Gorbachev: His Life and Times.

If there is one thing that contending narratives of the end of the Cold War agree on, it is the importance of Mikhail Gorbachev. Even the structurally inclined acknowledge that without Gorbachev in the Kremlin the Cold War would probably not have ended when it did, and certainly not quite in the way it did. To comprehend how the Cold War ended as it did, we need to understand Gorbachev.William Taubman's monumental biography provides a most impressive account of Gorbachev's life, offering a revealing and multifaceted portrait of the man and politician.

The book breaks much new ground, especially in its detailed picture of Gorbachev's formative years and rise to power. By the time Gorbachev joined the ruling Politburo of the Communist Party in 1979, he had a reputation as a model party official, critical of bureaucratic inefficiency and able to get things done. These qualities, combined with an engaging manner and a keen interest in ideas, stood him in good stead with his superiors, notably Yurii Andropov, who emerges here as an intriguing mix of apparatchik and intellectual.Gorbachev's ideas and convictions were in fact far more radical than any of his patrons or colleagues realized.

Taubman skilfully traces how Gorbachev's family upbringing helped instil dedication to the Leninist cause as well as revulsion against the brutality of Stalinism. Gorbachev played by the party rules and suffered pangs of conscience about the rough treatment meted out to those who dared to express critical views (p. 126).Gorbachev, like other “men of the sixties” (a cohort with which he identifies), saw Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation as not having gone far enough and Leonid Brezhnev's conservatism as having taken the Soviet Union dangerously far down a cul-de-sac of stagnation.

Gorbachev saw perestroika as a way of eradicating Stalinist residues and releasing Vladimir Lenin's “creative power of the masses” to achieve the democratic socialism he read into the last writings of the first Bolshevik leader, his life-long hero. Taubman presents a rich and vivid account of Gorbachev's heroic efforts to achieve this vision by pressing for ever more radical change in the domestic political system. At the same time, Taubman highlights Gorbachev's determination, especially early on, to avoid Khrushchev's fate (pp.

246, 691) by proceeding with caution. Gorbachev emerges as tactically skilful in managing conservative critics, though far less certain in handling those who pressed for reform to go faster and further. Taubman brings out well the emotional as well as political problems Gorbachev had in dealing with his nemesis, Boris Yeltsin (pp.

332–336).The punishing struggle to make headway on the domestic front clearly absorbed the lion's share of Gorbachev's time and energy. By 1989 he had relatively little time or energy left for matters of foreign policy. Preoccupation with the home front comes across in the way that Gorbachev's international doings appear in the story, as scenes in the main drama of perestroika.

This sometimes makes it more difficult to understand the overall dynamics of Soviet foreign policy.The insights we get into how Gorbachev approached challenges and choices at home shed telling light on how he dealt with matters on the international front. Gorbachev emerges as a leader who, from early in his career, listened to a range of opinions, including views that differed from his own. We find some revealing glimpses into Gorbachev's relations with the conservative-minded military and defense industry bureaucracies.

He proved quite adept in managing both, through a combination of institutional oversight and—especially in the case of the military—tough personal engagement. It would have been interesting to have had more on Gorbachev's difficult yet often productive relationship with Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, especially during the latter's years as chief of the Soviet General Staff.Gorbachev's attitude to the state security organs (KGB), and his relationship with Vladimir Kryuchkov, the KGB chairman, is intriguing and would have been worth examining more fully. Until remarkably late in the day Gorbachev seemed relatively well disposed to Kryuchkov, perhaps in part because Andropov had assessed Kryuchkov favorably.

Even though Gorbachev was aware of the conservative bent of the KGB hierarchy, he gave more weight than some of his reformist colleagues thought advisable to the troubling information the intelligence services fed to him about Western, and especially U.S., views and intentions.Where fellow reformers were concerned, Gorbachev emerges as a leader who believed in dialogue, even when, as in later exchanges with Aleksandr Yakovlev, the debate became robust and differences more pronounced. Divergence of opinion among Gorbachev's colleagues was far greater on domestic than on international questions. On foreign policy issues, Gorbachev regularly consulted close colleagues, notably Eduard Shevardnadze.

The Soviet leader seems to have made good use of his close aides’ expertise to talk through ideas. How much attention he paid to their responses and how far he appreciated their opinions is another matter. Taubman cites the frustration felt by members of Gorbachev's inner circle about their boss's difficulty in expressing appreciation of their efforts (p.

224). Such complaints are of course common among aides to political leaders.What is more striking in the case of Gorbachev is the devotion and loyalty displayed by members of his inner circle—a loyalty that endured long after he left office. His foreign policy adviser Anatoly Chernyaev is a case in point.

The man to whom Gorbachev once referred as his “alter ego” was also, as Taubman aptly puts it, his “liberal conscience.” We know from Chernyaev's extremely frank and full diaries (which became accessible in the late 1990s and 2000s) that even though Chernyaev was highly critical of some of Gorbachev's domestic moves in 1990–1991, he stuck with him through thick and thin. Along with Georgii Shakhnazarov and many other members of the inner circle, Chernyaev admired Gorbachev as an inspiring leader and a man of confident and firm principle.Gorbachev had considerable self-confidence, reflected in a tendency to take his own counsel on critical decisions. That process often involved his wife, Raisa, who was also his closest confidante.

Taubman is right to highlight the central importance of that relationship for Gorbachev in his public as well as private life. During their daily evening walks, Raisa acted as her husband's sounding board and doubtless did not hesitate to express her views. He often took account of her opinion, especially in regard to members of his entourage.Gorbachev's confidence in his own judgement reinforced a trend toward a greater concentration of decision-making within the hands of the leader and his inner circle.

As Taubman points out, Gorbachev tended in the later years increasingly to bypass formal bodies. When foreign policy decisions went through formal channels, the Soviet leader used his office as well as his personal authority and considerable powers of persuasion to ensure that his preferences won out.Gorbachev's faith in his own powers of persuasion consistently marked out his handling of meetings with foreign leaders and officials. Taubman shows the new quality of Gorbachev's personal diplomacy in fine-grained accounts of the superpower summits.

The Soviet leader believed in the importance of getting through to other leaders at the human level, especially when, as in the case of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, he differed sharply with them on basic issues. Gorbachev actively welcomed the chance to engage in discussions about the fundamentals of domestic as well as international developments.Such fondness of getting down to basics reflected one of Gorbachev's key traits and one that appears throughout the book: the importance he attached to ideas and beliefs. Taubman provides useful accounts of Gorbachev's early visits to Western Europe and Canada, which, along with talks with colleagues such as Yakovlev and a raft of foreign policy specialists, helped to shape his fundamental thinking about international issues.

These ideas formed the basis for New Political Thinking (novoe politicheskoe myshlenie), which Gorbachev promoted as underpinning his domestic and international reforms. The pillars of New Thinking were normative principles, including a nuclear-free world, self-determination, and freedom of choice, to which Gorbachev felt committed. His idealism came through strongly, particularly when the potential use of force was concerned.

Taubman perceptively highlights Gorbachev's rejection of the use of force as his most radical break with the Bolsheviks. On this point he was critical even of Lenin, who nonetheless remained the basic inspiration for his belief that the party together with the people could create a democratic socialism.Appreciation of this combination of deep-rooted aversion to coercion and faith in the capacity of socialism to reform itself is essential to any understanding of Gorbachev's approach to Eastern Europe. Taubman observes that the region and its leaders came relatively low in Gorbachev's priorities.

This was due in part to Gorbachev's irritation in dealing with leaders who seemed reluctant to take the opportunity he felt he was giving them to embark on their own perestroika. When they failed to take early advantage of this opportunity, Gorbachev refused to get directly involved in their politics. He felt that pushing them along would smack of the old interventionism that he regarded as incompatible with New Thinking.Taubman captures the personal discomfort this caused in his account of Gorbachev's pained recollections of his visit to Prague in April 1987.

The Soviet leader felt that he could not make clear the deep misgivings he had felt from 1968 about how the Soviet Union had crushed a Communist-led reform movement that in many respects had prefigured perestroika. Despite such pangs of conscience, Gorbachev confined himself to encouraging the leaders of Czechoslovakia and of other East European Communist parties to pay attention to the example set by perestroika. Taubman echoes Andrei Grachev in stressing the importance of Gorbachev's ‘utopian’ beliefs about the capacity of socialist reform.Even in the case of East Germany, where such expectations became tempered over time, Gorbachev held out some hope well after the opening of the Berlin Wall that reform would make the Communist regime viable.

Taubman cites Grachev's observation that Gorbachev was happy to see the Wall opened not at Moscow's command, an interpretation that appears to be consistent with the evidence. We are also presented with Gorbachev's own retrospective claim that by November 1989 all had become “clear.” That clarity was not always evident, however, in the Soviet leader's thinking and moves on the German question in subsequent months. Not until the late spring of 1990 did Gorbachev come to accept in principle that a united Germany could choose to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Taubman speculates that there were signs of flexibility in Gorbachev's position before the Washington summit, though the evidence he presents confirms that the first shift to a permissive position was made by Gorbachev at the plenary session on 30 May 1990, much to the surprise of the other Soviet participants. Taubman offers a persuasive explanation of this crucial change in position, citing Gorbachev's own account that he had found it difficult as a democrat to object to the Germans’ right to decide whether to belong to NATO.In accounting for this and Gorbachev's other concessionary moves, Taubman highlights the Soviet leader's growing dependence, as domestic opposition intensified, on “being lionized abroad,” as well as a tendency to think more like a Western social democrat (pp. 541–542).

As important here was Gorbachev's steadfast optimism that developments would work out favorably. Reflecting on the much-discussed topic of supposed U.S. oral assurances that NATO would not extend beyond East Germany, Gorbachev told Taubman that it would be have been ‘stupid’ to have asked for a written guarantee, not least because at the time there seemed to be no prospect that it would happen (pp. 547–548).Gorbachev's remarkable readiness to comply with Western requests, not just on NATO but also on support for the U.S.-led operation against Saddam Hussein, did not elicit reciprocal moves from Washington.

The West did not come up with the kind of support that might have helped Gorbachev cope better with the growing economic and political crisis that engulfed him. Nor, as Taubman quite properly observes, did the U.S. and West European governments have the vision to embrace Gorbachev's ideas of pan-European security and help work toward a more peaceful and cooperative world order.There is a tragic element to the international part of the story even if it is a less spectacularly dramatic tale than that of perestroika. In Taubman's view, Gorbachev is a “tragic hero.” Gorbachev emerges from this account as an idealistic leader who, though committed to bringing about radical change in a decent and peaceful manner, is overwhelmed by adverse conditions and ruthless pragmatists.

The story Taubman tells is of course a far more complex one. He manages to disentangle and shed new light on the many strands, including contradictory ones, that make up Gorbachev's personality and shaped his political approach. In doing so, the book makes a major contribution to our understanding of a remarkable man who, with some justification, considers himself “hard to understand.”