Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has appealed to the Kremlin to make Russia more democratic, saying President Dmitry Medvedev's push to modernize the country would not succeed otherwise.
Gorbachev, the author of the bold reforms which triggered the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, told Reuters in an interview that Russia now needed a fresh wave of "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring).
"Modernization can be carried out but only if the people, the entire population, are included in the whole process," Gorbachev told Reuters in a 90-minute conversation in the offices of his foundation in Moscow.
"We need democracy, we need improvement of the electoral system and so on. Without that, it will not succeed," he said.
Gorbachev's call comes as a growing number of voices within the Russian elite are calling for political reform to accompany efforts to modernize and diversify the oil-dependent economy.
Now 79, the former Soviet leader has grown more portly and speaks softly and more slowly, the trademark birth mark on his head a little faded.
Active overseas, he has a low public profile in Russia and is frank about his disappointment that his countrymen do not view him more fondly. In Moscow, he sponsors a small pro- democracy political party and a radical opposition newspaper.
'Modernization is the key word'
Gorbachev said Russia had fallen behind major powers and compared the country's dependence on oil revenues and its inability to build a competitive economy to the situation he inherited when he became Soviet leader in 1985 at the age of 54.
"Modernization is the key word," he said. "If you remember, perestroika started when we understood how far behind we had fallen. Russia is right now facing some very serious challenges ... above all about the level of technology."
Russia's decade-long boom, powered by high oil prices and easy foreign loans, stalled in 2008 as the global financial crisis hit. The country's economy contracted by 7.9 percent in 2009, its worst annual economic performance since 1994.
Medvedev has said the severity of the slump shows Russia needs a big Modernization drive.
Diplomats have praised his tough critique of the country's woes but say that halfway through his term he has yet to open up the tightly controlled political system crafted by his patron Putin or to combat rampant corruption and bureaucracy.
Gorbachev said both President Dmitry Medvedev, 44, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, 57, understood the challenges they faced and was careful not to criticize either leader by name.
Unpopular at home
Though unpopular at home for allowing the collapse of the Soviet empire, Gorbachev is feted in the West for ignoring hard-liners who advised him to crush growing dissent in eastern bloc nations which led to the Berlin Wall's fall on Nov 9, 1989.
The former Soviet leader, who negotiated on nuclear disarmament with then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan, was positive about the "reset" of relations between Moscow and Washington begun by U.S. President Barack Obama, saying he believed the improvement in ties was "fundamental" and would outlast Obama.
But he said the idea of a "Pax Americana" guaranteeing the world's security was mistaken and that Europe needed more than ever to create a new security architecture involving Russia to replace the Cold War-era NATO military alliance.
Both Putin and Medvedev have underlined how the Soviet Union's dramatic collapse was a defining event in their lives. The chaos which ensued spooked a generation of Russian policy makers, many of whom fear too much reform could destroy Russia.
Gorbachev said he had supported Putin during his first term as president from 2000 to 2004 because Putin needed to restore order after inheriting a very bad situation from Yeltsin.
But he was silent about Putin's second term, from 2004 to 2008, and refused to make predictions about what Russia would look like a decade or century from now.
"Russia is only half way through the transition, we are half way down the path. There is a massive amount of work to do," he said. "It was a terribly difficult transition for us. Few understand how difficult it has been".