Book review: Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman – the mysteries remain
Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman
Reviewed by Johnathan Steele
Reviewed by Johnathan Steele
If Russia is a riddle
wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, the same holds true for its most famous
living citizen, Mikhail
Gorbachev. From March 1985 to December 1991 he was under an unrelenting
national and international spotlight as the Soviet Union’s leader. He wrote
several autobiographical books while in power and has written more since
retirement. At least a dozen associates have published memoirs in which he
features prominently. Yet in spite of all this scrutiny, key questions about the
man who did more than any other to change Europe and the world in the last half
of the 20th century remain without clear answers.
How did a secret
reformist get chosen by deeply conservative elders to be their country’s next
leader? Gorbachev felt his country needed fundamental change, so why did he not
quickly develop a programme of political and economic action once he had
secured the top job? Why did he fail to foresee the rise of nationalist unrest
that eventually led to the Soviet Union’s fragmentation? Why did he consent to
Germany’s reunification inside Nato without demanding anything in return,
except cash to pay for Soviet troops’ rehousing?
William Taubman, a
professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts, who won a Pulitzer prize for
his biography of Khrushchev, has done a phenomenal amount of research
into Gorbachev’s career, including interviews with the man himself. He relies
heavily on accounts by the closest aides, in particular the sparky diary
of Anatoly Chernyaev, which reveals Gorbachev’s bewildering volatility of
mood as well as his intellectual contradictions. But Taubman concludes he has
to leave many questions about Gorbachev unresolved. Here is a man who confided
to Chernyaev in 1987 that “we’ve made a mess of socialism: nothing is left of
it”, yet took time off during crises to reread Lenin’s speeches in the
conviction that he could learn lessons from 70 years earlier on how to
strengthen socialism in today’s context. Or take Gorbachev’s attitude to the
Communist party when its cadres became increasingly vocal in resisting change
by 1990. His aides were urging him to leave the party and found a social
democratic alliance to compete and take its place. “I can’t let this lousy
rabid dog off the leash. If I do, all this huge structure will be turned
against me,” he told them, using the foul language to which he often descended
in moments of anger or despair.
Gorbachev’s biggest
contribution was to provide Russians with freedom of speech and a multi-party
democracy. Internationally, it was not to have used force to retain control of eastern
Europe when its ruling Communist parties started to lose their grip. Behind
this strategy lay a kind of Russian isolationism that ran counter to decades of
Soviet internationalism. One might expect such a dramatic shift to have been
preceded by long debate. Yet Gorbachev and his colleagues hardly ever discussed
it. On the day after the Berlin Wall fell, Gorbachev did not even call the politburo into
session, although he found time to send messages to US President George Bush,
Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand, saying the East German leaders had
taken the right decision. He was equally relaxed about the fall of communism
elsewhere in the region.
One reason was that
Gorbachev was preoccupied and overwhelmed with domestic crises within the
Soviet Union. What had started as a revolution from above had become a
revolution from below, with street protests and revolts breaking out all over.
This provoked massive resistance from conservatives in the Soviet Communist
party. Gorbachev was buffeted by pressures on all sides. Taubman’s approach to
this tumultuous story is chronological and Kremlin-oriented. While this means
that his fast-paced narrative leaps about, accurately reflecting Gorbachev’s
tactical zigzagging, it leaves insufficient space for describing the context of
daily life for Soviet citizens and the mounting disillusionment with reform
that led many Russians to view Gorbachev as an agent of destruction. It also
means the book lacks an explanation for basic issues.
To name just a few:
why did shops have such massive food shortages? How come the black market
became so pervasive? What went wrong with the effort to allow the development
of private enterprise and small business under the guise of co-operatives? The
book jumps from crisis to crisis just as Gorbachev’s daily agenda did, but
readers would have benefited from some thematic chapters looking at key topics
with the advantage of scholarly hindsight, such as the role of the mass media
in hastening change, or Gorbachev’s clumsy handling of Baltic nationalism, or
why (a question of renewed significance since 2014) a majority of people in
eastern Ukraine, and even in Crimea, voted for independence and a break from
Moscow in 1991... read more:
