It was no simple matter for Dmitry Medvedev, occupying the post of president, to make his mark as an independent politician and unconditional national leader. He was immediately battered by the fall-out from the global financial crisis and the conflict with Georgia. Simultaneously, people were waiting to see how Medvedev’s presidency would turn out. Would it just be more of the same policies, or would Russia take new steps in the direction of becoming a modern society? Observing the president’s actions, I concluded that the desire for continuity was predominating. One could sympathize with the predicament of a young politician who did not want to ‘break the furniture’ or charge like a bull in a china shop into such a challenging environment. Before taking particular decisions on matters of detail, you need first to be comfortable that you understand their overall context. That is a principle I have always considered crucial.
Together with Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, I met President Medvedev at his invitation early in 2009. As soon as we arrived, he said he wished to take the opportunity of offering his condolences to the editorial staff of Novaya Gazeta in connection with the murder of our journalist, Nastya Baburova. This brazen outrage was duly investigated and the ultra-nationalistic killers were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Medvedev supported the idea of a memorial to the victims of Stalinist repression. We talked about the current state and future development of society in modern Russia and the situation of journalism.
During our conversation, and in his speeches, Dmitry Medvedev expressed important ideas about the need to move to an innovation-based economy, freeing business from bureaucratic shackles and promoting younger officials. These words were not, however, followed up by the establishment of the necessary machinery and strengthening of democratic institutions. The big problems of a poorly developed political party system, the subservient role of parliament and the judicial system, and corruption all remained unresolved.
In the president’s entourage and among his main advisers, the tone soon began to be set by the likes of Vladislav Surkov and Gleb Pavlovsky, who promoted the concept of ‘sovereign democracy’. At least we did not hear that particular collocation from the president or prime minister, but the inculcation of the expression in the public mind was undertaken with great zeal. I was often asked about it at the time. A correspondent of Newsweek once said: ‘Please give us your attitude towards this concept. You are, after all, the father of Russian democracy.’ I laughed it off by remarking that I was already a greatgrandfather. Joking apart, I was very concerned about how the concept of democracy was being emasculated. In the interview I said:
There either is democracy or there isn’t. When a democratic system is being created, a great deal of effort is required to ensure that it grows, matures, takes root, to ensure that all institutions are free and act effectively, and that there is no bias in favour of the executive branch.
I saw no sign of any such efforts being made.
Russian society has no longstanding tradition of people organizing themselves, of forming associations to resolve problems at all levels, from the grassroots to the national. The first shoots of that do appear, but attempts are immediately made to try to crush them. Even in the most favourable conditions, it is a slow process.
In the interview I also said:
People are afraid that things may get even worse. They do not want to rock the boat, but the new authorities should not delude themselves. People want democracy, and the polls show it. In order to continue moving towards democracy, we need not only mobilization of civil society, but also a willingness on the part of the regime to encourage the formation of genuine political forces.
It is all there in the electoral system. What is supremely important is that there should be no electoral fraud, that genuine candidates should be put forward, that there should be competing manifestos, people and parties.
That, however, was the last thing the Kremlin’s political fixers wanted, and their influence was visibly increasing. Instead of thinking how to develop and strengthen democratic institutions, they spent their time dreaming up new wheezes and techniques to transform elections into an empty shell, a counterfeit ballot, a sham.
Defending the credo of Perestroika
For me and the Gorbachev Foundation, the beginning of 2010 was a time for marking the 25th anniversary of the beginning of Perestroika. It was not a matter of just organizing the usual sort of junket. We could see that a political battle royal was being waged around Perestroika, and that it was turning nasty.
For the anniversary, the staff of the Gorbachev Foundation published a volume of almost 1,000 pages of documentary evidence about the foreign policy of Perestroika. In Otvechaia na vyzov vremeni [Responding to the Challenge of the Times], there were published for the first time records from the Foundation’s archive of my conversations and negotiations with foreign politicians, supplemented by records of discussions in the Politburo of the CPSU’s Central Committee and other materials.[4] This unique publication makes it possible to judge what principles guided us as we established a new course in international relations. It answers many questions that are still the subject of dishonest speculation on the part of unconscientious commentators. These go out of their way to ignore the Foundation’s publications because they find it more convenient, when trying to discredit Perestroika, to confine themselves to fabrications and innuendo.
In March 2010, the book was launched at an international conference in the Foundation. It was highly praised by the Russian and foreign experts, researchers, and public figures present.
We were preparing another international conference on the foreign policy of Perestroika, planning press conferences and speeches, meetings with students, and editing a collective monograph, Russia-2010: Russian Transformations in the Context of Global Development.[5] This was a joint project between the Gorbachev Foundation, the New Eurasia Foundation and the Moscow School of Economics.
The book, to which I contributed a preface, was written by leading scholars from the Russian Academy of Sciences who had been working fruitfully with the Foundation for many years: Vladimir Baranovsky, Dmitry Furman, Viktor Kuvaldin, Yevgeny Gontmakher, Alexander Nekipelov and Vladimir Petukhov. Their views do not coincide in every respect, but we were not striving for unanimity.
I wrote in the preface:
I was often asked, and still am, whether I would have embarked on reform if I had known then everything we know today. My answer is invariably that things could not go on as they were: the reforms were essential.… At the same time it is perfectly fair to ask whether it would have been possible to extract ourselves from the Soviet system with much less upheaval. I believe it would.
These were considered judgements, and in the course of answering people’s questions at meetings, and in dozens of interviews, I defended them and the credo of Perestroika. I spoke very frankly. Here is an excerpt from an interview I gave Metro, a Russian newspaper with millions of readers: