Three years almost to the day after the August 1991 coup brought Mikhail Gorbachev's world toppling down, he believes that the "question of questions" for Russia is: Who was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union?


If that seems by now a matter of academic interest, Gorbachev explained during an hour-long interview with The Moscow Times why, on the contrary, the battle to rewrite the history of the coup holds the key to his political future.


Gorbachev increasingly has become the scapegoat of both the coup plotters and of Russia's new leadership for the destruction of the former empire, which an increasing number of Russians see as a heinous crime.


But in recent months, Gorbachev has attempted to toss the blame back at his tormentors.


"Both are responsible for the collapse of the Union," said Gorbachev, whose two-volume memoirs are due to be published in English this winter. "One began it, the others finished it, so both are very interested in where to place the blame -- on Gorbachev."


Most recently General Valentin Varennikov, the only accused coup plotter to reject an amnesty and insist that his case go to court, successfully cleared his name and tried in the process to besmirch Gorbachev's. "This is a very bad precedent," said Gorbachev, who despite his tumultuous past looks considerably younger than his 63 years. "Future coup and putsch leaders can be sure ahead of time that they will be acquitted."


Gorbachev repeated his poor view of the current government and its economic reform policies. Asked if he could find anything whatsoever to admire in the new Russia he said: "No, there is no admiration I must honestly say."


Gorbachev said he believed support for his version of events as well as his popularity was growing to such an extent that a return to politics is possible.


After Yeltsin's shelling of parliament last October, he said, "people are starting to understand that Gorbachev would never have gone so far as to humiliate the country."


"They are now starting to remember: 'Yes, Gorbachev was right, he was right in saying it's impermissible to destroy the country.' I am now receiving a flood of letters of support."


To some observers, these hopes suggest Gorbachev is out of touch with reality. Few Russians clamor publicly for his return, and many still blame him both for the collapse of the Union and the failure of economic reform on his watch.


Yet even if his self-confidence is misguided, the humor and charisma that made Gorbachev so immensely popular in the West remain palpable. They are traits that continue to distinguish him, even among Russia's new generation of post-Communist leaders.


Whereas many of his contemporaries tend to sit behind long tables in interviews to suggest their importance, Gorbachev placed himself attentively on the edge of his leather armchair to be closer and fixed his interviewer with a gaze of unnerving energy and intensity.


Asked if he would run for president in the future, Gorbachev repeated his recent formula that he will do so if he is needed. Has that moment yet arrived? "To my mind, no," he said.


Yet he was open about becoming more active in organizing an opposition movement to replace the Yeltsin government.


He ruled out cooperation with hardline nationalists such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but said there were numerous opposition figures he could work with such as economist Grigory Yavlinsky and former Foreign Economic Relations Minister Sergei Glazyev.


Despite this declared interest in domestic politics, Gorbachev `has focused his traveling this year outside Russia, where he is still revered as the man who ended the Cold War. An aide said he had visited seven foreign countries in 1994, but named only three Russian cities where he had traveled outside Moscow: St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk and Ufa.


Should he decide to step up his domestic presence, the former Soviet president certainly seems to have the energy. Several times during the interview he leapt up from his armchair to fetch papers on his desk. "You know, I can't be without activity; it's just my temperament, my nature," he said, flashing a familiar smile.


For much of the past two years, Gorbachev has devoted his energies to his memoirs. "For two years, day and night I sat behind paper, so it turned out that I had even less free time than before," he said.


Gorbachev plans to travel abroad to promote the 1,000-page work -- trimmed from its original 3,000 page length. "When the book comes out I will travel to present it, and I will praise my book," he quipped.


Even though he has promoted books in the past and has raised millions of dollars for the Gorbachev Foundation through his writing and speeches abroad, he denied that this qualifies him as a capitalist.


"I don't feel that I'm a capitalist, and I don't plan to become one," he said with a laugh.


He said he spends most of his private life at his dacha in the village of Kalchuga just west of Moscow. His wife, Raisa, who broke with the mold of Soviet Communist Party leaders' invisible wives, has recently recovered from a minor stroke which paralyzed part of her hand and slurred her speech.


"She feels better now although she has lived through a lot," he said. "It's hard to live on Mt. Olympus, and even harder to live below Mt. Olympus."