Old friends and colleagues came, people I had known for a long time and others I had come to know more recently. There were speeches by Nobel Prize winners Shimon Peres and Lech Wałęsa; Ted Turner; the former French Prime Minister, Michel Rocard; the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger; and George Shultz and Bill Clinton sent video greetings. The concert could have extended over several nights.
We listened to my beloved Rachmaninov, performed by Andrey Gavrilov and the London Symphony Orchestra under Valeriy Gergiev; Dmitry Hvorostovsky sang, as did Shirley Bassey, Paul Anka, Andrey Makarevich and Time Machine, Igor Krutoy, Lara Fabian, The Scorpions, and Turetsky Choir. The gala’s presenters were Sharon Stone and Kevin Spacey, magnificent actors I know well and with whom to this day I enjoy friendly relations.
I supported the idea, which came up in the course of preparing the gala, of awarding a ‘Man Who Changed the World’ prize to people who had not been awarded the Nobel Prize but had made a unique contribution to progress for the good of mankind. In the three categories of Perestroika, Glasnost and Acceleration, the winners were: Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the scientist who invented the World Wide Web; Ted Turner, who founded CNN and changed the face of television; and Kenyan engineer Evans Wadongo, who created the MwangaBora solar lamp which has brought light to millions of Africans.
At the end of the evening, it was time for me to speak. It was hard. I felt very emotional and a long, noisy day had taken its toll. I had to pull myself together.
I came out on to the stage and looked round the vast, crowded auditorium. It had been built by Queen Victoria in memory of her husband, Prince Albert, who died young. I remembered Raisa, and I said that this great hall was a monument to love. Thousands of people fell silent. I thanked the performers, guests and audience for a wonderful evening that had touched me deeply, and then invited them all to come back for my 90th birthday party. The hall exploded with applause. I felt they wanted to show their support for me, and that they believed the will to live, the desire to do good and continue to fight for what you believe in is stronger than ailments and illness.
Russian politics in a quandary
Meanwhile, Russian politics had not gone away. Politicians, journalists, colleagues, friends and acquaintances all wanted to know what I thought about the events unfolding one after another. The moment was approaching when the public needed to know who would be contesting the presidency, if, indeed, there was to be a contest.
I felt this touched on some much broader issues of Russian politics, and spoke out at every opportunity, in many interviews, including those in connection with my anniversary celebrations.
Lyudmila Telen, a journalist, commented:
On the threshold of his 80th birthday, Gorbachev does not mince words or avoid questions, even if they are clearly not to his liking. He is not just critical, he is almost irritated and untypically blunt in his assessments. These are the assessments of someone who can afford not to be intimidated and not to worry how others may react.
‘Just take a look at how the country’s leaders are being chosen nowadays’, I said in her interview. ‘You promote your pals, people you studied with, people who lived on the same street, who played football with you or whatever, and perhaps still do. In other words, the main criterion is personal loyalty, old acquaintance, friendly relations. I find that approach unacceptable. Totally!’
Lyudmila Telen counters, ‘But friends do not betray you, and in August 1991 you were betrayed by your immediate entourage.’
MG: Well, does it not matter that these ‘friends’ are betraying the Russian people? Helping themselves to everyone’s property and quietly moving money abroad? Instead of a fight against corruption, we have a pretence, and what is the result? The same pants, only back to front, as the saying goes.
LT: What is your main gripe against the current Russian state authorities?
MG: They are taking too long to introduce democracy.
LT: Too long? You put that very mildly. Why do you think the situation is as it is?
MG: Our rulers like to keep everything on manual control, and to stay in peak physical condition they need to work out by breaking democratic equipment.
LT: Why are the people who have come to power in Russia far removed from what is commonly called the ideals of Perestroika? MG: Because they were not elected. Those who have come to power were not elected in democratic elections and have no mandate from democratic institutions. Since 1989 and 1990, when democratic elections were held for the first time in the Soviet republics, we have had no more free elections.
LT: But Vladimir Putin won in the elections. Even if we allow for a certain amount of fraud, there is no disputing the fact that a majority did vote for him, both in 2000 and in 2004.
MG: If the election campaigns had been more free, he would have been facing competition from a considerably greater number of representatives of the opposition. The elections would have been more full-blooded, and then it would be a completely different story, with a different political climate. Take those countries that do have a mature democracy. There will be several parties represented in parliament, none of them with more than 40 per cent of the seats, and those with most seats are obliged to negotiate with the opposition.
LT: Why do you think governments in Russian traditionally tend towards authoritarianism?
MG: It depends on who comes to power.
LT: On the individual?
MG: Yes, on the person, his personal qualities, his experience. What experience do ours have? Only of manual control. They are accustomed to keeping people in their place by fear. That is why I am now saying that our main problem, our number one problem, is that we need a revamped electoral system that would give people a real choice.
LT: The political situation in Russia seems unlikely to change any time soon. Would you care to predict how political events will unfold in Russia?
MG: No.
LT: Perhaps just for the next decade?
MG: No. The main thing right now is to get robust democratic procedures operating, and for them to disempower those who want to gnaw away at political freedom and property rights.
LT: Would you wish for Russia to have, for example, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin elected president again in 2018?
MG: No. I think it is essential that we should all firmly agree that nobody should occupy that post for more than two terms.
LT: Do you see any prospect of genuine political competition in the 2012 presidential election?
MG: Not so far. So far the Russian elite is so obsessed with power… The government is above God! First they get up to all sorts of things, then go to church, take some candles and pray to the Almighty to forgive them their sins. I do, though, have a sense that we already have a whole stratum in the population who will identify and put forward someone with a credible claim to become president.