Upset Over Criticism? No, Says Raisa Gorbachev, It’s Just Man Talk

Raisa Gorbachev has had it with men taking pot shots at her.

Ever since her husband, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, took power four years ago, she has heard that many Soviet people complain about her influence over him. Friday, in an impromptu interview in the lobby of the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses, she answered the criticism with unabashed feminism.

“The only thing that’s strange is that it’s always the men who do it,” she said, grabbing a reporter’s arm for emphasis. “It’s the men. Write that down.”

On the opening day of the new Congress of People’s Deputies, Raisa Gorbachev was in the hall as several speakers criticized her husband--as well as her own influence and visibility in public affairs.

Leonid Sukhov, a driver from the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, stunned the crowd with his critique of the Gorbachevs, and all of it was televised live:

“I wouldn’t compare you, Mikhail Sergeyevich, with Lenin or Stalin, but with the great Napoleon, who, fearing neither bullets nor death, led his nation to victory. But because of sycophants and the influence and worship of his wife, he turned the republic into an empire.”

When reporters approached Raisa Gorbachev in the lobby and asked her what she thought of it all, she seemed unfazed. She lit up in the eerie way that political or theatrical performers do when they realize they are suddenly “on.”

‘Free Outpouring of Pain’

She said she took the criticism simply as “a free outpouring of pain. Everyone speaks as he perceives the world. Others were for me.

“Men. That’s the men. But the women are all for me. It doesn’t matter. You know, in the end, everyone’s different. Everyone wants to express an opinion.”

Suddenly a crowd gathered around her and the reporters.

“Just look, here’s a woman,” she said in greeting. “Hello, hello, my dears. Let’s answer together.”

She recounted the question for the small group of mainly Central Asian women who had circled around. Wasn’t it “strange,” she said, how men reacted?

“We’re telling you, men, how you perceive women. You get it?” she asked.

Then came the chorus of voices, all in gleeful support of the woman whom many Soviet women in the privacy of their kitchens, tend to call “Raika.”

“Raisa Maximovna, you can always be sure of our support when you’re with Mikhail Gorbachev, abroad, or wherever you might be!” one said.

“All women are for you!” exclaimed another.

“That’s right. That’s exactly how the spouse, the wife of the (Communist Party) general secretary, should be, like Raisa Maximovna, with her intellect, her schooling, her charm. We’re proud of her,” said a third. “Finally we have someone to show off abroad. At last!”

Many Complain

Yet despite such remarks, many Soviet women complain about Raisa Gorbachev. Where does she get her foreign clothes? Why is she always in the picture with Gorbachev? Why is her voice so high? Isn’t she a bit of a know-it-all?

The complaints are never-ending, sometimes. But if she is hurt by it, she doesn’t let it show. She seems prepared to wait out her public and let them get accustomed to her notion of what it means to be the wife of a leader.

“You in the West have first ladies, but a lot of our people are just not used to it. They get annoyed,” said Tatyana Zaslavskaya, a prominent sociologist and an adviser to Gorbachev.

Before she left once more to watch the congress, Raisa Gorbachev turned away from the reporters and told the women they should get even more active in the political process.

“What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Yesterday a man proposed himself for president, and you just sit there.”