Memory: Gorbachev in Prague. “Autoreformator”, wrote Václav Havel
photo: Youtube screen/Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to Prague
Mikhail Gorbachev died on Tuesday evening at the age of ninety-one. Today, the last leader of the Soviet Union may be just a rhyme for the word “Dlabačov” for many people, but thirty-five years ago he was able to bring 150 thousand people to the streets of Prague completely voluntarily. A reformer of the Soviet system, whose reform had gotten out of hand, was indeed a hope in 1987. Let’s commemorate this special visit of the Soviet leader in Prague in every way.
The second half of the eighties was a time of great hopes and faith in the future throughout the world. In retrospect, you hear the phrases “better world” “better place” annoyingly often in songs from that time, plus listening to a variation on knocking down walls. In September 1988, the whole world came together for a friendly meeting and peaceful competition at the Olympics (after sixteen years of various boycotts) and listened together in the Seoul stadium to the words of the group Koreana “we stand hand in hand, let’s begin to understand each other, break the old walls between us”.
Thirty-five years later, it can seriously look a little cheesy. But just five years earlier, the USA and the USSR were aiming nuclear warheads at each other right here above us in Central Europe, and in 1983 only the providence of one Soviet officer did not start a “hot” war. After forty years of confrontation between the superpowers to manage to destroy the entire world, it must have been quite a relief to see their people shaking hands and calling each other friendly “Ron” and “Mother”.
For Ronald Reagan, he was the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The one who probably contributed the most to a better world and breaking down walls.
When he became general secretary of the CPSU in March 1985, it was clear to him that he had to change something. The calm established twenty years earlier by Leonid Brezhnev after Stalin’s reign of terror and the chaos of Nikita Khrushchev turned over the course of two decades into a deadlock, best documented by Brezhnev’s two successors, one of whom died after 14 months in office and the other after 11.
Gorbachev was significantly younger and about a thousand times more energetic than anyone else in the Soviet Politburo, so he set about making changes he believed could save the Soviet regime. In addition to economic reforms, he also wanted to shake up society, do something about the astronomical spending on the military, and in addition to changing the world order between the great powers, he wanted to re-establish relations between the USSR and its satellites in Central Europe.
But this policy did not meet with much understanding in Prague. The leadership of the Czechoslovak party was still occupied by people who derived their mandate from the tanks that sent Brezhnev here in August 1968, and by questioning the status quo, they lost the reason for their political existence.
Party discipline forced them to respect the changes in Moscow, the instinct of political survival, on the contrary, advised them not to interfere too much. So “perestroika”, as Gorbachev called his reform concept, was a hot mess.
Under these circumstances, nobody really wanted Gorbachev to come to Prague, on the other hand, this visit was a necessary ritual of socialist friendship. After two years, there was no other way. Gorbachev arrived in April 1987.
But while the political representation was afraid of the visit from Moscow in the 20s, the people numbed by the years of normalization placed extraordinary hopes in her.
So, while until then they had to be herded into the health parades of the Soviet papalas, on April 9, 1987, before noon, they came to greet Gorbachev voluntarily and in the tens of thousands. The European avenue from the airport was then called Leninova, but people showered it like they will welcome Yuri Gagarin for the last time.
During the flight, Gorbachev swapped the sheepskin coat in which he said goodbye at Vnukovo Airport for an elegant hat, and so did Mrs. Raisa, who was the first of the Soviet wives of general secretaries to truly call herself a “first lady.”
Gustáv Husák, at that time still in the cumulative position of First Secretary of the Party and President of the Republic, was the first to board her plane. A pink-faced pioneer added the greeting in Russian, and other customary rituals followed. Only the popular Brezhnev kiss did not happen this time.
At the airport, the entire Czechoslovak party presidency was lined up, scared of what was going to happen in the next few hours.
Already at the airport, hundreds of people were waiting for the Soviet leader, enthusiastically shouting “long live Comrade Gorbachev”. The Secretary General targeted them as well, which was not only against protocol, but also against current customs.
“For example, we will think together about what can be done to bring the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia even closer,” he promised them.
The ride to the center was truly triumphant, and it was topped off by a full Hradčanské náměstí in front of the Castle, where there was a ritual with bread and salt and a convulsive speech by the Prague city secretary of the party, Kapka, about the fulfillment of the conclusions of the last congress.
More enthusiastic shouts from the crowd, replicated reassurances, in Russian, that the future can be built with good people. “The images speak for themselves,” stated the TV editor.
Gorbachev received an even more enthusiastic reception on Na Příkopech boulevard, where he went between meetings. Tens of thousands more Prague citizens were waiting there. In total, about 150,000 people were supposed to see the Soviet leader in three days.
But Václav Havel, the future Czechoslovak and Czech president and leader of the dissent at the time, had a completely different view of his visit. He met Gorbachev, albeit completely unplanned and somewhat curiously. On the second evening of the Soviet secretary’s visit, he left his apartment on Rašín (then Engels) embankment to walk his dog and walked across Palacký náměstí to the National Theatre. Attracting her crowd of people, he discovered that the Soviet leader was just leaving the performance to which he had been invited.
He wrote about it a remarkable text, entitled Meeting with Gorbachev.
“Curiosity won’t help me (because I was curious about my establishment) and I will head to the National Theatre. Thanks to the dog that blocked my path, I fought my way to the front row. I’m standing, waiting for the show, it must end at any moment. I observe and listen to the people around me. They’re random pedestrians, no organized audience, no people who came here on their own because of Gorbachev, just slobbers like me who went from one pub to another, saw that there was some commotion, and so out of curiosity they stopped” described the atmosphere of the “tsar – reformer” visit.
And then Gorbachev appeared. “Cthe evil and ironic pranksters, who only a few seconds ago were very hard on the rulers and their guards, suddenly – as if by waving a wand – turn into an enthusiastic, even frenetically roaring crowd, rushing forward to wave at the main ruler. Of course, there was no “eternal friendship with the Soviet Union” here. It was about something more dangerous: those people greeting the man they believe brought them freedom.” the playwright shook his head.
“It saddened me, and I thought that this nation was unteachable: so many times had it pinned all its hopes on some external power that it promised would solve its problems for it, so many times had it been bitterly disappointed, and had been forced to admit that no one will help him unless he helps himself first – and again the same mistake! The illusion again! Do they really think that Gorbachev came here to free them from Husák!” the future president thought.
Gorbachev but the expectations of the Czechoslovak public kinda disappointed. Before the visit, he had a reputation as a thrift shopper who does everything differently than his predecessors. But his empty phrases about good people and understanding between socialist states showed people that he is still, above all, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
It was expected that he would make a statement about the occupation in August 1968, which was a very key point in mutual relations. But Gorbachev did not. Nor did he sink the party leadership in any way, even though behind the scenes at that time there was talk of replacing Gustáv Husák (finally Milouš Jakeš would replace him in December of that year as a compromise candidate between different party wings).
Despite this failure in Prague, Gorbachev remained an idol in Czechoslovakia. He got into novels, even the forester from Spořilovsk, Honza Nedvěd, named one of his opus at the time Song for Mr. Gorbachev.
And after 1989, everyone knows that his contributions to the peaceful end of the Cold War and freedom for the nation of Central and Eastern Europe are absolutely crucial.
One of the most important statesmen of the second half of the twentieth century has passed away, leaving behind a great work in world history. And it doesn’t really matter what he really wanted to prove and what came more by mistake and coincidence.
Even though Václav Havel wrote about an unteachable nation, Mikhail Gorbachev was fundamentally responsible for our freedom.