GORBACHEV - The President - Lafayette College

political reforms. And, of course, that’s not just for leaders to do. It’s something theleaders can do only having consulted the people. We initiated a debate on those issues,and, in effect, it was a kind of national referendum that preceded the national partyconference that we convened to discuss political change.When the Politburo met the next day to discuss the results of the elections, Icongratulated members of the Politburo. I said, “This is a victory for us.” But I saw theywere not in agreement with me and I said, “Why are you unhappy? We have conductedfree elections at the most pivotal time of perestroika, and this vote means supportfor our reforms and our political course.” But the Politburo said, “Those are not realThe 19th Party Conference, in 1988, adopted amazing decisions. We proclaimedfreedom as our goal. We proclaimed the movement toward freedom of speech andfreedom of religion and freedom of political choice — toward all freedoms. People mustbe free. Only a free individual could respond to the challenges we were facing at thattime. We also decided that, in effect, we would change the entire system and build asystem for a free country, a system of political democracy, and that we would implementa democratic constitution based on the right of people to know everything and to beCommunists.” Indeed, the bureaucracy that had ruled the country for decades now hadto compete for its legitimacy, had to prove whether it was legitimately holding all thosepositions in a democratic contest without any control over the results. (I would say theonly control we had was to make sure that no one undermined the elections.) I believethe elections of 1989 and 1990 were the most free and democratic elections. Duringthose elections, new people came to power, and this started a real battle against thereformers. That resistance was quite strong.involved in making decisions on all political issues. The conference lasted for 10 days,and during those 10 days, people were watching everything on television. We showed allof it openly. The theaters were empty, because the main show was not in the theaters,but in the Kremlin.We did not succeed in fully implementing perestroika the way we wanted to, but wewere able to carry it far enough, to the point where there could be no turning back.This has now been proven. The 20 years that have passed since the introduction ofperestroika have been difficult, but I believe we have not turned back and can stillTherefore, we call 1988 the real beginning of perestroika. The previousyears were preparation for perestroika — preparation of the society and the party.This was followed by free elections, and perestroika was gaining momentum andaddressing real challenges. The elections actually gave a lot of support to members ofthe Communist Party. They were competing with other candidates, and on any ballotthere were several names. There was a renovation of power as a result. Eighty-fourpercent of the delegates elected to the parliament were members of the CommunistParty, something that had never before happened in our country.continue the transformation of our country. The breakup of the union of republicsaffected very negatively the subsequent course of events in our country. During thetime of Boris Yeltsin, shock-therapy reforms were implemented. That shock therapyruined the financial system, the economy, the industry. We are only now moving towardthe levels of production of 1990, which was the last normal year of perestroika. A bigblow was dealt to our country. Now I think there is, again, an opportunity to moveforward. But a lot of time was wasted, and that is why we have poverty in our country,why we have not been able to rebuild the manufacturing base, and so on.3233