The Gorbachev files

The international stage is dominated by two men this March: Muammar Gaddafi, fighting like mad for the survival of his regime, and Mikhail Gorbachev, celebrated around the world on his 80th birthday for not being a Gaddafi. Nobody knows what will now happen in Libya; but the Gorbachev celebrations will culminate next week in a splendid gala at Royal Albert Hall, with a crowd of celebrities and tickets on sale for up to £100,000.

Some 20 years ago the communist dictators faced the same choice as the Arab dictators today: to surrender their regimes or to massacre their people. Some chose massacre, like the Chinese comrades, who slaughtered thousands of protestors at Tiananmen Square in 1989. But Gorbachev rejected such methods, and so the Soviet Union collapsed almost peacefully. This is how he became a hero.

Tiananmen

Yet, as secret archives now reveal, the truth was not so simple. Thus, notes taken at Politburo meeting on 4 October 1989 read:

Lukyanov reports that the real number of casualties in Tiananmen Square was 3,000.

Gorbachev: We must be realists. They, like us, have to defend themselves. Three thousand … So what?

Of course, the Soviet massacres in Gorbachev’s time never approached the scale of Tiananmen. The Soviet collapse was that of an empire rather than just a regime, and the outposts were more rebellious than the centre — so that was where the most blood was shed. There were several smaller massacres rather than one big one; and in most cases, Gorbachev’s personal complicity has not been demonstrated.

On 9 April 1989, the Soviet special forces dispersed a peaceful demonstration in Georgia, slashing protestors with spades, killing 20 people and injuring hundreds. Later, Gorbachev denied he gave the orders; but he is on record as defending the massacre at the time.

The transcript of his meeting with the leaders of West German Social Democrats on 11 April 1989 reads as follows: