The Gorbachev Factor

439 Pages·1996·6.43 MB·English

by  Archie Brown

The Gorbachev Factor
TheGorbachevFactorwas in1998 awarded theW.J.M. MackenziePrizeofThePoliticalStudiesAssociationoftheU.
K.forbestpoliticalsciencebookofitsyearandinthesameyearwasjointwinneroftheAlecNovePrizeoftheBritish
Association for Slavonicand East European Studies for best book or articlein any discipline on Russia, Communism
or Post-Communism.
‘Archie Brown's long-awaited work hasbeen very well worth the wait.Here at lastwe havea book which
takes the study of Gorbachev out of the quicksands of politics and sets it on a firm scholarly basis’
John Gooding, History
‘Among [the serious book published in the West] Archie Brown's The Gorbachev Factor is the most
valuable work on Gorbachev. The research is scrupulous and detailed, incorporating the maximum
number of sources in the Russian language. He comes closer than any other [Western] author to
understanding perestroika and Gorbachev as a person’
Anatoly Chemyaev,
1991: The Diary of an Aide to the President of the USSR (1997)
‘This Oxford don, for years one of the world's most talented Kremlinologists, has already found the
memoris, documents and interviews that allow him to provide a remarkably detailed and authoritative
account of the key moments in Gorbachev's career’
Robert G. Kaiser, Washington Post
‘Archie Brown's The Gorbachev Factor is the most thorough and best researched monograph on
Gorbachev I have read’
Vitali Vitaliev, The Daily Telegraph
‘The Gorbachev Factor is a major scholarly achievement and will remain esential reading on last Soviet
politics for some time to come. Many may disagree with its conclusions, but no serious student of
perestroika will be able to ignore it’
Bill Tompson, The Russian Review
‘Archie Brown has mastered the material and met the people . . . he writes with a historical perspective
unavailable to authors of the instant biographies which appeared while Gorbachev was still in power’
Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times
‘Archie Brown has been able to take account of the walth of detail, particularly memoir evidence and
interviews with many of perestroika's participants, which previous studies could not. The result is an
elegant and authoritative account’
Matthew Wyman, Political Studies
‘The best-informed account of Gorbachev's political views and strategies between 1985 and 1989’
Orlando Figes, Times Literary Supplement
ii
‘Professor Brown, who has known Russia for more than thirty years, has special qualifications for his
task. As long ago as 1980 he singled Gorbachev out as a likely reformer’
David Wedgwood Benn, The World Today
‘A magisterial work’
Jonathan Story, West European Politics
‘Archie Brown's carefully-researched, meticulous and well-informed account of the Gorbachev era
assesses his achievements, analyses the failures and critically reviews the forces which were marshalled
against him . . . afascinating study ’
Maurice Hayes, Irish Independent
‘Numerous recent books by academics and foreign correspondents have charted how policy was made
and executed during this period. None has provided the vivid detail and the insider's view that
distinguish The Gorbachev Factor’
Wendy Slater, Journal of European Studies
‘Not onlyistheauthor one of Britian'smost prominent scholarsin Soviet and post-Soviet studies,he has
been from the start the keenest and most diligent follower of Gorbachev's years in power’
Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
‘Brown's latest book is the product of many yearsof intensive research: it proves to be the most detailed
and revealing study of the man who revolutionised the USSR. Excellent’
Good Book Guide
‘Brown has done a scholarly job of dissecting the processes at work during this period, analysing both
the contemporary texts and the subsequent memoris’
Peter Millar, Sunday Times
‘An outstanding work . . . essential reading for all interested in Russia's transition from communism’
T. H. Rigby, Slavic Review
‘Archie Brown . . . has masterfully exploited the memoir literature made possible by Russia's new
freedom to bring his readers inside the inner workings of the Gorbachev regime’
Robert V. Daniels, The Nation
‘It is hard to come away from this admirable book without an affection for Gorbachev's insistence on
peaceful change, his willingnes to let Eastern Europe go and his determination to nurture a pluralist
culutre’
Nick Cohen, The Observer
‘Gorbachev'searlycareerandfirstyearsinpoweraredocumentedhereinfineandfascinatingdetail...a
useful corrective to the usual approach, which treated the Soviet Communist Party as monolithic and
essentially unchanging’
Thomas de Waal, Moscow Times
‘Oxford professor Brown is the right scholar to return to Gorbachev the honour he deserves; Brown has
the reputation of being the first person in the West to “spot” Gorbachev. [He] pointed out early that
Gorbachev could be aSoviet leader of anew type ...With the authority of someone who hasstudied the
SovietUnionandRussiafor threedecadesBrownwritesabouttheSoviet powerstructuresandaboutthe
elite of the CPSU like an insider; his research is based on broad source material and it will be the
standard work on Gorbachev's policy and thinking’
Mikko Majander, Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)
The Gorbachev Factor
Archie Brown
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Brown,Archie,1938-
TheGorbachevFactor/ArchieBrown.
IncludesbibliograohicalreferencesandIndex.
1. SovietUnion—PoliticsandGovernment—1985–1991.
2. Gorbachev,MikhailSergeevich,1931-.I.Title.
DK288.B76 1997 947.085'4'092—dc2197–8830
ISBN0–19–288052–7
To my mother
Mary Yates Brown
and to the memory of my father
Alexander Douglas Brown
(1900–1979)
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Contents
Preface ix
List of Plates viii
Abbreviations xvi
Note on Transliteration xvii
1 Introduction 1
2 The Making of a Reformist General Secretary 24
3 In the Portals of Power 53
4 The Power of Ideas and the Power of Appointment 89
5 Gorbachev and Economic Reform 130
6 Gorbachev and Political Transformation 155
7 Gorbachev and Foreign Policy 212
8 The National Question, the Coup, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union 252
9 Conclusions 306
Notes 319
Glossary 391
Index 393
List of Plates
Gorbachev and Domestic Soviet Affairs
1. An early picture of Raisa Titorenko and Mikhail Gorbachev
2. Mikhail Gorbachev and the Old Guard
3. Gorbachev meeting oil workers
4. Gorbachev at the Bolshevik Revolution anniversary parade
5. Alexander Yakovlev
6. Nikolay Ryzhkov
7. Yegor Ligachev
8. The opening of the Nineteenth Party Conference
9. Gorbachev voting at thefirst contested, union-wide elections in the Soviet Union
10. Gorbachev answering journalists' questions
11. Gorbachev signing the book of condolences for Andrey Sakharov
12. Rival chairmen Anatoly Lukyanov and Boris Yeltsin
13. The leaders of the coup against Gorbachev
14. Gorbachev's arrival in Moscow after the aboritive coup attempt
15. Mikhail Gorbachev and Nursultan Nazarbaev, President of Kazakhstan
16 Different moods of Mikhail Gorbachev
17 Different moods of Mikhail Gorbachev
18 Different moods of Mikhail Gorbachev
Gorbachev in the International Arena
19. Mikhail Gorbachev in Paris with President François Mitterrand
20. General Secretary Gorbachev and President Reagan signing the INF Treaty
21. Gorbachev being welcomed to Poland by General Wojciech Jaruzelski
22. Raisa and Mikhail Gorbachev with Margaret Thatcher at the Soviet Embassy, London
23. Mikhail Gorbachev and Felipe González, Prime Minister of Spain
24. Gorbachev with his aides Anatoly Chernyaev and Georgy Shakhnazarov
25. Gorbanchev with President George Bush and American National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft
26. Gorbachev and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl after signing a treaty of friendship and co-operation
27. Eduard Shevardnadze, Soviet Foreign Minister 1985-90.
Preface
ThisbookisneitherahistoryoftheGorbacheveranorabiographyofMikhailGorbachev.Itdoes,certainly,containa
good deal of information about Gorbachev's life and background, not all of it, I believe, familiar to the Western (or,
for that matter, Russian) reader. It discusses, too, many of the major events of the final seven years of the Soviet
system. But its main concern is to understand and interpret Gorbachev's contribution to the dramatic changes which
took place in the Soviet Union and in that state's relationswith the outside worldin the second half of the 1980s and
thebeginningofthe1990s—atimeinwhichEast–WestrelationsweretransformedandCommunistpowercametoan
endinEasternEurope.Thereisdiscussion,too, ofGorbachev'sunavailingstruggletopreserveanykindofa unionin
the former USSR in the face of growing nationalist assertiveness.
Themostcentral task ofthisbook, however, is toexamine howimportantGorbachevwas as a mover or facilitatorin
the Soviet Union's transition from orthodox Communism to a different kind of political system. This involves
discussing ‘the Gorbachev factor’ not only in terms of his contributions in different policy areas but in respect of his
political power, outlook, and style. It entails considering the strength of the opposition to Gorbachev and the
constraints upon his political actions at different times. It also necessitates making judgements about Gorbachev's
mind-set and the development of his views over time.
Althoughthesearenoteasyissuestosettle,itisperhapsofatleastsomeadvantagethatIhavebeenpaying attentionto
Gorbachev for a long time—wellbefore it was common to do so in either the Soviet Union or the West. There were
quizzicallooks inmyaudienceatYaleUniversitywhen,inoneofmyHenryL.StimsonLecturesdeliveredthereon22
October 1980, I said: ‘An event of extraordinary potential significance took place in Moscow yesterday—the
promotion to full membership of the Politburo of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.’ My reasons for saying this were
twofold. The first was that I had come to the conclusion that any future General Secretary would, like his three
predecessors, be drawn from the ranks of those I called ‘senior secretaries’, i.e. the small group of people who were
bothfullmembers ofthePolitburoandSecretariesoftheCentralCommittee.Gorbachevhadjustjoinedthatcategory
and he was by some twenty years the youngest member of the group.
Second, I was convinced that Gorbachev would be a serious reformer. It was a view I held long before it became
fashionable and which I continued to hold after it had ceased to be fashionable, at any rate in Russia. My interest in