The Red Ripper by Peter Conradi

Author:Peter Conradi [Conradi, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504040150
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-09-27T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

For anyone who lived through it, the spring of 1989 was an almost unreal time. Historians will look back on it not only as the high point of Gorbachev’s perestroika but inevitably as the beginning of its end. It was the point at which the initially controlled ‘revolution from above’ gave way to a spontaneous and far more powerful ‘revolution from below’. Certainly, the consequences were not felt immediately. From then on, however, it was possible to trace a series of events which were to culminate two and a half years later not just in the fall of Communism and of Gorbachev but also in the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

Since coming to power in 1985, the former Communist Party boss from the provinces had already made enough changes to earn himself a place in the history books. To begin with, it was largely a question of telling the truth about the past and debunking the myths and lies on which the Soviet Union had been built. Stalin, virtually deified by Gorbachev’s predecessors, was at last revealed in his true colours: as a monster who killed millions in his pursuit of power. One by one, the victims of his purges were rehabilitated and lessons drawn about the damage caused by the so-called ‘Cult of Personality’.

Gorbachev’s revolution was not only about the past. He was also interested in the present. At home, he began experiments in the economy, giving the green light to the formation of co-operatives, in reality private companies in everything but name. Abroad, he agreed deep arms cuts with the Americans and began to loosen the stranglehold on the former satellites of Eastern Europe in a process culminating in the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Yet it was an uphill struggle. Although Gorbachev himself seemed uncertain at times about how fast or how far he wanted to go with his reforms, it was all too much for many of his more conservative colleagues. One by one they were removed in reshuffles. Yet the speed of change was so great that many of the seemingly more enlightened men who took their places soon found that they, too, were out of step with the increasingly liberal mood.

Nor was society, as a whole, ready for the shock. Whilst the young generally welcomed change, many of the older generation remained Communists, who were proud of the achievements of the past, from the defeat of Nazi Germany to the space programme. What little they had seen of perestroika did not suit them at all. Despite Gorbachev’s rhetoric, food stores were getting emptier not fuller. More alarming was the perceived growth in lawlessness. No sooner had authorities conceded openly for the first time that serious crime existed, than they had to admit that the situation was getting worse. This was particularly the case in Rostov, whose position in the south of Russia made it easy prey for the organised ‘mafia’ groups run out of Georgia, Armenia and the other republics of the Caucasus. Many ordinary people had had enough.

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