Gorbachev changed the world without wanting to.

Forty years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Political analyst, former MP and MEP, historian, "unauthorized" biographer of Álvaro Cunhal—and unauthorized biographer of the PCP itself—José Pacheco Pereira, 76, met the "great man," participating in two debates with him. "We even got into a fight," recalls the former PSD leader. For Pacheco Pereira, the Soviet leader was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, but he remains a tragic figure, for, while changing the world, he achieved an outcome he didn't want.

Did you know Mikhail Gorbachev personally? What memories do you have?

I had two encounters with Gorbachev's world. I was chairman of a NATO Assembly committee that caught the best possible period, historically speaking, to be able to witness everything live. I visited Russia, Belarus, and other countries around the world during the end of communism and the beginning of the independence of the former Soviet republics. I often say that I had the privilege of witnessing two revolutions: April 25th and the end of communism...

We are talking about a period between the end of 1989 and the end of 1991…

Exactly. This was the period when the USSR participated in the so-called Partnership for Peace and even participated in NATO maneuvers. A real rapprochement with the West. I had conversations with military commanders, a visit to the USSR Security Council, the most secure place I've ever been. I was able to see unique things, in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the Baltic States. At a time when all this was very incidental. I caught Gorbachev and Yeltsin. A unique experience.

And Gorbachev?

Already removed from power, Gorbachev agreed to participate in debates. And he came to Portugal. In the first debate, he was with the team from the former SIC program Terça à Noite, with me, António Barreto, and Miguel Sousa Tavares. It was a relatively peaceful conversation. But the second time, in which Mário Soares already had a role, it was more complicated, because I "got into" Gorbachev. He was easily angered...

But why?

Soviet leaders weren't used to being contradicted. And I asked him a few questions… outside the box, so to speak. They concerned his role, what he wanted to maintain from socialism, and how events overtook him… And we had a somewhat acrimonious discussion. But always in a polite tone! This discussion is significant for understanding Gorbachev. He plays a fundamental historical role… malgré lui. And he didn't want that outcome… Gorbachev had conceived of Perestroika and Glasnost as a process to preserve a certain status quo.

Which ends up explaining his downfall somewhat... but was he a pacifist? Did he genuinely want peace?

He genuinely wanted to modernize the socialist system, without jeopardizing it. That's what he wanted to do with Perestroika and Glasnost, what Álvaro Cunhal came to call the "glass-walled party." Greater transparency in the exercise of power, but a process within socialism and Soviet power. He never wanted to dissolve the USSR.

Yes, it was Yeltsin who did this, largely behind Gorbachev's back.

Exactly. And he was no longer in power when the 1921 agreement for the establishment of the USSR with the various republics expired, and it had to be renewed in 1991. And they didn't renew it. Many conflicts that arose at that time were also due to this. For example, Chechnya was not a signatory; it was part of the Russian Federation, but it also sought independence. This was never accepted by the Russians.

A Pandora's box has been opened with nationalism and ethnic tensions coming to the surface, as in Nagorno-Karabakh...

Yes, Georgia (with Abkhazia), Ossetia… When the central power is strong, empires hold together. But when the lid is removed, everything comes to the surface. And Gorbachev thought, wrongly, that he could maintain control. He only wanted to renew the CPSU, increase freedoms, but he thought it was all an internal process, which he could control. Attempts that had already been attempted by Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia [1968, the Prague Spring] and by Tito in Yugoslavia. But with this, Gorbachev dismantled the international communist movement.

And, with the Sinatra doctrine [the “My Way”, that is, each country was free to follow its own destiny, without Soviet tutelage], he pulled the rug out from under the associated leaders of Eastern Europe…

That's right. So it had a huge impact—but largely unintended.

But would it only be possible with Gorbachev, or would what happened to the USSR have to happen, whoever was in charge?

That has to ask a historian what could have been…

What I'm asking is whether the figure itself was fundamental. The personal, personality factor...

At a certain point, it became very obvious that it was impossible to maintain competition with NATO and the West. Military competition, especially in technological terms. And also in the economic field. There was an awareness that it was impossible to continue like this. Gorbachev realized this when he came to power in a bankrupt country. And he was aware of the rising internal tensions among the population. There had been a certain improvement in purchasing power, and people left their homes with a plastic bag to buy whatever they could find. They even had money, but there were no products.

But that's the thing... he realized this and wanted to do something. The others, Brezhnev, the Politburo, no! It had to be him! Why? Does it have to do with his generation?

Yes. He was much younger. He wasn't dominated by the shadow of World War II [he was a child in 1941, the year of the Nazi invasion of the USSR]. Previous leaders were heavily influenced by that memory. He's a different generation. And he's not orthodox. He has a career in the party, but he's not limited to a bureaucratic career.

Can we say that when he began to have close contacts with Western leaders, when he was recognized as an equal and when he saw the popularity he enjoyed in the West, he was dazzled?

Of course. These men with great power are also very vain. And this contact gave him the world. But as soon as he assumed that world, he lost power. Then came Yeltsin, a fifth-rate politician, but he gave a new nomenclature what Gorbachev never did. And he distributed Russian assets among his family and oligarchic clientele. And then came Putin, who gave something the Russians appreciated, which was law and order.

The Soviet empire collapses without a single shot being exchanged with its Cold War adversary, the West. If Gorbachev had the mentality of a wounded beast, at a dead end, he might have said, "Okay, the USSR will fall, but it will take a few with it." And he didn't have that attitude...

In fact, it didn't. Although it did emerge in Muslim sectors, within the USSR. But it didn't provoke a civil war or any conflict with the West.

And did the West, particularly the US, rise to the occasion of Gorbachev's actions? He desperately pleaded for economic support, which was promised but never arrived. Did the West also fail?

Also. Because the West was aware of the fragility of Gorbachev's power. And those regimes put military power ahead of the economy.

But if the USSR had had some kind of Marshall Plan, wouldn't it have been better for everyone? It's severely hampered by the worsening economic situation. Wouldn't it have been smarter to support it economically?

It was difficult. The Soviet economic system was perverse. With many control structures from the Kremlin, but with industrial units spread throughout the republics. Very dispersed. Where there was the problem of nationalism. Little unity, from the moment there was an erosion of power. The dissolution of a planned economy and its replacement by a market economy is very complicated. And independence broke the production chains. Industrial production collapsed. Even military production.

Deng Xiaoping even advised the Soviets to follow the Chinese model: open the economy while maintaining a strong central state and party. Would it have been possible?

It was difficult. Deng Xiaoping realized that, in wanting to maintain a strong centralized power by opening the economy, the greatest risk was corruption. And the Chinese took draconian measures, applying the death penalty in cases of corruption. And this was never possible in Russia, which, on top of that, had strong nationalist movements. And the sphere of influence of the USSR, the Warsaw Pact, was also in turmoil. Then, the attempt to renew the CPSU failed. And the end of the Union Treaty stripped the USSR of its imperial capacity. These two factors combined ended up being Gorbachev's work, but one he didn't want to have this result.

And how did the West perceive Gorbachev? From surprise to distrust, then to excitement, euphoria, and unease?

A bit of all of this. All of it together. But he became a central character and is among the half-dozen most influential figures of the 20th century. Did he fail? In history, any well-laid plan tends to fail. Because there's noise. It's human nature and the nature of history.

Did Gorbachev turn out to be a tragic figure?

Tragic... it's like King Lear... Yes, he can be interpreted as a tragic figure. He wanted to do one thing, but he got something else, and when he got something else, he changed the world.

And what impact did Gorbachev have on the PCP?

Initially, Álvaro Cunhal, who, contrary to popular belief, throughout his political life always supported liberalization and reforms to the system, welcomed him with anticipation. There was an initial genuine sympathy. But Cunhal, with this stance, only went as far as challenging central power. Cunhal had even begun to appreciate Dubcek's reforms in Czechoslovakia, but, after a certain point, he was the first to support the intervention of Soviet tanks in Prague. He always sided with the Soviet Union. Now, with the Ephemera archive containing many remains of PCP activists and officials, we understand the very negative impact Gorbachev's policies had on Portuguese communists. The anxiety, the concern, the disorientation. The doubts about the future of the USSR and the future of socialism. There are cases of CPSU officials who come here to explain Perestroika to Portuguese comrades, we have the legacy of an official who goes to the USSR, taking notes on everything... And there's enormous distrust and instability. And Cunhal dies embittered, because he realizes it's all over.

It was the collapse of a life project…

He believed reforms were necessary. But what affected the Soviet Union affects socialism.

However, there are direct and practical consequences for the PCP.

Yes. At a certain point, to attack Gorbachev, Yeltsin reveals the funds distributed by the CPSU. And we learn, in detail, what the PCP received from the Soviets. This was determined by the Politburo's International Department. And the money the PCP received stopped coming...

And there are the dissidents…

Cunhal became alarmed, not so much because of the intellectual dissent or anything like that, but when a split among 500 militants affected the apparatuses linked to the USSR. The security apparatus, the military apparatus... Because he knew that, at this point, the split had Russian origins. It was the CPSU pulling the rug out from under the PCP.

But the PCP ended up revealing a resilience that others across Europe did not.

Many of the European Communist Parties were Western representations of the CPSU. But the PCP has a national support base and a special patriotism. The Portuguese Communist Party, the Greek Communist Party, the Cypriot Communist Party, and the Finnish Communist Party. These were parties with a social base tied to very outdated sectors of the economy. But this didn't prevent a global communist crisis. A disaster. Almost everything disappeared.

If I ask you to give this magazine a title, what can we write? "Gorbachev, the…"

It's difficult... It has to have a positive and a negative aspect... Basically, it's "the reformer who is a victim of reforms." "The man who changed the world without meaning to."

In other words, this wasn't exactly what he had in mind.

It wasn't at all.