Depending on Who Succeeds Putin, Russia's Disintegration Will Be Like End of USSR or End of Yugoslavia, Glezin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 11 – The disintegration of the Russian Federation, “the last empire in the Eurasian space,” is inevitable, Eduard Glezin says; but the manner of that demise is not. If Vladimir Putin is succeeded by a reformer like Mikhail Gorbachev, it could come apart in a “civilized” manner; but if by a Slobodan Milosevich, it would be “war of all against all.”

            Glezin who has written extensively about Gorbachev and Perestroika tells the After Empire portal that Gorbachev’s perestroika has so transformed Russian attitudes that “however much Putin will try to tighten the screws, he will not be able to restore the kind of totalitarian Soviet regime which existed before Gorbachev (afterempire.info/2018/11/11/glezin/).

            But that doesn’t mean that the way in which the Russian Federation will come apart is determined by that fact. Gorbachev’s revolution was characteristically “’a revolution from above,’” and if someone with a different approach takes power after the current Kremlin leader, then all bets are off as to how the country will come apart.

            Glezin made three additional points worth noting.

            First, he insists, Gorbachev was a committed reformer long before he came to power as a result of his conversations with various reform-minded people in the 1950s.  He certainly didn’t intend that his reforms would lead to the end of the CPSU and the USSR, but he was committed to changes that would cause both to die even if he didn’t fully understand that fact. 

Second, when asked what might have happened had “the new union treaty” been signed, the historical writer suggests Russia “undoubtedly would have been a freer and more democratic state.”  But it would not have held together for long as the union republic leaders wanted independence; and democratic institutions to hold them hadn’t been worked out.”

And third, Glezin notes that Gorbachev’s relationship with Putin has evolved through several periods.  When Putin came to power, he invited Gorbachev to meet with him on a regular basis, something that continued until Gorbachev criticized Putin in 2011 and 2012, even suggesting then that the Kremlin leader retire from office.

“If today, [Gorbachev] expresses himself in a more complimentary fashion, to my regret,” Glezin says, one must consider his honored age. However, this is no way undercuts the historical services of Gorbachev.” He made Russia different in ways that preclude any simple return to the past.