THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: MOSCOW—Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said he is "ashamed" with the way Russia is run today and warned the Kremlin could face an Egypt-style uprising.Nearly two decades after his reforms led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Gorbachev denounced Russia's "ruling class" as "rich and dissolute," in an interview published Wednesday in Novaya Gazeta, the opposition newspaper of which he is part-owner. "I'm ashamed for us and for the country," he said.
He lambasted the Kremlin for eroding the free media and elections that he introduced in the 1980s, and warned that its grip on power could be threatened.
"If things continue the way they are, I think the probability of the Egyptian scenario will grow," he said in a separate radio interview released Tuesday, referring to the popular rebellion that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak last week. "Here it could end even more staggeringly," he said.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Tuesday, warned the West against supporting the popular uprisings in the Middle East in what some analysts saw as a sign of the Kremlin's concern.
At present, public support for the Kremlin appears strong. Opposition parties, many of which have been banned by authorities, are small and weak. Police regularly disperse antigovernment demonstrations.
Mr. Gorbachev, who gets limited attention in the state media in Russia, has been speaking publicly in recent weeks ahead of his 80th birthday on March 2.
Still reviled by many Russians for bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Gorbachev is probably more popular in the West, where he is credited with bringing an end to Soviet totalitarianism and the Cold War. Read on and comment >>> Gregory L. White | Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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