Mikhail Gorbachev is forming a new political party, according to Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev. Mr. Lebedev told the BBC that the two are teaming up to start the Independent Democratic Party.

The new entity will seek economic and legal reform as well as an independent press. Organizers hope the party will participate in the 2011 elections.

Mr. Gorbachev, 77, is popular abroad but not at home. His reforms of the Soviet system hastened the fall of communism in the 1980s. The former Soviet leader won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for tolerating peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe after years of Soviet control.

Mr. Lebedev said: "The initiative belongs to President Gorbachev. He gave our people freedom, but we have not learned how to use it."

The West would welcome democratic reforms in Russia. For now they seem unlikely, so long as Vladimir Putin remains popular and in charge.