.
(2)
Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Lecture (5th June, 1991)
Today, peace means the
ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity
among countries and nations.
Peace is movement towards
globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea
that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now.
Peace is not unity in similarity
but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
I consider the decision
of your Committee as a recognition of the great international importance
of the changes now under way in the Soviet Union, and as an expression
of confidence in our policy of new thinking, which is based on the
conviction that at the end of the twentieth century force and arms
will have to give way as a major instrument in world politics.
I see the decision to award
me the Nobel Peace Prize also as an act of solidarity with the monumental
undertaking which has already placed enormous demands on the Soviet
people in terms of efforts, costs, hardships, willpower, and character.
And solidarity is a universal value which is becoming indispensable
for progress and for the survival of humankind.
But a modern state has
to be worthy of solidarity, in other words, it should pursue, in both
domestic and international affairs, policies that bring together the
interests of its people and those of the world community. This task,
however obvious, is not a simple one. Life is much richer and more
complex than even the most perfect plans to make it better. It ultimately
takes vengeance for attempts to impose abstract schemes, even with
the best of intentions. Perestroika has made us understand this about
our past, and the actual experience of recent years has taught us
to reckon with the most general laws of civilization.
This, however, came later.
But back in March-April 1985 we found ourselves facing a crucial,
and I confess, agonizing choice. When I agreed to assume the office
of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Central Committee, in effect the highest State office at that time,
I realized that we could no longer live as before and that I would
not want to remain in that office unless I got support in undertaking
major reforms. It was clear to me that we had a long way to go. But
of course, I could not imagine how immense were our problems and difficulties.
I believe no one at that time could foresee or predict them.
Those who were then governing
the country knew what was really happening to it and what we later
called "zastoi", roughly translated as "stagnation".
They saw that our society was marking time, that it was running the
risk of falling hopelessly behind the technologically advanced part
of the world. Total domination of centrally-managed state property,
the pervasive authoritarian-bureaucratic system, ideology's grip on
politics, monopoly in social thought and sciences, militarized industries
that siphoned off our best, including the best intellectual resources,
the unbearable burden of military expenditures that suffocated civilian
industries and undermined the social achievements of the period since
the Revolution which were real and of which we used to be proud -
such was the actual situation in the country.
As a result, one of the
richest countries in the world, endowed with immense overall potential,
was already sliding downwards. Our society was declining, both economically
and intellectually.
And yet, to a casual observer
the country seemed to present a picture of relative well-being, stability
and order. The misinformed society under the spell of propaganda was
hardly aware of what was going on and what the immediate future had
in store for it. The slightest manifestations of protest were suppressed.
Most people considered them heretical, slanderous and counter-revolutionary.
Such was the situation
in the spring of 1985, and there was a great temptation to leave things
as they were, to make only cosmetic changes. This, however, meant
continuing to deceive ourselves and the people.
This was the domestic aspect
of the dilemma then before us. As for the foreign policy aspect, there
was the East-West confrontation, a rigid division into friends and
foes, the two hostile camps with a corresponding set of Cold War attributes.
Both the East and the West were constrained by the logic of military
confrontation, wearing themselves down more and more by the arms race.
The mere thought of dismantling
the existing structures did not come easily. However, the realization
that we faced inevitable disaster, both domestically and internationally,
gave us the strength to make a historic choice, which I have never
since regretted.
Perestroika, which once
again is returning our people to commonsense, has enabled us to open
up to the world, and has restored a normal relationship between the
country's internal development and its foreign policy. But all this
takes a lot of hard work. To a people which believed that its government's
policies had always been true to the cause of peace, we proposed what
was in many ways a different policy, which would genuinely serve the
cause of peace, while differing from the prevailing view of what it
meant and particularly from the established stereotypes as to how
one should protect it. We proposed new thinking in foreign policy.
Thus, we embarked on a
path of major changes which may turn out to be the most significant
in the twentieth century, for our country and for its peoples. But
we also did this for the entire world.
We want to be an integral
part of modern civilization, to live in harmony with mankind's universal
values, abide by the norms of international law, follow the "rules
of the game" in our economic relations with the outside world.
We want to share with all other peoples the burden of responsibility
for the future of our common house.
A period of transition
to a new quality in all spheres of society's life is accompanied by
painful phenomena. When we were initiating perestroika we failed to
properly assess and foresee everything. Our society turned out to
be hard to move off the ground, not ready for major changes which
affect people's vital interests and make them leave behind everything
to which they bad become accustomed over many years. In the beginning
we imprudently generated great expectations, without taking into account
the fact that it takes time for people to realize that all have to
live and work differently, to stop expecting that new life would be
given from above.
Perestroika has now entered
its most dramatic phase. Following the transformation of the philosophy
of perestroika into real policy, which began literally to explode
the old way of life, difficulties began to mount. Many took fright
and wanted to return to the past. It was not only those who used to
hold the levers of power in the administration, the army and various
government agencies and who bad to make room, but also many people
whose interests and way of life was put to a severe test and who,
during the preceding decades, had forgotten how to take the initiative
History
of the European Union: Integration Process and European Citizenship
