Gorbachev and His Revolution by Mark Galeotti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Gorbachev's grandeur was that he was able to break the conditioning of 60 years of Party rule and try to change his country without violence and without the CPSU; his tragedy was that he was to fail."

Mark Galeotti's Gorbachev and His Revolution, despite its limited scope and small volume (140 pages), evidently succeeds in presenting a thorough portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the most important political leaders in the second half of the 20th century, and - more importantly - in emphasizing the role Gorbachev played in the fall of the Soviet Union. My review is too long and I have to confess to a clear bias: I believe that Mr. Gorbachev contributed much more to the end of the Soviet empire than most people think; certainly more than Ronald Reagan's policy or the revolutionary events in the Soviet block countries.

I wholeheartedly agree with the author when he writes

"History, thank heavens, is no longer defined as the 'doings of great men'."

But I also agree with him that

"Yet to pretend that Gorbachev's own choices and character played no part in the events here described is to ignore the very necessary human dimension in history."

The author begins with explanation how the Soviet system of power had worked until the late 1980s: the parliament and the government were only decorative bodies with no actual influence on politics and the entire power belonged to the Communist Party or - more precisely - to its leadership, the Politburo, a group of old men in their 60s and 70s. Then we read about socio-economic forces as well as political events that eventually helped unleash the 'Gorbachev's revolution': the endemic corruption of the party bureaucracy under Brezhnev, the near-collapse of Soviet economy in the late 1970s, the Afghanistan war of occupation, and the birth of the Solidarity movement in Poland and its initial massive success.

It was Yuri Andropov, the short-lived successor of Brezhnev in the supremely powerful position of the General Secretary of the Communist Party, who laid the foundations for Gorbachev's revolution. It was Andropov who fast-tracked Gorbachev's career in the party. Thanks to Andropov Gorbachev had gained several supporters in the Politburo so when Konstantin Chernenko, another short-lived General Secretary of the Communist Party, died in 1985, the fight for succession was short, if quite close (Andrei Gromyko is said to have cast the deciding vote). On March 10, 1985 Gorbachev became the new General Secretary.

While Gorbachev's six years in power are relatively well known to the American reader Dr. Galeotti does a great job of explaining the emphases of Gorbachev's politics. At the beginning he follows Andropov's policies: introduces the so-called 'uskoreniye' (acceleration), basically an attempt to improve the economy, and expands the anti-drinking campaign. Naturally, both initiatives fail and Gorbachev realizes that if he is to succeed reform is not enough - a true revolution is needed.

Hence, Gorbachev embarks on his two most famous initiatives: Glasnost ("Openness") and Perestroika ("Restructuring") that will eventually heavily contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union. On the one hand the new policies are vehemently opposed by the party apparatus, for whom they go too far, and by more radical reformers, for whom they do not go far enough. On the other hand, the policies are opposed by most ordinary people for whom they do not bring appreciable improvements in their lives. Also, let's not forget that small-scale corruption had always been a prevalent mechanism that made life possible in Soviet Union (as it does in many other places, of course). Attempts to eliminate corruption made life more difficult for millions of people.

Yet what mainly influenced the dynamics of the process was that Gorbachev's reforms unleashed three major forces that combined to destroy the Soviet Union: nationalism, return to religion, and unprecedented increase in mass political participation. No one was able to stop these forces, certainly not Gorbachev himself. He is deposed in a failed coup of August 1991. Ukraine and other Soviet republics declare independence and December 31, 1991 becomes the official date of dissolution of the Soviet empire. Thus Gorbachev's push to reform and improve the Soviet Union results in its demise.

I agree when Dr. Galeotti suggests that Gorbachev's revolution failed because he sought support for his reforms in the Communist Party rather than among the ordinary people. Yet I also venture to point out another aspect of the situation: in the mid-1980s, when the entire union was in deep paralysis, when nothing worked as it should, with economy in total shambles, virtually no one would consider that the Soviet Union might fail. It was far more likely that the earth would reverse its run around the sun. The end of Soviet ideology was not even in the realm of fantasy - it was pure impossibility. And yet the doings of one man, Mikhail Gorbachev, helped millions of people realize that maybe things can be changed.

And the history did change, not in the direction that anyone had planned - history never does that - but no one can take away from Mr. Gorbachev his tremendous contributions towards the fall of the Empire. I believe that Gorbachev's choices changed the history of 20th century to the extent that had never been achieved by any other politician.

Four stars.



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