Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman (review)

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 up-bringing 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 lifelong 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...