Press Release, 5.03.2021

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service: Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Olga Zdravomyslova, Executive Director of the Gorbachev Foundation, and Pavel Palazhchenko, head of the International Contacts and Press Service of the Gorbachev Foundation.

Nikolai Rybakov, Yabloko party Chairman, and Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee, took part in the international conference The Man Who Changed the World, timed to coincide with the 90th anniversary of Mikhail Gorbachev.

The two-day conference was held in Moscow on March 4 – 5. Well-known academics, politicians, public figures, journalists from Russia, Belarus, Germany, France and the USA participated in the conference.

In his speech, Nikolai Rybakov spoke about political prisoners in Russia. He stressed that under Gorbachev, Soviet political prisoners were returned from exile, and now people again end up in prisons and colonies for their beliefs.

Mikhail Gorbachev sincerely wanted to change the country and the world for the better, he moved the threat of nuclear war away, Rybakov said. It was Mikhail Gorbachev who introduced into political life such concepts as the priority of universal human values ​​and nuclear safety. The problems with both the former and the latter, unfortunately, remain relevant now, the Yabloko Chairman said.

Now in Russia has neither true parliament, nor judicial system, nor strong media, the head of Yabloko said. “It is necessary to rebuild virtually all state institutions. The institution of political parties must also undergo changes. Yabloko is carrying out a reform in the party precisely because we have to respond to the changes around us,” he stressed.

Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, spoke at a panel discussion on politics and morality.

“Mikhail Gorbachev showed all the politicians of the world how morality comes into politics, and how politics begins to be moral. And this was due to the fact that Gorbachev made one decisive, key and most important decision – he gave the Soviet people an opportunity to say what they think,” Yavlinsky said.

According to Yavlinsky, Gorbachev spoke about universal human values, and he gave people the most important of them – a life without fear.

“He was also the first to pave the way for respecting the opinions of others, for what they used to call pluralism at that time,” Yavlinsky added.