Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and His Failure by Robert G. Kaiser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

" In just over five years, Mikhail Gorbachev transformed the world. He turned his own country upside down. He woke a sleeping giant, the people of the Soviet Union, and gave them freedoms they had never dreamed of. He also gave them their own horrific history, which his predecessors had hidden and distorted for sixty years. He tossed away the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe with no more then a fare-thee-well. "

Robert G. Kaiser's Why Gorbachev Happened. His Triumphs & His Failure is the best of the 10 books about Soviet and Russian leaders in the second half of the 20th century that I have recently read and reviewed here on Goodreads (the list is included after the rating). The main reason for my enthusiastic recommendation is that while the book should be clear and understandable to people who have never had close contact with the Soviet ideology it is still deep enough to offer stunning insights and teach a lot of new things to people like this reviewer, who were born, raised, and spent about half of their lives in the shadow of the Soviet ideology.

For several days I have been struggling with the rating. I really wanted to give this outstanding book five stars. But I can't. I reserve the maximum rating only for perhaps one in 20 books, ones that are virtually perfect in every possible sense, in other words, masterpieces. And I see one clear flaw of Mr. Kaiser's book - the slightly misleading main title. I don't really think the author explains why Gorbachev happened. He explains how he happened, but not why. In fact, I don't think it is possible to answer the "why" question. Mikhail Gorbachev happened to be - through the most powerful force of the universe, that is randomness - the right person at the right time. Most other potential leaders would not achieve that much at that time of the Soviet empire, yet had he come at a different time of Soviet history he would have not achieved much.

I certainly lack the skills to produce a full-blown review of this wonderful book so in the following paragraphs I will just point out - in an itemized form - few things that made the strongest impression on me.

Liberation of Eastern Europe: Since I am Polish by birth the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet influence in the late 1980s was probably the most important political event I have ever witnessed. I am happy to report that the author seems to validate my point of view that the liberation was mainly due to Mr. Gorbachev's actions:

"Gorbachev did cause the revolution in Eastern Europe - with a series of practical and symbolic steps, culminating in that telephone call, which informed the East Europeans that he had abandoned the old rule book that had required them to submit to Moscow's discipline."

Mythology of the Soviet society: The author clearly and succinctly summarizes the mythology of the Soviet system. The three most important myths, freely accepted by virtually all Soviet people. were: (1) "the myth of Lenin (transformed into a deity after his death)", (2) the myth of the October Revolution of 1917 believed to be "a massive popular uprising by workers and peasants", and (3) the myth of the Great Patriotic War as "the lonely triumph of Russia over Nazi Germany." While deification of Lenin might conceivably be understood in a society where religion was not officially practiced, the other two myths are patently based on falsehoods.

Truth about Stalin: The author makes an argument that Gorbachev's persistence and successes in denouncing Stalinism were one of the main reasons of the fall of the Soviet Union. I would add here that the first time the world (and then the Soviet people) learned about Stalin being the greatest mass murderer in the history of mankind was in 1956, when Khrushchev gave his famous "secret speech." Yet the times were not ripe then for the destruction of Stalinism. The Stalin myth survived the "secret speech"! I would also add, bitterly and cynically, that even now there are millions of people in Russia who would be happy to have the deranged mass murderer back as the national hero.

Failure: The author also delivers on the promise of the second part of the subtitle - Gorbachev's failure. The reader will learn the captivating story of how Gorbachev attempted to hold the Soviet Union together in the late fall of 1990. And how the tragic events in January of 1991 (massacre of Lithuanian civilians by Soviet military force) eventually contributed to Gorbachev's fall.

Maybe the author is being coy when he writes about an article of his "this one reveals the ungenerous limits of my own imagination." The phrase is quite endearing and it exemplifies how light and readable the author's style is. To sum up (finally!), this a great book: informative, deep, serious yet captivating. I have already ordered two other books by Mr. Kaiser.

Four-and-a-half stars.

My previous reviews of books on Soviet leaders:

The Struggle for Russia - by Boris Yeltsin

Gorbachev: Heretic in the Kremlin - by Dusko Doder and Louise Branson

The Andropov File - by Martin Ebon

Against the Grain - An Autobiography - by Boris Yeltsin

Lenin to Gorbachev: Three generations of Soviet Communists

Brezhnev, Soviet Politician - by Murphy

Khrushchev - by Roy Medvedev

Gorbachev and His Revolution - by Mark Galeotti

Andropov - by Zhores Medvedev


View all my reviews