The History Book Club discussion

This thread is about Mikhail Gorbachev.

Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev (/ˈɡɔːrbəˌtʃɒf/; Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕɵf] ( listen); born 2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman.

He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, when the party was dissolved.

He was the country's head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991 (titled as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and as President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991).

Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family, and in his teens, operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, and soon became very active within it.

In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979.

Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief "interregna" of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected general secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level.

Gorbachev's policies of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring") and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. Under this program, the role of the Communist Party in governing the state was removed from the constitution, which inadvertently led to crisis-level political instability with a surge of regional nationalist and anti-communist activism culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev later expressed regret for his failure to save the USSR, though he has insisted that his policies were not failures but rather were vitally necessary reforms which were sabotaged and exploited by opportunists. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and the Harvey Prize in 1992, as well as honorary doctorates from various universities.

In September 2008, Gorbachev and business oligarch Alexander Lebedev announced they would form the Independent Democratic Party of Russia,[2] and in May 2009 Gorbachev announced that the launch was imminent.[3] This was Gorbachev's third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007.



Remainder of Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail...

Source: Wikipedia

The New Russia

by Mikhail Gorbachev

Synopsis:

First published in Russia last year, the memoirs of Mikhail Gorbachev are finally available to Westerners. What’s fascinating from the perspective of foreign policy is how differently Gorbachev is viewed in Russia compared to the U.S.

In Russia, Gorbachev is basically a painful reminder of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the period of anarchy and chaos that followed the introduction of market reforms. In the U.S., he’s viewed as a liberal reformer and a courageous critic of the repressive Soviet system.

Remember when TIME magazine named Gorbachev “Man of the Year” in 1987 and 1989 and then “Man of the Decade”? That never would have happened in Russia, where he’s more the “Failure of the Decade.”

BBC HARDtalk - Mikhail Gorbachev - President of the Soviet Union 1990-1991 (10/11/14)

HARDtalk is in Berlin as the city marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - that extraordinary moment which dramatised the collapse of the communist system and the end of the Cold War. Stephen Sackur speaks to Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, architect of the policy of reform and openness which was supposed to revitalise the Soviet empire, but instead hastened its demise. How does he see east-west relations today?

Here is the link:
https://youtu.be/JHL9lNxKQbg

Source: Youtube, BBC

An upcoming biography:
Release date: September 5, 2017

Gorbachev: His Life and Times

by William Taubman (no photo)

Synopsis:

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR was one of the world’s two superpowers. By 1989 he had transformed Soviet Communism. By 1990 he, more than anyone else, had ended the Cold War, and in December 1991 he unintentionally presided over the collapse of the USSR. In this first comprehensive biography of Gorbachev, William Taubman shows how a peasant boy turned into the Soviet system’s grave digger, why the Communist regime allowed him to destroy it, how Gorbachev’s dream of democratizing Russia through perestroika and glasnost foundered, and why he permitted Eastern Europe to abandon Communism without conflict.

Drawing on interviews with Gorbachev himself, Russian archives, interviews with Kremlin aides and adversaries as well as with foreign leaders, Taubman’s intensely personal portrait also extends to Gorbachev’s remarkable marriage to a woman he deeply loved. Nuanced and poignant yet unsparing and honest, this sweeping account has the amplitude of a Tolstoy novel.

Thank you Jerome

Mikhail Gorbachev hopes Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin can stop the tension

By AVI SEIK

The last time former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev made American news, he sounded upbeat.

Of the incoming US president Donald Trump, he told the Associated Press in December: "He has little political experience, but, maybe it's good."

Of his successor, the autocratic Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev said: "He is a strong person.

"Together, they could lead the world [to peace]," he told the reporter, and sang a song after the interview.

"The world today is overwhelmed with problems," he wrote in the first line of an essay in Time magazine. "Policymakers seem to be confused and at a loss."

He listed some problems: "the militarisation of politics and the new arms race", bellicose world leaders and a media that echoes them. Tanks and weapons in Europe "placed closer to each other, as if to shoot point-blank".


Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Photo: AP

"It all looks as if the world is preparing for war," Gorbachev wrote.

His tone had darkened since his song in December - if not since the Soviet Union dissolved beneath his feet a quarter century ago.


Then US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev exchange copies of a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range missiles during a signing ceremony at the White House on December 8, 1987. Photo: AP

But Gorbachev's advice for the world was much the same: do as he and former US president Ronald Reagan, whose co-operation and mutual disarmament may well have averted World War III, did.

Read remainder of article: http://www.smh.com.au/world/it-all-looks...

Discussion Topics

a) Gorbachev believes the world is on the brink of global war, and he calls for political dialogue aimed at joint action to prevent war and arms races. Trump and Putin have made friendly comments about each other, and appear to want a closer US-Russia relationship. Do you think such a relationship could lead to Gorbachev's goal of diminishing global tensions? Should the US lift sanctions on Russia over its conflict in Ukraine if Russia agrees to nuclear arms concessions? Should Ukraine be sacrificed toward the goal of world peace?

b) Gorbachev has advocated for members of the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution stating that nuclear war is unacceptable and must never be fought. Given the UN's inability to prevent wars or take action on crises such as Russia's takeover of Crimea or the humanitarian crisis in Syria, what do you think he is trying to accomplish?

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

The Fall of the Iron Curtain


Taking down the Berlin Wall. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The East German government built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop East Berlin residents from fleeing to the West. Its breach by euphoric citizens on November 9, 1989 became an iconic event representing the collapse of the Soviet Union's power. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms were an integral factor contributing to the situation. 

Gorbachev became leader of the USSR in 1985, and quickly launched his reform program of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). He and other Soviet leaders stood behind a policy of no force against demonstrators, reinforced by subsequent acceptance of previously unthinkable actions.


Mikhail Gorbachev. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

These included the first partially free elections in the Soviet bloc when voters in Poland cast ballots for contested parliamentary seats in June 1989. In September, Hungary opened its border to Austria, allowing a surge of East Germans to escape their repressive country for West German citizenship.

By the time the Berlin Wall received its first hammer blows, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic states, and other Warsaw Pact countries had begun their evolution into much more open societies, all with the understanding from Soviet leaders that embrace of market and democratic reforms and closer ties to Western countries were needed to overcome worsening economies and to retain power.

However, events were moving too fast, and leaders around the world were worried.

The reforms and mistakes that set in motion the cracks across the Soviet sphere are discussed in a series of Russian Rulers History podcasts.

Other:
Link to "The End Game Nears"
https://www.acast.com/russianrulershi...

Link to "The End of the USSR"
https://www.acast.com/russianrulershi...

More:
Let's Please Stop Crediting Ronald Reagan with the Fall of the Berlin Wall
https://www.theatlantic.com/internati...

The Unintended Consequences of Glasnost and Perestroika
https://intelliconn.wordpress.com/201...

Discussion Topic

1. Could the Soviet Union have prevented collapse in any way, such as China's evolution to a greater degree of economic liberalization?

2. What were Gorbachev's major mistakes during his reform efforts?

Mary
Admin (T) - Russia and Russian History