Gorbachev believed in Lenin long after that.
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Stalin’s crimes and Brezhnev’s “stagnation” mocked Marxist ideals, but Gorbachev thought Soviet socialism could be saved by being “reformed.” It was “only after 1985,” he recalls, “and not immediately then, that I ceased to believe this.” Gorbachev: His Life and Times capably describes its subject’s struggles throughout his tenure as general secretary (1985 –1991) to reconcile his lingering Leninist ideas with his desire to reform the USSR: “Much as he abhorred the use of force, Gorbachev justified it this time,” writes Taubman of a deadly case in Armenia, which Gorbachev called “a last resort in extreme circumstances.” Taubman treats this even-handedly, but doesn’t resolve the dispute over Gorbachev’s exact culpability. People were killed, sometimes by Red Army troops. Taubman does report, however, on the disturbing use of force apparently authorized or allowed by Gorbachev in republics looking to break from the Soviet orbit in 1990-91, such as Latvia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Stalin would have had the organizers of the August 1991 coup that brought down the Soviet empire shot on the spot, with bloody pictures for his personal photo album. Here, mercifully, was a Soviet dictator who would not purge, orchestrate mass killings, or otherwise seek to physically harm scores of rivals or dissenters. He powerfully captures Gorbachev’s courage, brashness, outspokenness, high self-esteem, temperament, and character-both good and bad-emphasizing his aversion to violence. He interviewed not only Gorbachev (more than once) but numerous other officials and knowledgeable sources, in both English and Russian. This exclusion is all the more remarkable because Taubman otherwise leaves no stone unturned in his remarkably comprehensive book.
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How so? Unfortunately, Taubman is silent on this or any similar encounters Gorbachev had. “His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life,” Gorbachev said. He asked them for theological books to better understand the saint. Francis that I arrived at the Church.” (Church? Which church? The article didn’t say.) After praying before the bones of Francis, Gorbachev toured the basilica with the friars. “I feel very emotional to be here at such an important place not only for the Catholic faith, but for all humanity,” Gorbachev told the Daily Telegraph. In March 2008, a British reporter discovered him on his knees for 30 minutes at St. It’s especially bizarre as there is evidence that Gorbachev has spent his entire life grappling with questions of faith. Regrettably, not a word of such practices is found in this book.
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When they were alone, she would surreptitiously bless her son with an icon. His mother, Maria, had been a deaconess in the Russian Orthodox Church. The reality is that Gorbachev was secretly baptized by his mother and grandmother, who daringly read him the Bible at the height of Stalin’s rule. But there is no material on the faith of Gorbachev and his family. Taubman describes in detail Gorbachev’s boyhood, his upbringing, his beloved parents and grandparents, his arduous work with his father on a collective farm, his time at Moscow State University, and his meeting Raisa, the love of his life and second-most profiled person in the book. This annoying practice is common among Western progressives, letting them conveniently call the Soviet good guys who took down the USSR “liberals” and the recalcitrant Stalinists who opposed Gorbachev’s reforms “conservatives.” To his credit, Taubman also calls orthodox Communists and Kremlin stalwarts “hard-liners,” which is a much better fit than “conservatives”-though at one spot he laughably refers to anti-Khrushchev forces as “Communist conservatives.”Ī greater flaw involves Taubman’s lack of curiosity about Gorbachev’s religious faith. One bothersome flaw of the book is Taubman’s frequent use of the term “conservatives” to describe Soviet officials who resisted Gorbachev’s reforms, and “liberals” for market reformers, freedom-lovers, and anti-Communists. He also ably outlines some unintended consequences of Gorbachev’s actions, above all that his “dream of transforming the USSR came crashing down around him.” He cautions at the outset that “Gorbachev is hard to understand,” but he seems to get the man mostly right. If there’s a better English-language biography of Mikhail Gorbachev than this one, I’m unaware of it.Īn emeritus professor of political science at Amherst College, William Taubman displays a strong affinity for his subject and an odd affection for Soviet officials, including shameless propagandists like Georgi Arbatov and Valentin Falin.