HOWZAT

What does he make of Ruskies taking themselves and their roubles to London’s Chelski? “One day all you will see in the centre of London is Russians,” he smiles. “They are buying up entire blocks. I fail to understand why some in the West make a hero of [Mikhail] Khordorkovsky. He is talented, I agree; he started his business when I was president and I have known him for some time. But with his talent for tax-dodging he would have been behind bars in America long ago.”

As for Abramovich: “I don’t have a problem with a Russian buying shares in Britain but it is clear we should close the book on the period of plundering.” He adds: “Some think $1 trillion has been hidden away by Russian businessmen. If they don’t return that, our courts are likely to decide they acquired it illegally. Then they couldn’t use that money anywhere. One day it will be used for the benefit of Russia.” Good news for Manchester United, then.

In the West we cannot fathom how all these millionaires made such riches overnight. “That was [Boris] Yeltsin’s error. He later apologised. He said only 10% of the people benefited from his reforms. These magnates assured his second election victory and he gave them the crown jewels. That is why I am speaking so emotionally to you, why I am so upset that the policy of perestroika was interrupted for a policy of plundering. We were working on a social democratic model that would have looked after business.”

He supports “risky” plans being drawn up by President Vladimir Putin to offer an amnesty to Abramovich and co: if they bring their wealth back home, they can keep it. But is Russian democracy in danger under Putin? “There is a problem. For all my support for Putin, the current cabinet will not push his policies. The problem is inertia, and that will not make people more prosperous.”

Does he mourn the loss of Russia’s superpower status or was it a price worth paying for the spread of democracy throughout the developed world? “We all paid a big price. The geopolitical games resumed. Russia is still paying for not understanding the transition from socialism to capitalism is very difficult. We tried to follow the Harvard model, but we should have done it the Russian way.”

Wouldn’t the “Russian way” have left basket-case industries nationalised? “Please be patient; I don’t want this to be a patchwork,” he commands, as once he must have ordered communist apparatchiks from Smolensk to Siberia to up their quotas.

“There are still Russians nostalgic for our lost status. People in the West who keep hammering away at us during every problem in our great transition don’t understand this.” Which sounds like a plea for Russia to be allowed to carry on brutally repressing regions seeking independence — unacceptable to us, certainly, yet meeting Gorbachev you are reminded just how much worse the world was when we all feared Moscow.

As federalism unravels in the European Union he hopes a looser collection of states will welcome Russia back into the European fold: “This is the No 1 priority for Russia.” The puzzle has always been whether he grasped just how powerful the forces of freedom were that he unleashed. “Without confidence I would not have done anything. I started to decentralise power. We understood we could not go on living like before.”

“Before” included a politburo meeting to discuss the shortage of women’s knickers across the USSR. “We also knew the defence sector was overblown, not only economically but in militarising people’s minds. We knew it would take generations to change things, and if we tried to do it too quickly it would break.” He pauses. “But I would be wrong if I said we knew our society fully. When we addressed questions of property and free elections it intoxicated our society.”

So does he regret what he unleashed? “What I regret is that perestroika was interrupted. We were starting its third phase.” Here you see how Gorbachev never entirely escaped the communist mindset; brought up on five-year plans, he felt people should wait for their leaders, but free people don’t wait.

He was about to deliver democracy and a social market “at the very moment” he was locked up by the military in his Black Sea holiday villa. When he was freed, the people did not return power to a leader who had taken three days to admit to Chernobyl.

Still, he holds up Thatcher — his cold war opponent who declared she could do business with him — as an example for Putin. “She introduced market reforms but she did not challenge free healthcare or education.”

Is it frustrating for Gorbachev that he is revered abroad but in his own back yard he is reviled and his prescriptions ignored? “We ended the cold war and this benefited everyone but in our country we also had the burden of painful reforms and the break-up of the union. The attitude to perestroika and Gorbachev has changed for the better but among older people there is a feeling of ‘Why did he do it?’ A politician should expect that.”

He quotes the Chinese politician who, when asked to assess the effects of the French revolution two centuries before, said: “It is too soon to tell.” So, he says, of his own legacy. But he will continue to advocate his philosophy of humane capitalism. “Some people are unhappy about my activism and want me to calm down, but I will not be silenced. Ultimately we will find our way back to the ghost of perestroika.”

Leaders in London summit will be held in October, www.leadersinlondon.com