Gorbachev

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Summary: From Russia with Hope
Review: As a reader from the third world (or emerging market?) I wonder why Gorbachev is so popular outside Russia. Since his economics reforms didn't work and his political ones didn't make better either. I only regard the former Soviet Union or the Soviet Space a giant jigsaw puzzle of nations and peoples who look each other up. It's worth noting its China-like inward spirit looking to West as like as a menace. Indeed I agree with Mr. Gorbachev on the Russias's future as a great partner in the world political scenario. For those who are trying to find desperately out a third way for the real socialism it's a worth reading Renato Zanola

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Summary: The Socialist Idea is Inextinguishable
Review: Following the August 1991 putsch against Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev led by Vice President Gennady Yanaev, the world waited with great anticipation for Gorbachev's reaction. After landing in Moscow from the Crimea where he had been vacationing, Gorbachev, obviously shaken, uttered weakly, "I still believe in the socialist idea." Russia-watchers everywhere were startled. Had he not just been betrayed by his closest comrades? Could he still believe in Leninism, however benign? In Gorbachev: On My Country And The World, Mikhail Gorbachev addresses these questions and more. "One of today's fashionable cliches, both in Russia and the West," asserts Gorbachev, "is to speak of the total collapse of the socialist idea. This is a false conclusion." Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, "cunning, crafty, cruel and merciless, with a morbid suspiciousness," hijacked and brutalized socialism, contends Gorbachev. Still, Gorbachev claims with no evidence but confident finality, "The socialist idea is inextinguishable." It would be easy to dismiss Gorbachev's reflections on socialism's failure in the Soviet Union as a fallen and unappreciated leader's attempt to burnish his legacy. But that would be unfair to a courageous reformer whom the future will treat more kindly than the present. By simultaneously introducing democracy and market economics to Russia and dismantling the Soviet Empire, Gorbachev literally changed the course of history. Much of Gorbachev's book is devoted to a vexing defense of his legacy of "perestroika" and "glasnost," (restructuring and openness). Under normal circumstances, these should lead to progress, but Gorbachev's Soviet Union was never normal. Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky in the 1850's: "Everything is abnormal in our society." Russia's cultural patterns began to solidify in Vladimir's 988 conversion of the country to Eastern Orthodoxy. Add the Mongol Invasion of 1237, Ivan the Terrible's brutal 16th century regime, and Peter the Great's early 18th century attempt to "Westernize" Russia, and the result is a powerful and often toxic mix of autocracy and orthodoxy. Whether they placed their faith in "The Little Father" Czar or the communist dictator Stalin, Russians were wards of the state. Millions wept when Stalin died. Even today, Russians lament, "We need another Stalin." Russian poet Alexander Pushkin pointed out that "when the Mongols came, they brought neither Aristotle nor algebra;" thus, Russia missed the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Reformation. There was no Runneymede, no "Rights of Man," and no "all men are created equal" proclamation. Russia, invaded 200 times by foreign powers, has a "siege mentality." It is not surprising that in this inhospitable soil Gorbachev's reforms failed to take root. Gorbachev's contempt for his successor Boris Yeltsin is palpable, even though Yeltsin showed considerable courage in standing defiantly atop the tank in the 1991 coup calling for Gorbachev's return. Yeltsin, Gorbachev believes, was too hungry for power himself, even at the expense of preserving the Soviet Union. The West does not fare much better. Offering no details, Gorbachev claims that "Western democracy is not well" and Western citizens "seem more and more alienated from (their) institutions, which are simply degenerating." Gorbachev is at his most emphatic in discussing who won the Cold War. His answer: "Had there not been a change in Soviet policy, if the new thinking had not emerged, the Cold War might have continued for much longer." Gorbachev rejects the notion that the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was "a black hole in Russian history." Indeed, it freed the country from "the fetters of feudalism." Seventy years later Gorbachev would proclaim that "everything must change or we will die." Gorbachev's writing is seldom pellucid and often tedious. But his book offers insight into the thoughts and values of this good-hearted man who would be more effective now in heading the United Nations than Russia. Like most socialists, Gorbachev has difficulty grasping the key relationship between effort and reward. After freeing the Soviet Union from tyranny, it is unfortunate he had to tackle the Sisyphean task of reforming it. For what was said of inept Russian Czar Nicholas I could well be applied to the Soviet Union: "The main failing was that it was all a mistake." Mikhail Gorbachev wanted the Soviet Union to be the first "socialist state under law." He didn't succeed. But because of him Russia's newly elected president has a fighting chance -- for the first time in history -- to overcome a largely unusable past and bring freedom and prosperity to one-sixth of the world's surface.

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Summary: The Book Itself Is History
Review: 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.

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Summary: Socialism - from the inside
Review: Mr. Gorbachev's On My Country and The World is a refreshing account of what went on in the USSR as it sunk into the dark waters of Stalin's socialism. To Westerners like myself, it demonstrates that oftentimes our opinions about foreign philosophies are incomplete, let alone downright mistaken. Case in point: Gorbachev's defense of socialism and its virtues, which, I must concede, is rather convincing and does manage to make us look at our own system from a slightly different perspective.

The tenacity with which he attempted to preserve some form of "state entity" during and after perestroika is commendable, but I believe that such an endeavor was doomed to failure from the start. Anyhow, it shows us how deeply he felt about the USSR and how hard he tried to turn it into a workable socialist system that had learned from past mistakes and was ready to participate in the emerging market economy system.

Where I have to disagree with Mr. Gorbachev is on the topic of intervention, in places such as Iraq and, more recently, Bosnia and Kosovo. Mr. Gorbachev is an advocate of diplomacy, and I have nothing against this. But diplomacy, with "leaders" such as Saddam Hussein or the hopefully-departing Milosevic, is, I believe, a finite process, and procrastination, once everything has been attempted, can have terrible consequences (read, among others, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya). He emphasizes the need to enforce diplomacy through the UN (as should we all) but does not give alternatives or bring new ideas in case such diplomatic measures fail to prevent humanitarian catastrophes or crimes against humanity. For an elucidating read on this, readers should refer to William Shawcross's Deliver Us From Evil.

A nice philosophical foray into history, politics and future challenges faced by civilization. Intelligent, succinct, it is worth the few hours you will need to read it.

Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile historical document
Review: Occasionally peppered with the almost 'I was never wrong' way of thinking that seems to affect most writers of political memoirs, it is nontheless a worthwhile and engaging read concerning the great historical events in Russia in the late eighties and early ninties, his bravery is esp.. evident during the August coup in 1991 when he was briefly under house arrest

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Summary: Gorbachev: True Socialism
Review: This book not only sheds light on many aspects of the October Revolution, but brings back the real meaning of socialism without the preconceived ideas that the West has created. Gorbachev's attempt to reform the USSR is described with astoning revelations on alleged conspiracy against Gorbachev himself. A must read in order to understand the collapse of the Soviet empire, through its number one insider.

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Summary: Anything by Gorbachev Should Not Be Ignored
Review: 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.