"I don't understand you. What do you want?"

- Before the interview begins... I don't understand you. What do you want from me?

- Mikhail Sergeyevich, there are so many questions for you!

- Yes, I asked Andropov that.

- Andropov himself?

- Well, yes. And he said to me: "Wait, you'll grow up to my level, you'll understand." (Laughs)

- And what was the reason for that?

- It happened ten times. And a hundred times. That was his manner.

- Until we moved on from this topic... Usually followers say all sorts of nasty things about their predecessors. Why haven't you ever said anything bad about Brezhnev, Andropov, or Chernenko? You haven't blamed them for the failures.

- My friends from the Politburo have each written two or three books. And they mostly work on the Gorbachev issue. They blame me for everything.

- Don't you have anything to blame on others?

- Those who are doing nonsense are riffraff. I know everyone! Even more than they know me. We should not shift responsibility, but try to understand the time and processes in which we were participants. But it is not necessary to smear.

- There were people of very different vectors in your circle at that time. Was it difficult for you to gather them all into a team?

- This team did not grow up by chance. They say: Gorbachev started this, did that. But listen, nothing would have happened if the country and society had not matured for this! And if people had not emerged in the CPSU itself who understood that something in the country had to be changed. Well, we are suffocating! Why should we live worse than everyone else, although we have everything!

- Were you ashamed that the country lives worse than everyone else?

- Very ashamed. I am a person committed to moral values. For me, this is a painful side. I wanted to change something so that it would be better in the country. And the first steps, they were taken in the right direction. Remember Tsoi - he sang: "We are waiting for changes"? I remember. And I think that if at that moment in the country there was not such a degree of discontent, impatience, everything would have gone differently.

- Figuratively speaking, was the chair burning under you?

• Well, what could be burning under me? I did not have a "chair". I received powers and, I think, I used them quite productively and not at all for myself personally. Whatever they say, I managed to do a lot of useful things for the country. If I start listing the achievements of perestroika, there will not be enough time...

- Another stupid question. Was there party gold?

- Why do you like asking stupid questions?

- So was it or not?

- The party's gold is the country's gold. When we needed it, we wrote a Politburo resolution to instruct the Council of Ministers to allocate so much for the needs of the party. And that's it.

They started to "strut" a lot...

- Now President Putin, together with the President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev, your comrade, by the way, are trying to revive the Eurasian Union. Does this formation have prospects and what mistakes could you warn against?

- Of course, there are prospects. Even in the early days, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, under Boris Yeltsin, the idea of ​​creating a single economic space of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus was being promoted. Up to 70 documents have already been developed. And this, I believe, was a very correct path.

But then conflicts began between the political elites of the former Soviet republics, the newly-minted presidents pulled in different directions... Russia turned its gaze to the East. Life, they say, is moving in this direction. But this is boundless short-sightedness - to rush from one to another, especially to abandon projects that can unite four countries - and what countries! - 80 percent of the Soviet Union!

- You probably heard that the originals of the Belovezh Accords have disappeared?

- Seriously? That's interesting. Then we need to restore the Union! (Smiles slyly)

- They can't find them. There are copies, but the originals that were signed then - no! Haven't you heard?

- No. But now I know. After all, no one removed me from this position (President of the USSR. - Author). I left myself.

- Really, can you come back?

- Now if the documents of the Belovezh Accords are definitely not there, and we need to restore what was, I am ready to come back.

- So, you are for returning to the Eurasian Union project and bringing it to mind?

- In a good way, I would never let it go. But time has been lost and there is no turning back.

- Why?

- They are capricious.

- Who, the Ukrainians?

- All are capricious. They want to look, how can I put it... "cocking around the bush" a lot. I do not want to offend the presidents of friendly countries in any way, they are all worthy people, they occupy their positions fairly. But a politician must first of all worry about what and how to do better for the people, for the country, and not flirt with certain social groups of citizens and worry about how I look in their eyes...

About the clipping from the Food Program

- Do you regret that, when perestroika began, you put politics at the forefront, and not the economy, as the Chinese did? Maybe it was necessary to restore order not in the party, but in the economy?

- Who came up with the idea that Gorbachev abandoned the economy? Let them read Gorbachev and the documents of that time. Listen, just the plenary sessions... Let's take...

- ...on the food program.

- Has anyone figured out what it gave?

- There were jokes... You open the refrigerator, and there's nothing there, just a newspaper clipping from the Food Program.

- The trouble with our people who claim to dictate, express their thoughts, judgments, points of view, is that they are very irresponsible about the facts and do not try to study the issue deeply. The food program worked, but that was only the beginning! And then there were three plenary sessions on the economy.

You can't even imagine how difficult it was to defend the need to move away from the command system to the introduction of elements of a market economy. Cooperatives, business accounting, remember? What a struggle there was! In the evenings we sat at Stalin's dacha, argued, argued... It was very difficult to turn our government around. And it was also difficult for Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, the then head of the cabinet.

- Khozraschet existed before you.

- What are you going to tell me! There were the first experiments, but all agriculture switched to khozraschet in 1988.

- There are still rumors: in order to overthrow Gorbachev, release food prices and carry out reforms, they deliberately slowed down food trains. You didn’t have such information?

- They tell me that this is how it was.

- Was this done to put pressure on you?

- Surely.

- And you didn’t find out how it was? You had the KGB…

- The KGB was there too.

- But seriously?

- This is serious.

“Did I hug Bush tightly?”

- There are two points of view on the collapse of the Union. One is that it was the work of the West, and first and foremost, the United States. That there was a deliberate policy: to bring down oil prices and thereby collapse the Soviet economy. Another point of view is that we ourselves are to blame for everything. So did we do more harm to ourselves, or did the West set us up?

- I think that we should not shift responsibility to someone else. This is a big question - changes of such a scale. And they could have been less painful and yielded positive results if we ourselves had been more consistent and patient.

But we should not discount the actions of the West. Many people really did not like the fact that we could have caught luck and won on this path.

- But you were friends with them? Why didn't you convert them to our faith? They loved Gorbachev.

- No jokes. Let's be more serious.

I have now figured out a lot. After all, at some point these friends in quotes, partners, realized that Gorbachev was turning the country in a direction they did not want. And their task was to push Gorbachev aside. And they even created a Yeltsin support club. Do you know that?

- Who was that? Reagan? Bush? Thatcher?

- Bush went to Estonia and Ukraine and spoke: don't interfere with Gorbachev. If you strike a blow at perestroika, we will all lose, and so on. But at the same time, when situations arose that indicated that something was wrong and that it could lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US repeatedly put spokes in the wheels. I'm talking about Bush Sr.

- Why did you hug him then? You went to see him...

- Hugged him tightly?

- It's hard for us to say.

- Do you want to prove that Gorbachev is an agent of Bush and the US?

- You should have been stricter with them.

- By the way, Bush wrote in his book that it was very difficult to negotiate with Gorbachev. But if you come to an agreement, then everything will be done. That Gorbachev is a reliable partner.

- And when they were reuniting Germany, could we have received some compensation? Were we at least offered?

- You are doing cheap stuff...

- Explain.

- What is there to explain? I wrote everything. Gorbachev did not steal, did not appropriate anything.

- And could we at least have agreed that they would not push NATO to the east.

- They did not push it.

- And now they are pushing it. What, was it impossible to bargain something out of them?

- Isn't it humiliating? We are a great country, do we not have enough of our own wealth that we should humiliate ourselves? We took money proportionate to the costs that we needed in order to improve the places where the military units withdrawn from Europe would return. All.

"In my Russia there have always been eggs. In every sense"

- Mikhail Sergeyevich, they hang all the dogs on you, but they will forgive you everything, except the anti-alcohol law. People will remember it for a long time.

- The adoption of the anti-alcohol law was decided long before me. But why should I prove it to you, if everyone has ready-made opinions on all issues? So, Brezhnev was terribly reluctant to adopt it. He himself liked to drink. But they broke him. They persuaded him. They said that women were moaning, girls were moaning, men were drinking themselves to death. He agreed. They began to study the problem.

Then Brezhnev died and Andropov continued this business. Then Chernenko. Chernenko dies, but I do not die - and I inherited all this legacy. The Politburo met, discussed, and all the main figures spoke out against prohibition...

- They drank themselves.

- Yes, in my opinion, they've already drunk someone else's norm. Then they surveyed 200 large organizations - do they support the ban? And do you know what the people said there? If in essence, then this: "You've probably all become alcoholics yourselves, and you want to continue to get people drunk?" There was a universal demand for prohibition. And the measures we took, they are good. But how they began to be implemented!

I'll tell you a lot more in my new book. Now I'm thinking about the approach, and it will be called - I'll be the first to tell "Komsomolskaya Pravda" - "To be continued". Because it is not separated from the previous one, "Alone with Myself". If I manage to implement it, then it will be an amazing book.

- It will be even more frank about love, probably?

- Know that we were normal people in this matter too.

- Yes, we have no doubt about it.

* * *

- And how will you celebrate your birthday?

- Yes, I'll be 82... I don't think I'll celebrate it much. Because I'm on a very strict treatment plan. Diet and so on. But I don't like being ordered around. And I'll definitely have a drink. A glass or two. After breakfast. I make it myself.

- Scrambled eggs?

- No. I almost died from scrambled eggs when I was studying at the university. My parents had no money, they were peasants, so they sent me eggs in flour. And I ate them, ate them, and then I couldn’t look at them for ten years!

- And there were no eggs in Russia then. A deficit!

- In the Russia in which I lived, there were always eggs. In every sense. (Laughs)

DIKIROVOCHKA

Mikhail Gorbachev - to Alexander Gamov:

“Now you will find out who you are dealing with...”

A. Gamov: - Mikhail Sergeyevich, a question about rallies. For now, passions seem to have died down...

M. Gorbachev: - How everyone wants them to die down! But that will not happen anymore!

A.G.: - But if we give unlimited freedom, won't Russia collapse, like the Soviet Union did under Gorbachev?

M.G.: - Well, yes, goad me! Well, Alexander... You throw nasty things at me and you're happy. Now you'll find out who you're dealing with.

A.G.: - No nasty things...

M.G.: - You've been plowing away at Komsomolskaya Pravda for a long time now.

A.G.: - No. Never! You're wrong. We love you.

M.G. - And the next stupidity will be published.

A.G. - We'll show you everything we write.

M.G. - No need to show anything! It's unpleasant, right? Gamov, I know you. You're a good person. I know that you go around to the authorities a lot. But each of you has a task...

A.G.: - Yes, we have a task - to do an interview with Gorbachev. So you are for preserving the rally spirit?

M.G.: - Now that's a conversation.

A.G.: - Even such an immature one as ours?

M.G.: - Wait a minute! You can't have a conversation on serious issues in the form of idle talk. I believe that you can't suppress people's desire to speak out and hold them accountable for the statements of the authorities. Right now they write in the newspapers - like, such and such decisions are being made by parliament on all the statements of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. But nothing is being done. And don't tell me about "forcing". Do you know who can force? Only democracy with the participation of the people. And here they think that manual control, a team, a person with character, this and that, the fifth and tenth... But it won't give anything! We need to create a system that would work in this direction.

A.G.: - Public control over the authorities?

M.G.: - Yes.

A.G.: - And do you remember when they started holding rallies against the party's sixth article in the Constitution, and you just went and cancelled it. Why? And in China, the CPC is still in charge.

M.G.: - You know, there's a collective farm meeting, the chairman is summing up the results of the year: on average, the milk yields are such and such... A woman stands up: "Listen, chairman, what are you telling us? On average, on average... Vanka goes to Manya, and Styopka goes to Zoyka. So it turns out that on average I, too..." Well, you get the idea. That's your arithmetic. On average!..

A.G.: - You've got me down on both shoulder blades.

M.G.: - And don't waste your time on nonsense. But I don't want to put you down on your shoulder blades.

Okay. Let's move on...

WHAT ELSE DID THE PRESIDENT OF THE USSR SAY

About God and faith

- Mikhail Sergeyevich, Wikipedia says about you, among other things, that you are an atheist. And in brackets it says: formally - Orthodox. Explain how to understand this?

- I am a baptized person. I respect religious people. My beloved grandfather Panteley worked as a chairman of a collective farm and was an old communist. We had a table in our house, and on it were three portraits - Lenin, Stalin, Marx. But in those days, anyone who was not against religion had no right to be in the party. And above that table with portraits, we had an iconostasis that stretched the entire wall. The icons were amazing.

My grandfather respected my grandmother, and she was very religious. "I'll go pray for you, atheists," she told me. And she loved Raisa very much. Raisa gave her some money so that grandma could go to church.

I talk a lot about the existence of God and religion. And doubts arise... And yet the question always comes up.

- God exists!

- Well, something must be, something must be! But I don’t jump to conclusions. I’m an agnostic.

About the daily routine and the kitchen

- And how do you structure your day today?

- I get up at half past six. And I immediately turn on the TV, the news channels. They also bring me newspapers in the morning - two of Komsomolskaya Pravda alone: ​​a daily and a weekly. But I read them mostly at night. I have breakfast at about a quarter to nine. At one, at half past one I have lunch. For lunch I have everything Russian, although I am now limiting myself very much - I have become almost a vegetarian, I have already lost the habit of eating meat. Although, if I want, I will eat a piece, of course. Here I eat fish.

In the evenings and at night I read the Internet and watch movies. You will be surprised, but my favorite channel is "Zvezda". That's it.

- They say that they want to make a film about you abroad - a feature film.

- Yes. Both of them, and others, and others. I am negotiating. But talking about it means creating unnecessary excitement.

- The main thing is to create the right image of Gorbachev.

- I hope they do everything well.

And about great-granddaughter Sasha

- Is it true that sometimes you put on a cap so that no one will recognize you, and walk down the street without security, go into a store?

- It's not demonstrative. I just live like all normal people. True, I rarely go to the store. The family has grown. There are already people to go.

- It turns out that you already have a great-granddaughter.

- Yes, Sasha. 

She is four years old. She calls me Grandpa Misha.

LIFE AND LIFE

"Now they have put a financial noose on me. And they have made it up"

- So many years have passed since the presentation of the "Gorbachev Foundation". You earn your own money, you have a large staff, you do a lot, you fly a lot...

- Now they have put a financial noose on me. And they have made it up.

- Maybe "Komsomolskaya Pravda" should help you? Why should you do everything yourself, drag it out?

- Because people's attempts to help me end immediately. If they help once, then the second time - no. There is a warning right there. Everything is monitored. Boris started this. (Yeltsin. - Author) "Who are you going to work with - Gorbachev or me?" - he told Sobchak. When I came to St. Petersburg, he kept track of who received me and how. Our people can't stand it.

- What is your pension now?

- In 1994 - 4 dollars a month. It was only later, under pressure from society, that they barely gave me 24 thousand rubles.

- Former ministers get more - 30 thousand.

- And now I have 28 thousand. Oh well, a pension! It would be better if they didn't bother me.

- But that was before, under Yeltsin, and now you're invited everywhere.

- Yes, that's right. I travel. Ever since I found myself without income and the opportunity to live normally, I was invited abroad, I traveled around Europe. And then there's an old company - it's called "American Programs". It organizes lectures by former presidents.

- And how much do you rake in there?

- A secret. No, I'll tell you. Oh well... From 50 to 100 thousand dollars. But that doesn't happen often.

- Have you ever thought about living in the West? There is an ambiguous attitude towards Gorbachev in Russia, but everyone there loves you.

- Oh well, I didn't read in Komsomolskaya Pravda that everyone loves me there, I know... No, the thought of leaving doesn't come to mind. I go there on business, and now I'm going to Germany for the presentation of my book "Alone with Myself".

Komsomolskaya Pravda, 03.03.2013