美国国家公共电台 NPR--Reflecting on Mikhail Gorbachev's life and achievements

Reflecting on Mikhail Gorbachev's life and achievements

Transcript¹

NPR's Leila Fadel talks to former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul (mc-FAWL) about the legacy² of former Soviet³ leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died yesterday in Moscow at 91.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

For more on Gorbachev's legacy, we're turning to Michael McFaul. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration. He's now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University. Good morning.

MICHAEL MCFAUL: Good morning.

FADEL: Thank you for being here. So you wrote a book on Gorbachev's legacy - "Russia's Unfinished Revolution." How do you see him being remembered?

MCFAUL: Well, it depends who you ask, right?

FADEL: Right.

MCFAUL: If you ask me, I think he's one of the most consequential⁴ leaders of the 20th century. It's hard for leaders - individual leaders to change history - right? - their structural⁵ forces, their power, history and culture. And yet this single individual, I think, is responsible for freedom in Eastern Europe. He created the permissive - the conditions for those revolutions in 1989. And then he oversaw⁶ the relatively⁷ peaceful - not completely peaceful - collapse⁸ of the Soviet empire, and empires rarely collapse peacefully. I think those are great outcomes. As an American, that's how I see it. If you're Russians, however, as Charles just talked about in his piece...

FADEL: Right.

MCFAUL: ...They see it very differently. Today, he is not seen as an important leader - just the opposite. He's seen as a failed leader for most Russians.

FADEL: Now, when you look at Russia today, on the opposite side of conflict with Western powers, the U.S. - I'm thinking about Syria, Iraq and, of course, Russia's war on Ukraine - did Gorbachev actually end the Cold War, or did he simply start a temporary thaw⁹ in U.S.-Russian relations?

MCFAUL: Well, that's a great question, and I don't have a great answer. I think it's important to say that he did end the Cold War. To see it as a continuum, I think, suggests that it had to be this way. I don't think that. Just as the individual, Gorbachev, played a consequential role in ending it - and, by the way, not by himself. Ronald Reagan played an important role, and small-D democrats¹⁰ in Poland and Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia itself, I think, played the driving role to end the Cold War. But I think Putin himself is the one that revived it. The scenarios¹¹ that you just talked about, those conflicts you just talked about, especially his barbaric invasion of Ukraine - that has sparked a new confrontation¹² with the West. But it didn't have to be that way. It didn't have to be a continuum with the Cold War. Those were choices that Putin himself made.

FADEL: Now, we're talking about a Russian leader that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Gorbachev became a darling of the international community because of his role in bringing down the Iron Curtain, in stopping possible nuclear war, really. But today, Russia, as we've talked about, is led by a very different man whose war in Ukraine is making him somewhat of a pariah¹³ in much of the international community. Is this a reversal of everything Gorbachev was trying to do when he was a leader?

MCFAUL: It's definitely a reversal. It is a return to confrontation. And again, it did not have to be that way. But it's not a complete reversal. If you think about the three big things Gorbachev tried to do, he tried to destroy - destroy is a strong word. That's what I would call it. He would say he tried to reform communism and introduce market principles in the Soviet Union and Russia. That's more or less in place. That happened. He tried to reform the Soviet Union, and he's - he failed at that. He wanted to keep the Soviet Union, but it collapsed¹⁴, and that hasn't been resurrected. Despite things that Putin says, he has not resurrected the Soviet Union and never will. The biggest tragedy, of course, is that he did introduce democratic reforms, and they took hold for a while in Russia in the '90s. Russia was a democracy in the 1990s, and Gorbachev helped to introduce those political reforms. That has been completely reversed by Vladimir Putin.

FADEL: In the few seconds we have left, you knew Gorbachev personally. What was he like?

MCFAUL: Well, I was a student when he came to power in 1985. And I remember at that time, nobody predicted that he would be such a revolutionary leader. And on a personal level, you know, we argued. We disagreed. But he was a very engaging intellectual, I would say. And I always learned from every conversation I had with him.

FADEL: Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, now senior fellow with the Hoover Institution - Michael McFaul, thank you so much for your time.

MCFAUL: Thanks for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHRISTOPHER O'RILEY'S "MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

3 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

4 consequential   

adj.作为结果的，间接的；重要的

参考例句：

• She was injured and suffered a consequential loss of earnings.她受了伤因而收入受损。
• This new transformation is at least as consequential as that one was.这一新的转变至少和那次一样重要。

5 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

6 oversaw   

v.监督，监视( oversee的过去式 )

参考例句：

• He will go down as the president who oversaw two historic transitions. 他将作为见证了巴西两次历史性转变的总统，安然引退。 来自互联网
• Dixon oversaw the project as creative director of Design Research Studio. 狄克逊监督项目的创意总监设计研究工作室。 来自互联网

7 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

8 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

9 thaw   

v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和

参考例句：

• The snow is beginning to thaw.雪已开始融化。
• The spring thaw caused heavy flooding.春天解冻引起了洪水泛滥。

10 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

12 confrontation   

n.对抗，对峙，冲突

参考例句：

• We can't risk another confrontation with the union.我们不能冒再次同工会对抗的危险。
• After years of confrontation,they finally have achieved a modus vivendi.在对抗很长时间后，他们最后达成安宁生存的非正式协议。

13 pariah   

n.被社会抛弃者

参考例句：

• Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village.不一会儿，汤姆碰上了村里的少年弃儿。
• His landlady had treated him like a dangerous criminal,a pariah.房东太太对待他就像对待危险的罪犯、对待社会弃儿一样。

14 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。