If it cannot be done through the parliament, they will go to rallies. If the rallies are broken up, you can be certain they will come up with something else. Is it really so difficult to understand that in the current situation genuine dialogue is essential? We need to create a new democratic forum. Without delay.
DM: How is that different from a party?
MG: No. It needs to be a non-party movement which, on behalf of the public, can represent their opinion and influence the government. A new, independent partner of government and society, representing the public’s interests. Something the state authorities will not be able to ignore.
DM: Why not?
MG: It is in the Federation Council and the State Duma that seats are dished out or simply sold. This forum will be a gathering of authoritative, incorruptible leaders: it will be impossible to ignore them or not to listen to them.
I would like newspaper readers, Internet users and all serious-minded citizens to respond and discuss this proposal. I would like them to nominate leaders, people who might become members of this forum, people who could form a founding group and who, most importantly of all, could formulate the programme the Forum might propose to the public and government. The forum should be assembled without party encumbrances, without permissions ‘from above’, without any knocking knees, within the framework of the Constitution rather than of sham democracy, in order to get away from coups d’état and police-state repression. In short, for genuine dialogue for the benefit of the country.
An Internet portal for the Civil Dialogue Forum was established shortly afterwards, and in September it held its inaugural meeting. It was attended by the businessman Alexander Lebedev; the chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva; human rights activist Sergey Kovalev; the head of the Foundation for the Defence of Glasnost, Alexey Simonov; the co-chairman of Solidarity, Boris Nemtsov; the editor of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov; social and political activist Vladimir Ryzhkov; vice-president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Igor Yurgens; the Moscow City Council ombudsman for children, Yevgeny Bunimovich; and other public figures. There was widespread interest, and at first the initiative went fairly well.
In October, we issued a statement about the problems of Russian education:
In 2010, in connection with the passing of a law, ‘On the legal status of publicly funded institutions’, the problem of education became one of the main focuses of controversy in Russian society. There was strong criticism from representatives of political parties, the Orthodox Church, specialists and the public at large. The law, which, judging by official statements, was seen as central to reforms for modernizing and raising the standards of education, was, in effect, rejected by Russia’s citizens.
They rightly saw in the new law an attempt, under the pretext of transferring education to a free market basis, to do away with the allimportant principle of ‘free and universally accessible pre-school, basic general and secondary vocational education’. In recent months, the situation has been aggravated by attempts to modernize the unitary act ‘On Education’, which encompasses all educational institutions in the Russian Federation, from nursery education right up to the universities. The new project has again raised a storm of protest.
We supported President Dmitry Medvedev’s initiative instructing the Ministry of Education to conduct public hearings on the draft law and offered to organize a discussion of the current state of education in Russia and make proposals for amending it, also within the framework of the Forum. Most importantly: ‘The Coordinating Council states that unconstitutional abuses are not acceptable and that the newly adopted laws on education must be revised to accord with the Constitution.’
I have to admit that the Civil Dialogue Forum stalled at this point. There were several reasons. First, the following year was difficult for me. My health began to fail and I had to spend too much time doing the rounds of doctors and hospitals. Second, those who had initiated the forum with me proved unable to get themselves organized and settle down to tenacious, purposeful work. It is an old Russian weakness, a national disease, if you like, that undermines many worthy projects. Finally, in 2011 the Russian political class was obsessed almost to the exclusion of all else by the question of how the ‘presidency problem’ would be resolved. The elections were due to be held in March 2012, but everybody was aware that out of sight of the rest of the world a power struggle had already begun. There was endless talk and gossip on the topic, and these monopolized the attention of Russia’s ‘political elite’.
My 80th birthday
In 2011 there was, of course, no escaping the fact of my 80th birthday. To tell the truth, I could hardly believe I had lived to be so old. I recalled that Raisa and I found it impossible to imagine being old: 70 seemed an incredible age, and she did not make it even to 70.
For myself, I felt I had somehow just to cope with being this age, to recognize the reality, celebrate it, of course, and then move on. I did wonder whether a fuss really needed to be made, and admitted to a reporter from ITAR-TASS that I would have liked to go somewhere quiet, celebrate my birthday there in a close-knit circle of family and friends, and leave it at that. My friends, however, operating through my family, my daughter and granddaughters, persuaded me a more public celebration was called for.
I told the correspondent from Voice of Russia radio:
I never expected to be celebrating my 80th birthday. When we were in the middle of Perestroika, we hoped to live at least until 2000. I cannot boast about my age or what an amazingly hale and hearty old man I am. I find myself visiting hospitals too often for that, and even having extended stays in them. But I will stay the course! I have experienced a lot. I feel that in those 80 years I have lived several lives, and perhaps even a full century. There have been great joys and grievous losses and trials, all packed into those years.
The celebrations began already at the end of January 2011, when an exhibition, titled ‘Mikhail Gorbachev: Perestroika’, opened at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow. In Berlin, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the opening of ‘From the Family Album’, an exhibition of photographs, and we had a friendly and meaningful talk.
On 2 March a gala dinner was held in Moscow to which we invited some 300 guests, including the ‘absolutely most important citizens’, the president and prime minister, although they were not able to fit it into their busy schedules. Those who did come, however, made the evening unforgettable. Friends who had worked with me all these years gave me a splendid present: a disk made in just 10 copies of ‘The Favourite Songs of Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev’. It included two songs I recorded with Andrey Makarevich, ‘Old Letters’ and ‘How Dark the Night’. Our other favourites were there too, performed by professionals: the Ukrainian ‘I Marvel at the Sky’, the romance, ‘Misty Morning’, ‘Karelia’, ‘Two Riverbanks’, ‘How Young We Were’, and others.
What touched me most, however, were the good wishes from my daughter Irina. She came up on to the stage with my granddaughters, Ksenia and Anastasia. Everyone there listened to her in complete silence.
You know I don’t much care to follow what is written or said about you: it disturbs the memory and, at times, the lies are terribly hurtful. In the last months, though, with your 80th birthday approaching, I have read and listened to practically everything that has been written about you. With every fibre of my being I have relived your and our drama and the triumph of your, and hence of our, life.