Gorbachev
On My Country and the World
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
The last president of the Soviet Union discusses Communism, the Cold War, and bringing democracy to Russia in this sweeping political memoir.
Drawing on his own experience and rich archival material, Mikhail Gorbachev shares his illuminating perspective on Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Beginning with the October Revolution of 1917, he notes how much Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party did to modernize Russia. While he argues that the Soviet Union had a positive influence on social policy in the West, Gorbachev maintains that this positive development was cut short by Stalinist totalitarianism.
Discussing the fall of the USSR in depth, Gorbachev examines the goals of perestroika, awakening ethnic tensions, the inability of democrats to unite, and his own attempts to preserve the union through reform. In retracing those fateful days, he explains the origins of Russia's present crisis. He then lays out a blueprint for Russia’s future, charting a path toward meaningful economic and political reforms. He also presents possible resolutions to a number of international dilemmas, including NATO expansion, the role of the UN, the fate of nuclear weapons, and environmental problems
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gorbachev, who currently heads a Moscow think tank (the Gorbachev Foundation), takes a hard look at world affairs in a memoir that showcases both the former Soviet premier's intelligence and his self-defeating idealism. He sharply warns that Russia is slipping back toward authoritarian rule with a paralyzed parliament and mass media firmly controlled by big government and oligarchs. Downplaying the role of nationalist movements in hastening the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, he acrimoniously blames its disintegration on Boris Yeltsin, whom he accuses of an irresponsible quest for power. In issuing vigorous calls for the peaceful, democratic co-development of all nations, for nuclear disarmament and for a strengthened U.N., he tries to present himself as a democratic humanist. But too often he still sounds like a die-hard Marxist-Leninist. While he condemns Bolshevik one-party rule as a colossal disaster, he assigns nearly all of the blame to Stalin and clings to the fantasy that under Lenin the Party still maintained strong democratic traditions. He upholds the idea of socialism, arguing that genuine socialism has never been tried--not in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or elsewhere. His support of a stronger U.N., furthermore, is based at least as much on his distrust of the U.S. (he has harsh words for the NATO war on Yugoslavia) as it is on any faith in the international organization. In the end, this is the memoir of a humane man who appears never to have been able to appreciate the difference between abstraction and real life or, as a socialist might say, between theory and practice.
