Tag #155318 - Interview #94498 (Evadiy Rubalskiy)

In the late 1980s General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev [55] initiated perestroika [56], the new policy of the USSR. I was still a member of the party. There was a meeting where the staff voted unanimously for the policy. I believed this was another promise of a better life. Yes, the situation has improved, there is a Jewish life and people are no longer persecuted for their convictions or religion. However, the break up of the USSR [1991] that the perestroika ended up with, reduced it’s achievements to zero. There was a strong and powerful state, and there are only small, separated and poor countries left in its place, even though they are called independent. Could any of these small states have won in World War II? No way. Strength is in unity. Everything bad that there was in the USSR should have been eliminated, but we should have stayed together. It is my point of view. The government is responsible for it all: it could cancel bad laws and put good ones in their place. Besides, I think it was wrong for Ukraine to refuse from weapons [in 1991 an agreement was signed under which Ukraine undertook obligations to eliminate its nuclear weapons]. It shouldn’t have destroyed it. Each country must have weapons to defend itself. After the breakup of the USSR I left the party and I did not join the Communist Party of Ukraine.