Cross-cultural communication （128）　

128) Thoughts on the death of Gorbachev
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022. On September 9, 2022, the Nikkei Shimbun morning edition published an article reprinted from the Financial Times titled “The Transformation of ‘Great Russia.’ The article states that while Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union and former General Secretary of the Communist Party, advocated perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), Putin sought to rebuild Russia as a great power and made the tragic decision to invade Ukraine. Gorbachev reportedly confessed in an interview with Daniel Yergin (a renowned energy expert and historian known for his book “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power”) in 2001 that the Soviet government's inability to provide citizens with daily necessities was a sign of its incompetence, and that working for such a government was humiliating. This comment resonated deeply with me when I wrote about my highschool teacher's experience in my blog post Cross-cultural communication (110)where the most appreciated souvenir from the Soviet Union was a pair of pantyhose.

Now, while Gorbachev was very popular in Western countries at the time, he reportedly became quite unpopular among Russians after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. There was even an assassination attempt on him. Putin, driven by the ambition to revive Russia as a great power, is moving forward confidently with the backing of Russian public opinion that dislikes Gorbachev. Russia, despite its vast territory, has never been truly regarded as a great power by other European countries since the imperial era. Instead, it was seen as a crude, culturally backward white nation. Therefore, Putin's recent invasion of Ukraine could be seen as a form of revenge against the long-standing prejudice of Western countries toward Russia.

Gorbachev, the last president and general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, seems to have similarities with Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate. Both faced internal collapse and external pressure, and no matter who was in power, the situation only worsened. Looking back, it is clear that both Gorbachev and Yoshinobu were born into such a fate, yet they made their best efforts to survive. All we can say is, “Well done.”

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