Mikhail Gorbachev's interview on CNN

AMANPOUR: Welcome back. As the last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev paved the way for democracy and openness in his country. And together with Ronald Reagan, whom he called his partner, Gorbachev ended the Cold War.

But after Gorbachev, the deluge. The Soviet Union collapsed, plunging Russia into a decade of economic and political chaos. Now Russia has achieved a measure of stability again under the current president, Vladimir Putin. But at what cost? Can Russian democracy thrive? Can it even survive?

I spoke with President Gorbachev at this week's summit of Nobel laureates in Chicago.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Mr. President, thank you for joining me. President Putin has just been reelected, third time, and yet, there is a sense that he's stifling public dissent, that he has Nashi as a group to back up his policies, that democracy may be dying in Russia.

Do you agree with that, or do you think democracy is alive and well today in Russia?

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE SOVIET UNION (through translator): Well, that it's alive, yes, I agree. That it is well, not so. Well, I am alive, but I can't say that I'm fine.

AMANPOUR: Mr. President, many people call you the father of democracy, certainly, many in the West and many in Russia. But many are also saying that Russian democracy, if it's not dead already, is dying.

Why is that? What went wrong?

GORBACHEV (through translator): Well, during the election campaign, a lot of critical things were said about democracy in Russia, and you're right, there is a problem.

But democracy is not dying, because when 100,000 people, hundreds of thousands of people, actually, protest in the public squares, when they demand free and fair elections, when they are ready to take risks for democracy, it means that it is alive, because above all, democracy is the participation of citizens.

However, the institutions of democracy are not working efficiently, not working effectively in Russia because, ultimately, they are not free. They are dependent on the executive. They're dependent on what we call Telephone Law, the rule of the executive.

And that is what the people are protesting against. They want real freedom, they want real democracy, they want a democracy in which the people's voice is decisive.

AMANPOUR: In fact, you've called Putin's democracy or the current Russian democracy an "imitation democracy."

Do you think that President Putin is committed to any kind of reform, and will the people's voice be heard under his presidency?

GORBACHEV (through translator): I said on the eve of the elections that if the president and his entourage in the future will just continue to try to fool the people with this imitation, that will not succeed. People are protesting and people might protest in much stronger ways if he just continues his old ways.

I think it'll be hard for him, given his nature, to do this, but there is no other way for him but to move toward greater democracy in Russia, toward real democracy in Russia, because there is no other way for Russia to find a way out of its dead end, in which it is now.

AMANPOUR: In the meantime, about seven years ago, President Putin said, quote, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the century. For the Russian people, it was a genuine tragedy."

He's talking about what you did. How do you assess his assessment? Was bringing down the Soviet Union the greatest tragedy of the 20th century?

GORBACHEV (through translator): First of all, he has a right to his own opinion, and he has a right to speak out, to say anything, whether positive or critical about me. I, when I do not accept or do not like his policies, also say that very directly. So, I think this is a very direct discussion, and that's important.

AMANPOUR: Do you think the collapse of the Soviet Union, which you engineered, is a genuine tragedy for Russia?

GORBACHEV (through translator): Well, you are stating that I engineered it.

AMANPOUR: Didn't you?

GORBACHEV (through translator): You will not find in any of my speeches until the very end anything that supported the breakup of the union. The breakup of the union was the result of betrayal by the Soviet nomenklatura, by the bureaucracy, and also Yeltsin's betrayal.

He spoke about cooperating with me, working with me on a new union treaty, he signed the draft union treaty, initialed that treaty. But at the same time, he was working behind my back. And that, of course, is not, frankly, policy. That is, I think, deception.

And let me tell you that our friends, including our friends in the United States, they spoke very sympathetically about the need to preserve some form of union. They said that it should be preserved.

But at the same time, when the breakup started, they were rubbing their hands. They were rubbing their hands, I would say, below the table.

And by the way, Yeltsin and his team felt support from certain members of the U.S. administration, such as Cheney and Gates, who established a channel of communication with Yeltsin.

They believed that Gorbachev was someone who would still try to implement his plans, which they did not particularly like.

They said, "We like Yeltsin's plans more," the plans to destroy the union, to destroy or damage the Soviet economy and the Soviet armed forces. So, they said, "We need to bet on Yeltsin rather than Gorbachev."

President Bush, by the way, resisted this approach. And he said to the Baltic politicians, he said, "It is your right to seek independence, but you should do it in a way that would not destroy Perestroika.

AMANPOUR: Mr. President, can I ask you, when I travel around the world, and I go to places, let's say, from Iran to Cuba, and I ask them about reform and democracy, they say, "Oh, my goodness, look at what happened in Soviet Union. Look what Gorbachev did. Shock therapy, chaos." They see it as chaotic.

What do you -- what do you say when you hear authoritarian leaders like Castro or the mullahs in Iran look at what happened in the Soviet Union and say, "No, we can't do that, we can't liberalize, we can't open up, it's too dangerous"?

GORBACHEV (through translator): Well, chaos, that is, frankly, not Gorbachev's fault. I was against chaos. I, and many people and leaders who supported me, wanted an evolutionary approach to reform. We wanted to do it step by step. We were against shock therapy.

It was Yeltsin and his government, the government of Gaidar, who adopted the policy of shock therapy, and it resulted in very destructive privatization. It resulted in the kind of privatization that gave the property that used to belong to the entire nation to very, very few people.

So, those old guys who have been in power for 20 years and more, they should not attribute that to me. Why are they saying what they're saying? That is because they fear democracy. They are afraid of democracy.

AMANPOUR: I'm sure it's not news to you, but many of your supporters, those who call you the father of Russian democracy, feel that you should have, perhaps, split the Communist Party back in the late `80s, into its democratic and anti-democratic wings, that if you had done that, it might have paved the way for a more democratic process, or at least a party, like the Social Democrats, that could have taken democracy a little bit further than it is today.

I mean, looking back in retrospect, you didn't want to split the party. Do you think you should have done that?

GORBACHEV (through translator): Well, they're saying that, but in fact, I had said that before them. I have said on many occasions, on dozens of occasions, that, yes, I believe this was a mistake. This was a mistake that we acted too late to reform the Communist Party.

Only in July 1991 did we decide that we will take the Social Democratic path and we proposed a Social Democratic draft program of the party and scheduled a congress of the party that would have taken the decision. And that would have happened in November 1991. So, they are late to this game, and you can say hello to them from me.

AMANPOUR: To many people around the world, you are a hero, a once-in- a-generation actor, who ended the Cold War. How would you like your people to remember you?

GORBACHEV (through translator): History is a fickle lady, and you can expect surprises from history, but I do know that I did what I did and that I can be proud of what I did.

AMANPOUR: And you can.

CNN, 26.04.2012