- Title: Gorbachev ended Communism under duress, says Poland's former leader
- Date: 1st September 2022
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) FORMER POLISH PRESIDENT AND SOLIDARITY TRADE UNION LEADER, LECH WALESA, SAYING: "Of course, we should judge him (Gorbachev) positively, he played a good role but it was under duress. It was not that he was willing to do it, that he wanted to do it, but he was forced by the situation. Communism was falling apart, there were more and more troubles with that and he was looking for a way to save Communism. And to be honest, I am not sure if he hadn't cheated on us in the end, because he knew that USSR cannot be saved, but he also knew that Russia should be held accountable for this whole Communism. That's why he set himself up as a positive man, as a nice, decent democrat and the world said: well, we should keep Russia accountable, we had Stalin, we had Brezhnev (previous Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev), but Gorbachev is quite a decent guy, so let's leave him alone." WALESA WORKING AT THE DESK (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) FORMER POLISH PRESIDENT AND SOLIDARITY TRADE UNION LEADER, LECH WALESA, SAYING: "So I didn't understand him till the very end. I liked him very much, he was a very nice guy, but we did not reach the understanding as he believed in reconstruction (Editor's note: of communism) and I didn't." VARIOUS OF WALESA WORKING AT DESK (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) FORMER POLISH PRESIDENT AND SOLIDARITY TRADE UNION LEADER, LECH WALESA, SAYING: "At the beginning, I was trying to figure out if he was against communism or if he naively believed that communism can be reconstructed. So I asked him difficult questions directly: Did you betray communism? He said 'No". Then the second question: You are a very intelligent man, do you believe it is possible to reconstruct communism? And then he got offended and we didn't speak for half an hour." WALL WITH SOLIDARITY SIGN AT SOLIDARITY CENTRE / WALL WITH SCREEN SHOWING DECOMPOSITION OF EASTERN BLOCK VARIOUS OF EXHIBITION AND SCREEN SHOWING GORBACHEV (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) FORMER POLISH PRESIDENT AND SOLIDARITY TRADE UNION LEADER, LECH WALESA, SAYING: "I knew he was a fan of Great Russia, he saw it as Great Russia and I thought Russia should not be great. So he was avoiding topics that could cause disagreement and I avoided it as well." EXHIBITION AND SCREEN SHOWING GORBACHEV
- Embargoed: 15th September 2022 12:14
- Keywords: Lech Walesa Mikhail Gorbachev Soviet Union USSR
- Location: GDANSK, POLAND / BERLIN, GERMANY
- City: GDANSK, POLAND / BERLIN, GERMANY
- Country: Poland
- Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Europe,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA003203601092022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Lech Walesa, the former Polish president who played a leading role in the fall of Communism in his country, said on Thursday (September 1) last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was under duress to end Communism.
Lauded in the West as the man who helped bring down the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War without bloodshed, Gorbachev was widely despised at home as the gravedigger of the communist Soviet Union.
The former Soviet president, who died on Tuesday (August 30) aged 91, set out to revitalise the sclerotic Communist system through democratic and economic reform; it was never his intention to abolish it.
"It was not that he was willing to do it, that he wanted to do it, but he was forced by the situation ... and to be honest, I am not sure whether he hadn't cheated on us in the end, because he knew that USSR cannot be saved, but he also knew that Russia should be held accountable for this whole Communism," Walesa, Poland's first freely elected president after World War Two, told Reuters.
After decades of Cold War tension and confrontation, Gorbachev struck nuclear arms deals with the United States and brought the Soviet Union closer to the West than at any point since World War Two.
Walesa, a former Solidarity trade union leader, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said Gorbachev's role was positive, but he had doubts as to his motives.
"Communism was falling apart, there were more and more troubles with that and he was looking for a way to save Communism," Walesa said.
Gorbachev's funeral will take place on Saturday (September 3), Russian news agencies reported, citing Gorbachev's daughter and a spokesperson for his foundation. It will be held in the famous Hall of Columns inside Moscow's House of Unions, agencies reported, the same place where Josef Stalin's body was put on display following his death in 1953.
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