Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes. This applies both to Yeltsin and to Gorbachev, the last President of the USSR, who turns 80 on March 2. As a fellow journalist wrote the other day, Gorbachev was more about words, while Yeltsin was more about deeds and action. Of course, there is a time for everything and, as we know, it all started with free speech bursting on to the scene. Words were actually deeds in Gorbachev's time.

That was crucial as the entire nation, especially the most educated part of society had grown tired of being forced to remain silent, and everyone was just dying to open their mouths. Gorbachev gave them freedom at a time when nobody could even dream of it. Back then, Sakharov was in exile and all power was concentrated in the hands of the Party elite. The cold war with America was in full swing, and the hot war in Afghanistan was raging on. Gorbachev stepped on to the scene and gave people freedom. That was his greatest merit.

No doubt, Gorbachev had his weaknesses. For example, he failed to cure the Soviet economy's ills. He simply was held back by his ideological convictions, desperately looking for socialism with a human face – to be more precise – he was trying to find that human face on socialism. He was looking as hard as he could, but it turned out that socialism had no face at all, nothing to be found.Thanks to his efforts, socialism collapsed. Of course, it would have fallen apart in any case, but Gorbachev's vain search sped up the process. Columbus wanted to find a shortcut to India and discovered America. Gorbachev wanted to fine-tune socialism and ended up tearing down the entire socialist system, for which future generations will remember him with gratitude. After all, what Yeltsin inherited from Gorbachev was a sandlot, on which something could be built, which Yeltsin did do.

Bear in mind that Gorbachev did not destroy the country, but the system, which was totally ineffective, unworkable, and anti-human. Besides, he didn’t want to destroy anything initially, actually he wanted to improve the system, but since it couldn’t, he demolished it, not through any of fault his own. It was not so much the Soviet Union, but rather the system, which was held together solely by the Communist Party. The moment the ruling party came apart at the seams, the country ceased to exist as well. It is clear that the system would have collapsed anyway, but it could have been a long, drawn-out and agonizing process, with a lot of bloodshed. With Gorbachev, it went relatively fast and, most importantly, almost painlessly. Besides, it was against the backdrop of Gorbachev losing his momentum, when Yeltsin rose to the occasion and completed what Gorbachev had started.

I can't agree with the widespread belief throughout Russia that Gorbachev was merely held captive by the historic moment. After all, Andropov, who preceded Gorbachev, had realized the need for changes just as clearly. He already understood that the system had spun into its final death throes. So what did he do? He began to ‘tighten the screws’, and did it pointlessly and ridiculously at that. His attempts to establish discipline ultimately ended in violence and failed to stop the system from crashing. Gorbachev took the right course, instead of tightening the screws, he began loosening them. He knew that all those pent-up fumes had to be let out, and people needed to be allowed to talk. What’s more, this understanding was purely intuitive rather than rational. Being an anti-Stalinist, he was an avid supporter of political liberalization.

Also, another important fact was that he was afraid of, and wanted to avoid bloodshed. He could have sent firing squads to deal with those hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, but he never resorted to that. Even the blood that was spilled after all was due to some of his decisions being inevitably late and overdue. In any case, he always held the line of not spilling any blood whatsoever. And that was during the time, when the entire state leadership fell into a panic-stricken state, from which there seemed to be no way out. That set of circumstances could only too easily lead to total violence. Moreover, had it happened, the outcome would have looked almost natural – in the best traditions of the Soviet state and Party leadership. Gorbachev let none of that happen, and that is another one of his personal merits.

Regrettably, Gorbachev is still extensively unpopular in Russia. People still cannot forgive him for the collapse of the USSR. An overwhelming majority of Russians hold on to nostalgia for the Soviet Union. First of all, for many those were the days of their youth, the horrors of that time have faded, while the good memories linger on. Second, the 'post-empire' syndrome is still strong: "The USSR was strong, and everyone was afraid of us, it used to contend with America, and now nobody gives a damn about us." That way or another, Gorbachev and Yeltsin destroyed the “great and mighty Soviet Union”, the country we all were born in.

Nevertheless, I am sure that both Yeltsin and Gorbachev will be counted among the ranks of liberators and reformers like Tsar Alexander II. That said, they will only become popular when (and if) our society changes a great deal and stops revering figures such as Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin.

­Nikolay Svanidze for RТ

­The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.