Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the most influential and critical figures of the twentieth century. When I was growing up in the 1980s he was part os a set of international world leaders that seemingly had much more influence over people than the political leaders of today. Gorbachev was the last leader of he Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. He presided over the final years of the Cold War and witnessed its thaw. He was a key advocate of détente and disarmament and sought rapprochement with the West. He brought, along with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterand a reduction of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) through disarmament of nuclear weapons stockpiles and a lessening of military friction between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. These are his political memoirs and they offer a true insight into a very powerful global leader who played a significant role in world affairs at the end of the century, presiding over such key events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev had humble roots as a tractor and combine harvester driver in the Stavropol region of rural Russia. He joined the Communist Party early and was fortunate enough to go to university in Moscow from where his active role in politics flourished. He would be elected Chairman of the Communist Party in 1985 replacing a series of elderly, embedded Soviet leaders. He offered the leadership and nomenclatura a new dynamism and vitality. Living standards were low in the USSR and Gorbachev sought o revolutionise Soviet communist politics and regenerate benefits for all. His key policies for which he is most remembered are Perestroika and Glasnost. Perestroika was a realignment and a modernisation of economic policies, introducing more economic freedoms, less State control and an opening of international trade, ultimately with the USSR becoming part of the global economic system. With Conservatives who clung to Stalinesque control of the State his Perestroika was an anathema. It proved popular and gave Gorbachev international prestige though and improved foreign relations. Glasnost was an opening up of politics and accountability to the people. It again proved unpopular with the forces on the right of the Party. He headed the Politburo where the key leadership of the Soviet Union ruled the nation. From the start though, he had enemies within and ultimately these conspiratorial plots against him grew and grew until the final death throes of the entire Union. His ultimate nemesis proved to be Boris Yeltsin the future democratic President of an independent Russia. Yeltsin’s self-serving, backstabbing Machiavellian manoeuvring ultimately destroyed much of Gorbachev’s legacy. With the context of today’s Russian war in Ukraine I did gleam some interesting information about a political fact that I was unaware of. Crimea has a native Crimean Tatar population and during Gorbachev’s presidency there was friction between Crimea and its control by Ukrainian officials. The native population preferred to identify itself as part of Russia and therefore these facts lend credibility to Vladimir Putin’s annexation based on historic feelings about the region. As the story progresses you get an overall feeling of the train derailing as political tensions intensify. The independence of the Baltic States from Soviet Rule is the beginning of the end and encourages the nationalist sentiments of Yeltsin’s Russia and other key Soviet republics as Belorussia and Ukraine. Gorbachev shares a loving relationship with his wife Raisa and his family and their very lives are threatened by an attempted coup where he is locked in his dacha with all communications cut off and the target of a criminal attempt to subvert the rule of the USSR. After the coup, things never fully recovered and ultimately in 1991 he was forced to resign as President and this brought to en end the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev’s main legacy was to the World. In the West he was viewed with much affection and was seen as someone who they could do business with yet he is often remembered inside the Soviet Union as a failure. I think that long term in historical memory his true status will be felt with the benefit of hindsight. There is much glamour in the international jet-setting of world summits, especially with Reagan and it was interesting reading about his encounter’s with the United Kingdom Prime Minister Thatcher.
I think that in reading this book I have gained a much greater insight into the true mechanisations of Communist rule inside the Soviet Union and although Gorbachev sadly died only a short while ago, I felt that in completing the study of his memoirs it has significant relevance in understanding the Russia of today and what led to the global situation which we currently witness in Putin’s Russia.