In memory of Mikhail Gorbachev: he let us out of the cage, but we ourselves returned to it

All. He left. The last president of a state that will never exist again. A lot can be said about that state - good, bad, wonderful, creepy to the point of fainting, and cold, bone-chilling horror. But it was there, and it is no longer there. Just like there is no Gorbachev.

Photo: IStock

He, with all his shortcomings, which all living people have, opened the “door”. He could hardly have done more. Before him, for the last hundred years they tried to keep these doors closed so that these would not escape, and those would not run in and begin to “muddy the waters” by describing “rotting capitalism” and helping all those “arrested” in the USSR to understand what was happening.

And then suddenly, the doors opened - with everything flowing in and out. Well, yes, of course, open doors mean a draft. And with a draft you can inflate and blow out whatever you want...

The man was not stupid, Gorbachev. Reasonable sentences were made up of words. Yes, in many ways self-taught, periodically spoke in clichés of the name of the Communist Party. But there was such a time. Otherwise it didn't work. But he was self-taught all the time, almost until the last days. I read and knew a lot, I was quite a good conversationalist, which cannot be said about many modern leaders. I understood that it didn't work. Knew what he was trying to do. And we know.

If it weren’t for him, we, the millions who were blown out by that same draft, would sit in our homes in a country that no longer exists, and decide (each of us) whether you are for the war or not. I'm talking about today. And so we scattered all over the world and were able to personally inhale the “disgusting spirit of capitalist rot.” And I won’t even talk about the thoughts that visited us when we first breathed in this fresh air - neither in writing nor verbally. There, apart from obscenities expressing indignation at the deception and the “prison” in which generations had lived, there was nothing else.

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But I'm not talking about that today.

Mikhail Gorbachev opened the cage door and invited people to get out of it in order to look at the world with different eyes and explore new possibilities of existence and consciousness. And the people, warily, though expecting a catch (what else could one expect from the government?), began to peek out little by little. Running away from the cage for a short time and then back - hiding inside was still safer, more familiar or something. But over time, he grew bolder and crawled out longer.

An opportunity has arisen for the people throughout the entire country to follow a normal, democratic path. But no. If you look at the oil painting today, even Gorbachev himself sadly stated the fact: the people returned back to the same “prison” from which they were released three decades ago. Moreover, he returned voluntarily, although he was pushed by riot police, bayonets, arrests, murders and other “democratic” means regularly and periodically.

But a hundred million people are able to turn into a ram's horn any objectionable government. Why a hundred million? One million maybe. Remember the Maidan, and everything will become clear. So no.

“We don’t want freedom,” said those who remained, those who were not blown away by the “draft of Gorbachev’s name.” “We want to go to the bunk, back to dictatorship, lies, closed doors, warm bedding and convincing TV.”

"Want to? Please!" - the overseers told them and helped them return “home”, sweetening the pill with McDonald’s, iPhones and other nonsense.

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The history is very clearly visible and understandable if you move away from it for 30/40/50 years. So we now understand who was who and what could have happened if the people had gone the other way and chose the wrong people to rule. But since the history of the subjunctive mood does not recognize, we have what we have.

And personally, I express my deep gratitude to Comrade Gorbachev for the right to live in a civilized world and breathe air with elements of freedom. I express my condolences to the whole family. But on a human level I am happy for them. They managed to live with such a person who forever wrote his unique page in world history. This will never happen again. And we can be proud. We are contemporaries. We were there and lived there. We have something to remember, something to say and something to be happy about. And that's great. This is the meaning of life. And to become a contemporary of the greats is her great gift to us, sometimes stupid. Not always conscious, but no less great for that.

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