Gorbachev

by Mikhail Gorbachev, George Shriver

Release Date: 15 October, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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Anything by Gorbachev Should Not Be Ignored

To listen only to Ronald Reagan's avid supporters, one might conclude that his "Evil Empire" characterization of the Soviet Union and his massive military spending brought down communist rule, crumbled the Berlin Wall, ended the Cold War and saved the civilization from an inevitable conflict between the free world and its totalitarian enemies.

Not so, it becomes readily apparent in reading Mr. Gorbachev's book-length essay of his view of his country and of the world. His brief -- alas too brief -- history of that crucial time in the late 20th Century when he was General Secretary of the Communist Party, describes what happened while he was in the eye of the hurricane, when an upheaval in the Kremlin shook the world back to its senses. More important for serious students of history, Mr. Gorbachev tells why and how it happened.

When they came to power, he and his team knew that that the Soviet Union was feeble and that it needed a remedy; so they made a desperate grasp at "renewed thinking". They believed that by renouncing old beliefs and then by scraping away totalitarian decay they could bring about a cure. As history now knows, instead of a cure, they helped bring about its collapse.

"New thinking" gave birth to perestroika, a restructuring designed to save what Lenin had wrought. But then, the unexpected happened: a rebirth of nationalism stirred among the former Soviet Union's diverse ethnic populations. Finally, there was a simultaneous combination of rethinking, restructuring and nationalism which, like so many volatile chemical elements, resulted in the startling political implosion that brought the Communist empire to its knees.

It was not Mr. Reagan's threats, nor his Star Wars military program nor free-market competition from the outside world that changed history. Mr. Gorbachev makes a far better case that it was his administration's accurate diagnosis of the Soviet illness and their willingness to correct it from inside the Soviet Union which changed the history of the world, though in a way they did not intend.

After his too brief description of how he and his people tried to salvage the crumbing Soviet system, Mr. Gorbachev's writing bogs down. He ascends a pulpit and becomes a good-intentioned preacher, proposing non-controversial prescriptions for a better world. Disappointingly, in the latter part of his book he resorts to the obvious and falls back on over-used platitudes (such as:"we must advance through worldwide cooperation"). This section seems to have been written merely to puff out the work.

But, despite that minor short-coming, Mr. Gorbachev has earned and deserved his status as the dominant historical figure in the last quarter of the 20th Century. Anything written by him should not be ignored.

The Book Itself Is History

It was not that long ago when a person would have been thought foolish if they believed a former, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, would be writing books for anyone who was interested. It also is not very long ago that a person writing about any one of the dozens of issues in this book, would have spent many, if not their remaining years in a Siberian Camp. Since Mr. Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 until he resigned as President in 1991, history has been made that will fill countless books for many years to come.

If there is one aspect of this book that I were to state as particularly fascinating it would be the transcripts from Politburo Meetings. Here are the same men expressing their thoughts in reality, when the same members of this inner sanctum of The Kremlin have been the foundation for spy and Cold War Novels for decades. If you are looking for "the evil empire", plotting the destruction of the West, you will be disappointed. The arguments and the positioning that continually deteriorate into political and personal feuds as the former USSR became the target of varied interests, reads like much of what we listen to and watch here with our elected officials.

Mr. Gorbachev is not an apologist for the Former Soviet Union. As someone who grew up with the USSR portrayed as the ultimate evil, the book requires a major change in perspective for the reader. A willingness to listen to a man that is extremely well informed, a Statesman, and a thinker far and away the superior to those who now rule the remains of the USSR, and its kleptocratic economy. I found his words to be remarkably candid when criticizing his own mistakes, and those of the USSR, and his criticisms of US Policy were more often valid than not. The world was divided into two camps with each side portraying the other as the ultimate threat for most of the 20th Century. The truth of course is never that simple. The stories shared by Mr. Gorbachev have another facet; they are absolutely terrifying at times.

It is not possible to comment on even a portion of his ideas. His writing is very dense, and takes getting comfortable with to complete the book. This may in part be due to translation issues, and there are footnotes where ambiguity may have been critical.

His narration of the USSR coming apart is not only fascinating, it was infinitely more complex than many care to recall, and the complexities are by no measure solved. The USSR was never a monolithic beast. It was composed of 15 distinct republics that were made all the more complex by forced immigrations, ethnic complications, and the arbitrary creation of borders. Borders that became not only critical but also disputed to the point of war, when the Union was dissolved.

During his book he covers the history of his country and the larger union, the problems then, and the challenges now. He also takes the reader through the removal of The Wall In Berlin, the first border disputes in Azerbaijan and Armenia, and all the drama of the Baltic States and their pronouncements of independence.

I certainly would not presume to rank what is important in this book, or what was of the greatest importance to Mr. Gorbachev. A critical passage for me was when he made the issues he spoke of personal for him, and those of his Countrymen.

He spoke of the sense of loss felt by citizens during the turmoil and breakup. He acknowledged why people on the outside may have their views, but as a private citizen he and many others had and do have their own. Because there is one fact you cannot get away from; the homes, countries, borders, and lives that were lead were the only life most had ever known. The times of the Tsars are none too fondly remembered either. So on the human level, not the handful that is destroying the remains, the pardoned thieves like Yeltsin and his Family and others, many miss the life they had. For many it was not only the life they knew, it was far better than the one they now live.

A remarkable opportunity to view History from a different perspective, by one of the men at its center.