about that i think economical so dysfunctional so wasteful it was impossible probably for me the only way it was actually was as a and complete collapse and disintegration of the soviet union and i would actually argue that the economic factors was really very much behind the disintegration of the soviet union because you couldn't carry on. market reforms on the basis of central control in from moscow you really have to devolve power to the group of various republics and this is the seed of this integration and we're seeing similar such processes in central europe as well in czechoslovakia and yugoslavia so you know i don't i don't believe that the idea that the economy could be risky would in some form and i think it's delusional if i can add on top of it he would use a good economic reform here by going to stephen here and then having political freeform simultaneously they create high expectations when the shelves are empty i mean at a certain point there is a collision and there was a collision there was

a collision and i would i would i would build on what you say because the point is correct that the economic crisis that came in one thousand nine hundred ninety one was actually a political crisis it wasn't caused by the economy it was caused by political decisions first made by you know by gorbachev and then by you also and for example the moment that gorbachev and yeltsin once you also have been elected president of the russian republic announced that prices would increase suppliers of goods refused to deliver into the market to the stores because they were waiting for the price increase it wasn't a failure of production it was a failure of distribution that's not a failure of this of the economic system those were bad political decisions jeffrey if i'm going to you let me give my sense of it i'm a i'm a gorbachev skeptic i'll be open about it if you want my one of my biggest problems with him is historical figures that i never really got to grasp that he had a grasp on really what he wanted to do it was basically. a make shift decision

going from crisis to crisis to crisis like i never understood any kind of broad plan it was forced upon well in many ways and i don't entirely agree with that i think when he came to power he did have a vision about how to revive soviet communism and make it a real force in the world and he hoped at the same time to revive the soviet economy and to make a country less hated in the world he had grasped that the soviet union was hated by most european peoples so i think it was a humane vision and an ambitious view from. when he started to implement it her very kept on running up against difficulties as steve said i think in fact the economic decisions were mainly economic ones purse in order to carry in the through it was necessary to carry out political reform as well and that further destabilize the country and i think the coverage of didn't have a good understanding of the nationalities problem in the soviet union because as soon as she loosened up the political system then the non russian nationalities began to raise their heads form their own political organizations and educate for

greater autonomy or even in the end to secede from the soviet union it seems to me gentlemen that for go ahead lie but it seems to me that for got a chance to succeed he had to fail it's a very ironic go ahead yet i think you're probably right but just like a return to your point about his plan i actually believe that he was impossible to have a plan like this you know you cannot you cannot resolve an organization such as the soviet union in any so peaceful coherent and very pre-planned manner and you know you just have to go along and try your best and i think this is there is really very gorbachev reveal his strengths because he was he was at every point of when persistence started to resisting when it was the possibility of retreating to the previous system he pushed for over it you know so i don't i don't believe that although he did not have a plan but it was he had the insight into the inner feeling that he could actually achieve this process so you know i think it's really you know this. we look at the

situation oh say middle east do we have a plan for the need and certainly. we see how things happen. and i think it's realistic to to expect anyone to have a plan steve even if you're going to be had a detailed plan here i don't think he had a detailed plan i think he had a vision both of the soviet union and of the world and let's face it on the world stage he cheap a great deal by ending the cold war by reducing the number of nuclear weapons by achieving agreement with reagan those were all tremendous achievements and we should remember that although of course in the end they also helped to lead to the breakup first of all of the warsaw pact and then of the soviet union so that gorbachev as a result of his vision facing problems which probably he had not fully anticipated and which led him into one crisis after another and then i think indeed he lost control of the process our original good order was short break or after a short break we'll continue our discussion i got a chance legacy stay with parking.

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welcome back to prosecute a little too mind you we're talking about the legacy of me help out of a child. but first. see what russians think about him the last leader of the soviet union gorbachev is now eighty years old his name is forever linked with the times to report on the soviet system and his policies have received different assessments through the years the russian public opinion research center asked russians to define this historical role the one percent of the respondents said he is opposed to who was thinking about the betterment of his country but made a number of mistakes sixteen percent called him this honest man almost to my view the collapse of the country and another twelve percent see him as a brave man who took responsibility to oversee vital reforms in the country

gorbachev attempted to create a more open and prosperous country through the policies of glasnost perestroika that peter that's what russians think about the legacy of mr gorbachev well sophie shevardnadze interviewed mr gorbachev and this is what he said to her about what he thinks his legacy is. if you can use you know the world. overcome mutal the world through the only logical struggle. he can put this is perhaps the most important creating new syrian prerequisites and conditions to them. ok stephen you heard that ok you know any you know the traffic stream lee well i mean things are get you know both are friends. you think he's being fair to himself you think fair to reality

when his seventy fifth birthday five years ago he had a conference and i gave i gave a paper called there's a new cold war and he became very angry at me because he considers his great achievement certain achievement the ending of the last quarter or so there's a new cold war something went wrong the fact is something went wrong after nine hundred ninety one now we could have a whole separate program but remember the soviet union ended twenty years ago and yet obama said we have to have a reset which suggests something bad relational you and i disagree on a lot of things but on this one we do what we are told russian is dead what did we squander did we i mean i don't squander something that grows much off had given us if you know i think the answer is we have it could possibly be retrieved i'm not very optimistic but it's possible but i think it's like listening to might have been squandered jeff if i got to you this is good because one of the interesting things is here is that a lot of russians don't have a good opinion of got

a child but they most russians will say also is that it's the west that hasn't ended the cold war and that some of the greatest frictions we've seen over the last twenty years is that the mentality coming out of the west hasn't changed but the mentality certain he's changed certainly changed here in russia. ok well i do think that ending the cold war was called the church greatest single achievement and it was a very great achievement i don't think he handled it terribly skillfully towards the end i think he handled his end of the negotiations with the u.s. and with the west rather weakly i mean for example. he dissolved the warsaw pact but didn't really get anything in return for it he loved the g.d.r. to join nato without getting any written commitments in return that nato would not expand further east would see understood that nato had made a promise but there was actually no very definite promise on the other hand i think obviously the main fault for the for the the kind of renewal of the cold war really does lie with the west because we didn't respond strongly enough to gorbachev needs

and then indeed to yeltsin's needs in the early years of post soviet russia we needed to do i think much more to help them economically for example by creating a stabilization fund to provide against the inflation of the ruble which was catastrophic in the early years after the fall of the soviet union so we made a number of very serious mistakes i think of which i've made some mistakes but they're far of overshadowed by ours that if i go to you is that's the criticism i hear all of the time when it's already been mentioned it is what did get a bunch of good in return for helping to end the cold war and what russians will tell you today is that nato expansion that's what russia got in this is really people are a very bitter about that and even to that we have to remember august two thousand and eight where we had an equal supply georgia start of war so that the this brings back the feelings that gorbachev patrol the new russia and that's what you still consistently get right. i would very much like what jeffrey said would

suggest that gorbachev was a peacemaker but unfortunately the west has not responded in a like manner and the expansion of nato was seen as an aggressive arc and rightly so and as you as you mentioned the events in georgia of all reeling but very fairly you know really very very dangerous very concerning and i can understand why this russian population sees this as a retreat as the giving of concessions to the west but we have to understand that you know sent through europe eastern europe to be free go to be you know we are now imposed it was the imperial face and i think that's one of the major major achievements or will be actually also understood it does need to be done and so he has restored the balance of power in in europe again and he's a great peace maker. you just go back to his project of democratizing. of the soviet union at the time again you know him very well how did he understand

that live without that dissolving the communist party because you are of the you have the thesis that the communist party could have been reformed it could have been democratize and i think that's a minority opinion in the world right now but i mean it's a very interesting thesis knowing him how did he see that going about you have to remember who he was worry came from in his generation he was of this generation that came to consciousness under khrushchev and the speech against stalin gorbachev was an anti stalinist and later when he got power he wanted to be a de stalin nizer that meant to dismantle the controls that stalin had imposed on the soviet union and the thirty's and then he said something remarkable in one thousand nine hundred seven he said lenin made a big mistake he carried out an economic new policy that after the civil war he didn't carry out a political new policy in other words he said lennon's mistake was not becoming a democratize or he thought he had come at last and robert shelf gorbachev's road

to democracy was removing stalin's controls not only on society but on the party itself now he may have had a room in a size view of what the communist party had been at the beginning but it certainly wasn't then in the beginning what it was when gorbachev came to power he then said in one thousand nine hundred ninety two the party you have to become an electoral party and they nearly passed out from this it was the last thing in the world. but why not why couldn't a party of split into a group which offer electoral party and a party that's not headed by zyuganov which by the way don't ever forget this that after the end of the soviet union the new russian communist party was the most successful electoral party in the duma until something else happened i we can debate what happened at the party had an electrical pass and it had to get reduced to big it wasn't a real party had nearly twenty million members in those twenty million members was . kind of four or five million members i mean you actually could almost make the argument today it's still the only political party in russia i mean one of this is

the only national nationwide electoral party in russia it's a fact so i don't i'm not prepared to say it was on reform or i mean why say things around reform or if the process was underway well it testifying to you i mean i was living in poland at the time when this was going on and when they had their first democratic election there wasn't one cult member of their version of the communist party that was elected to parliament they were completely wipe that out and so i could well imagine that you would have the communist party of the soviet union thing what was going on in eastern europe that some of you could be the entire party could be on electable which in retrospect seems sort of more secular better player she was a national party right wasn't a party perceived as being a russian party in poland here they could call even on nationalism as they do today i guess maybe the question is is it go do you think i mean did lack of social democracy and i mean that they because that's what a lot of the eastern european communist party said they just won social democratic . well i do think actually that steve is wrong about that i think the communist party was unreformable really because it was not really

a political party and it couldn't really become one it was the backbone of the soviet union the soviet union as distinct from russia. and once there was no no more any will from moscow to hold the thing together by means of the communist party then the other nationalities starting with the baltic and carrying on with georgia and armenia and so on they started to go their own way and at that point the communist party of the soviet union really lost much of its or isn't it now called a trough perhaps could lead to say in the early months of one thousand nine hundred one have split the communist party and lead a kind of social democratic wing of it himself and that might have been successful but significantly he didn't do that so i think really the evidence suggests the communist party of the soviet union was really unreformable ok vlad you want to jump in on that or you go yeah i would load i definitely agree its conclusion and i would present is that the united russia party is in a sense a revival revived communist party because you know it's a party of the officials that was of the state you know some wondering whether you

know the russian political culture needs this kind of party you know and whether we could see united russia in a sense a revival of the of the idea of the communist party only a spark of wealth beyond reform in my opinion ok one of the gentlemen one of the things i think is very interesting is that agree with we look at what love got a child left behind he left a lot of new republics the former soviet republics became independent in an interesting way if i go to you on this one joke he's really the father of a lot of new nations in the world even though we don't even really tie his name to them if i'm thinking of all the republics minus of course the russian federation. yes well they had very different histories actually and they didn't all leave the soviet union in the same way i mean the baltic republics will first go because the baltic pete rose hated communism the soviet union and russia all three. they had memories of the terrible deportations at the end of the second world war beginning

of the second world war two actually and they just wanted to get out as soon as they thought it was practically possible the georgians hated russians as well and of course the north cookies in peoples and yet in central asia you find people who really didn't want to leave the soviet union at all they had no particular reason for a new crane was somewhere in between you claim with was splits were to simplify things a bit on the whole west to koreans felt rather like the baltic peoples whereas east ukraine is very much wanted to stay with russia in the soviet union we had at that time a human chain which extended from live with to hear but no further east protesting about ukrainian membership of the soviet union so it was really they were very different in their in their approaches to leaving the soviet union and they history has been similarly very different i think one can say ok stephen got thirty seconds left but his legacy well i was astonished regulate hundreds reports there are polls shows that fifty one percent of russians today think he did have even if he made

was strange and three change the best interest of his country and what this means is that as the country starts demonizing gorbachev and focus not on its character but its mistakes we're going to have a new great debate in russia were the ones not in the united states about what happened in eighty five to ninety ninety one and that's going to be very valuable for russia because russia has to sort this out and now that fifty one percent think robert schalk was trying to help the country but maybe did it the wrong way future leaders can join this debate and say ok he was right in his goal but i have a better way to do ok so where history will judge me thanks to my guests a day in london and here in the studio with me and thanks to our viewers for watching as you darkeys. see you next time and remember cross off. the.

wealthy british style.

markets. why not what's really happening to the global economy is because the record. on r.t. tonight. has the u.k. considers military intervention in libya song fear the ongoing violence in north africa could trigger another disastrous campaign. u.s. foreign policy has some americans questioning the country's ever changing political position which they say regularly sees them for supporting the bad guys more bad ahead plus a bumpy and revolutionary road for the last leader of the soviet union turns eighty t.v. takes a look at the country's democratic transition and why some blame mikhail gorbachev for bringing destruction along with.

a very good evening from moscow kevin when you're watching r t it's now eight pm and we start in libya again this where rebel forces claim to have fought off an attack by colonel gadhafi forces in the eastern oil rich turned. fourteen people have been killed meanwhile the libyan leader himself moammar gadhafi has vowed a bloody war in the death of thousands if foreign powers enter the country this comes amid speculation that the u.s. and u.k. are preparing for military intervention and then there's telegraph newspaper reporting that british special forces already in libya might be called in to secure tons of chemical weapons thought to be stockpiled there u.k. is already in our. plans to look into forcing a no fly zone over the north african country meantime the u.s. is flexing its international muscle moving its warships closer to libya via the suez canal russia together with

a growing number of international governments as publicly opposed the use of external military force these more intimate reports on what an intervention from abroad could mean for libya. we do not in any way the use of military assets we must not tolerate this regime using military force against its own people is this history repeating itself the british government getting the guns on standby as a country crumbles plowing to impose a no fly zone in this case libya in two thousand and three it was iraq it's looking very dangerous looking quite possible that we will launch such an attack with an approval and so we're looking at almost a repeat of what happened in iraq. as a result so suspect really large of the same but not every country is getting that treatment and libya is not the only african nation in turmoil somalia's drop out conflict has been called

a slow genocide but there's little sign of us or european military inputs and it's a similar story on the other side of the continent there are events unfolding right now in ivory coast where there is also a conflict an armed conflict between rebels and the government but nobody seems to be thinking of it it's only because fashionable attention is focused on libya oil but also for the political implications of the middle east as a whole as we all know the west including my own country has got its hands very dirty with the libyan leadership over recent years. with black gold libya has the largest proven oil reserves in africa more than three percent of the global total and there could be a lot more undiscovered the only reason. you oil here only by. screaming and yelling about all those people who were killed in the ivory coast. i guess cocoa wasn't that much of a national priority put in somalia there was precious little help while the body

count over the years except for one brief but disastrous intervention involving u.s. soldiers immortalized in the movie black hawk down american forces failed at great cost to stabilize the country they left quickly and haven't returned and the lessons were learned when it came to iraq which remains are the staple even now with only three people sheets of that much vaunted democracy allied troops are equally bogged down in afghanistan with no convincing timeline for withdrawal and an ever rising death toll could be clear to an idiot. afghanistan the terrible disaster that was caused in iraq really shouldn't want any more countries in the middle east it's a model today's troubled african nations will impose on their puppet government which is still ruling through an american occupation of iraq really.

help. middle east need and american and european government shouldn't look for backing up either to a million marched in london a for the invasion of iraq in two thousand and three and times have changed this is now austerity britain where starting another war wasn't factored into the budget british troops are already fighting an unpopular war in afghanistan it's highly unlikely the public has the appetite for again getting involved in someone else's struggle battling as they are at home in the face of deep cuts rising unemployment and it's unlikely to be popular inside this building the ministry of defense has to slash spending by more than seven and a half billion dollars in the next four years it's an intervention britain which by its heart. on many levels. also discuss possible military intervention in libya let's talk to journalists on the line from

london. as we've heard from both the u.s. and the u.k. seen close maybe using military force in libya what is the likelihood though to think of that happening at the end of the day. i think it's unlikely that they'll actually want to invade they certainly won't want to put troops on the ground for the reasons your correspondents have talked about shown that the danger is for them for themselves of getting involved in in what's happened in iraq and afghanistan. but i think there is a heightened they will try and get involved not by putting troops on the ground putting other kinds of military pressure on i think this is a sign of enormous hypocrisy from the people who in its latest december last year were happily supplying arms to the gadhafi regime. to say we want to get involved why what's the agenda you think. i think the agenda is that they're worried about what's happening there what about what's happening across the middle east and

things getting out of control it's amazing how often when people are asked to pundits are asked on the television what should happen now they said the real danger in libya is that they don't know who to talk to what's happened across the country is that groups of people are rising up against the dictatorship when the time when the western governments have just got used to and i'm happy to talk to the dictatorship i know that former prime minister tony blair has been ringing out . for you to try and talk to him about about what he should do next rather less comfortable about talking to the people who are trying to take control and establish democracy cross let me ask you that it's interesting isn't it you know colonel gadhafi has been. you know for forty years not a western leaders got on with him he was the person you had to get on with what that relationship is like now between him and britain between him and america for instance. i think it's probably.