Mikhail Gorbachev''s speech at the Non/fiction Book Fair on 28 November 2008.

The publication of the first five volumes of my Collected Works is, indeed, an important event for me. And I want to thank you for having displayed an interest in these books. I am sure these things are necessary. Of course, one must have a lot of persistence to read them. But when somebody – a student, a teacher, a history researcher – needs to make clear a certain period, they will have some useful books at their disposal in a library.

I am extremely grateful to professor Loginov, a historian, a high class specialist, and to his team, to all those who have been working on the Collected Works.

 And I am grateful to the Ves’ mir Publishers with which we have been maintaining cooperation.

I am now dictating a book. I have been making notes and drafts for this book, and now I am dictating it. Its title is Face to Face with Myself. Next week I shall finish dictating the first 450 pages and then do their editing. But this is just the first part of the book. Altogether there will be three books. They will be published by installments. Certainly there is demand for this book. It carries a more interesting, a more detailed story about myself.

I think that the only way defend oneself is to say what happened in reality. Indeed, far too many are those who engage in telling devilish stories. There is hardly a day when somebody is not reviling Gorbachev.

Just one example: they say that Gorbachev ruined the Soviet Union. If I were to ask you now, everybody would have raised hands: yes, he did. And this belief still keeps although we published two or three books as collections of documents about how all this happened in reality. Not so long ago Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was giving an interview to a correspondent from Le Figaro. The correspondent was reproving Russia of its imperial ways, of the desire to build back the empire, and things like that. Putin (I am retelling this just in my own words) answered: the Soviet Union would have never collapsed had it been not for Russia’s decision. Russia decided to disband the Soviet Union and all the rest followed the lead. But had it been not for Russia’s decision, the Soviet Union would have still continued in existence. So I think that President made everything clear at last and honestly said so. But when I am saying this or when I write about these events people think that writing is the only thing I can do to defend myself.

I am not living an easy life. I travel a lot. I have to earn money. My salary of the President of the Gorbachev Foundation is 23 thousand rubles. My pension is by several times smaller than pensions of current presidents. Usually, the foundations similar to the Gorbachev Foundation are partially financed by the state. I have to do everything myself. I had to build its building, and it cost huge money. So we were building and building it and then came financial default of 1998. And we were left with nothing but the walls and the roof. Something had to be done! At the time Pizza Hut was making a commercial that cost million. So they invited me in the commercial and I agreed – because the building workers were about to leave and abandon out project… So, sometimes I have to accept such proposals. But I did not steal; I was not doing any business. But this is something that you will not read about in the Collected Works.

The Foundation was built. We did it. But it needs to be maintained. The upkeep of the Foundation costs approximately $ 800 thousand. Occasionally it comes to million. And earning this money is not easy.

I am traveling as invited lecturer. I am giving lectures in Europe, in Asia and in the Arab countries but most of my lectures are in the UK, in Germany, in France and in the United States. Admission to these lectures is by tickets, and these tickets are sold out fast. There is a group of lecturers – Bush-senior, Clinton, Gorbachev, and Thatcher whose lectures are expensive. But if my lecture were announced here (I am not announcing because there is a special bureau with which I have been working for nearly 20 years), nobody would have come, I am sure. But when I lecture abroad, I am earning good money.

 Now the time is changing the situation, and the attitude to Gorbachev and to perestroika is changing too. Some time before there was a period when attempts were made to consign to oblivion, to trample underfoot everything that was made during perestroika. We are told that the libraries had received an unofficial order to burn the texts of Gorbachev’s speeches and articles. I used to think this was possible in primordial times. Now I know this is possible in our time.

Before 1996 I didn’t publish much and had no access to television. When I was going to join the presidential election campaign my friends and colleagues were against the idea. And my family was against it too – except Raisa Maximovna. But I needed this: when standing for presidential election I got a chance to meet people. At the time I visited 22 regions although I knew the situation there. For example, when I came to the St. Petersburg University its assembly hall was urgently closed for repairs. The students and those who wanted this meeting to take place sat on the stairs running through all four floors. This was the way we conducted that meeting.

Then I came to Volgograd. It is a good place… But during the whole time of my election meeting a brass band was playing by the window.

When I came to Vladimir, the hall where I was supposed to have the meeting with people was not available. People encircled me. The car that I am using has a megaphone. So I had to use it to make myself heard.

In short, it was a difficult experience but, indeed, it was also a breakthrough. The situation started to change when Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin became President. I cannot say it was a fast change. Putin seems to have been dependent on the commitments taken at the time of his nomination the presidential post.

 Now I can make public speeches where I want, I can write what I want and I can meet people. It’s a pity I shall be 80 in two years from now. There is a lot to be done because the amount of lies is unbelievably big. Even the newly published school manual edited by Filippov and written for teaching history at school has distorted perestroika. There appeared too many people who have an impudent way in politics, in economy, in the social sphere – everywhere.

 I think very highly of the results that Vladimir Vladimirovich achieved during his time in office. He succeeded in stabilizing the situation and preventing Russia’s disintegration. He was able to do a lot for the population, - and we owe him appreciation for that. But now Russia is in need of modernization. We have entered a very difficult period. We have been set on our feet and now we have to move ahead. Some people don’t like it. But what I value particularly is the ability of the people to sort things out. An evidence of this was the response of Germans to Putin’s speech in Munich. Four days after the speech there was an opinion poll, and 68% of those polled in Germany were on Putin’s side in spite of the noise raised in the press all over the world. Certainly, one has to keep in mind the existence of a dividing wall within power and within society itself.

I feel very much concerned – and I am open in saying this (those of you who read newspapers and watch TV know this) – with the difficult problem that Russia is facing: it is necessary to implement the policy of modernization but competent people are few and far between. It takes a great deal of effort. And, of course, we have to support the President.