William Tyler
Hope Dashed: Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin
Summary
A timely look at the path from Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise and fall to the transformation of Russia into a representative democracy during Boris Yeltsin to his misjudgment of his successor, Vladimir Putin, who returned the state to an elitist and authoritarian rule.
William Tyler
William Tyler has spent his entire professional life in adult education, beginning at Kingsgate College in 1969. He has lectured widely for many public bodies, including the University of Cambridge and the WEA, in addition to speaking to many clubs and societies. In 2009, William was awarded the MBE for services to adult education, and he has previously been a scholar in residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre.
No, well, that’s a difficult question to answer. I think that one has to say they supported him, but gradually those on the right, which is a silly way of putting it, those on the left, the hard-line communists began to drop him and so did the radicals who were beginning to centre around Yeltsin. It’s a slow process and what I would say is that Gorbachev failed to put in place a support group for himself and his policies. He never managed it.
That’s a really important question. I think given the time when all this was happening, they were just pleased that we weren’t in the confrontational position with Russia that we had been, and I think they were just hoping for the best and they had, as they say, other fish to fry.
Yes, it’s propaganda, but we don’t know how much of the propaganda is believed. Putin has poisoned a whole people. So when Putin goes, it’s not as if Russia will change and embrace the West, and yet that is exactly what West Germany did in 1945.