ANOTHER VOICE
If it's goodbye to all that, it should be goodbye to Gorbachev too
CHARLES MOORE
t is worth reading the 'appeal to the Soviet people' broadcast by Moscow Radio and composed by the men who deposed Mr Gorbachev on Monday. There is no men- tion, as there was in official pronounce- ments after Tiananmen Square, of the defence of true socialism. There is nothing about socialism at all, or Marxism, or Lenin, or Communism, or anything which in any way could be called left-wing. The rhetoric is nationalistic, and the style is partly that of Sir Herbert Gussett and occasionally rises almost to the Burkeian: Thanks to them [extremist forces] life has lost its tranquillity and joy for tens of millions of Soviet people, who only yester- day were living in a united family but who today find themselves outcasts in their own home.
The appeal denounced the adventurism of Mr Yeltsin (unnamed) as if he were Danton and the coup leaders were royal- ists. It bemoaned the break-up of what it saw as an ancient and diverse civilisation, referring not to 70 years of revolution but to 'the test of many centuries of history': Our multi-ethnic people have lived for ages full of pride for their motherland. We never felt shame for our patriotic feelings and consider it natural and lawful to bring up the current and future generations of citizens of our great power in this spirit.
None of this fooled the brilliant Bernard Levin of course. Writing in the Times on Tuesday, he revealed that he knew 'with absolute certainty' that 'the gang of thieves' (the coup leaders) had not 'stolen power' for their stated reasons, but 'to ensure that the lives they wish to continue leading — of comfortable housing, good food and drink, chauffeured limousines and foreign clothing — will be indefinitely available no matter that the rest of the population remains ill-fed, .wretchedly housed, without the barest comforts . . Now Mr Levin is entitled to take his stern view, because I am sure that he could not care less about comfortable housing, that when he writes his numerous articles about good food and drink he does so only in the spirit of professional duty and that when he travels (I believe he does not drive) he always goes by public transport and never uses a chauffeur. And I know `with absolute certainty' that he would not try to secure any of these things if he thought that any other people could not obtain them. But it may be more interest- ing to consider an alternative proposition — that the coup leaders meant what they said.
Perhaps they were genuinely concerned that the Soviet Union would break up, that law and order would break down, that, as their appeal put it, 'the chaotic slide towards the market has aroused an explo- sion of egoism'. They were the defenders of an empire which, by their own account, has developed over hundreds of years. They had patriotic feelings towards that empire and they did not want to lose it. They therefore used what they believed were the best means of keeping it.
None of this is to say that these men are nice or right — they may indeed be so disgraceful as to want comfortable housing and good food and drink and the rest of it — but it is to suggest that they stood for something beyond themselves, something real, a position which is defensible.
All in all, quite a good try, capable of plucking at conservative heart-strings. But one must not be sentimental. One or two incidents in the past 70 years suggest that the Soviet Union is not and never has been a 'united family' and that it would be a good thing for the whole world and for the Soviet people, if the empire did break up, if the republics governed themselves and if democratic institutions gained the upper hand. And that is why I am puzzled by the joy at the prospect of Gorbachev's restora- tion.
For the difference between the coup leaders and Gorbachev is not the Man- ichean antithesis of good and evil imagined by the Levins of the West. The Gang of Eight shared his aims and owed their positions to him. His aims are to keep the Soviet Union together and to preserve power, but his method was to do so by accommodating change rather than resist- ing it. The Eight concluded that his method had not worked, and one is bound to say that they seem to be right. He created a gigantic mess, and if he had ever submitted himself to the democracy of which he is often described as the advocate, the people would have told him so. The coup was not really 'unconstitutional'. It was the tradi- tional means used by the Kremlin's equiva- lent of the Tories' men-in-suits, and Gor- bachev brought it upon himself. It was time for him to go.
As soon as Gorbachev did go, it became obvious even to Western governments who until a few weeks ago had disparaged Yeltsin that you have to choose between him and the elected mayors and the repub- lics on the one hand and the men in the Kremlin on the other, to choose, in other words, between democracy and the con- tinuation of the Soviet Union. Mr Hurd, who still thought him a demagogue when he met him recently, now praises him in the height.
It was not surprising that Yeltsin himself came out for Gorbachev, because the nature of the internal power battle had made them allies, and the success of the coup would have done for him, but the coup was surely the moment for the West to stop pretending that there was a 'Third Way' between communism and capitalism in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev had gone down the path of Karoly Grosz and Egon Krenz and all the other Kerenskys in reverse who a couple of years ago enjoyed the esteem of the chancelleries of Western Europe and the contempt of their own people, and are now forgotten. It was right to pay him a decent tribute, but not to try to bring him back.
It would be nice if, as Yeltsin has suggested, Mrs Thatcher were to go and find Gorbachev and check that he is in the pink of health. He should naturally be free to travel and speak and write, and one looks forward to him emulating her and flying hither and thither in the world delivering lectures and his views on the latest news. But surely the one good thing about the coup should be the end of illusion. Instead one sees illusion scramb- ling back upon its perch with the renewed belief that Gorbachev can save his empire, and that this is something worth doing. The only proper condition for Gorbachev's return to power is that he be elected, and if there were to be proper elections why should he be?
It is time for an end to the great Soviet dominion over steppe and pine, and for the captains and the kings — Gorbachev as much as the Gang of Eight — to depart.
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