Gorbachev’s major failures were unable to prevent disintegration of the union and not improving economic performance. However, since everything was interconnected in the Soviet Union, it was impossible to introduce political change without raising national consciousness and, in some cases, separatist aspirations. If the disintegration of the Soviet Union is compared with the breakup of Yugoslavia, what is remarkable is the extent to which the Soviet state gave way to fifteen successor states with very little bloodshed. It was also impossible to move smoothly from an economic system based over many decades on one set of principles (a centralized, command economy)
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to a system based on another set of principles (market relations) without going through a period of disruption in which things were liable to get worse before they got better.
Gorbachev’s failures were more than counterbalanced by his achievements. He changed Soviet foreign policy dramatically, reaching important arms control agreements with U.S. president Reagan and establishing good relations with all the Soviet Union’s neighbors. Defense policy was subordinated to political objectives, and the underlying philosophy of kto kogo (who will defeat whom) gave way to a belief in interdependence and mutual security. These achievements were widely recognized internationally-most notably with the award to Gorbachev in 1990 of the Nobel Peace Prize. If Gorbachev is faulted in Russia today, it is for being overly idealistic in the conduct of foreign relations, to an extent not fully reciprocated by his Western interlocutors. The Cold War had begun with the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. It ended when one East and Central European country after another became independent in 1989 and when Gorbachev accepted the loss of Eastern Europe, something all his predecessors had regarded as non-negotiable. Gorbachev’s answer to the charge from domestic hard-liners that he had “surrendered” Eastern Europe was to say: “What did I surrender, and to whom? Poland to the Poles, the Czech lands to the Czechs, Hungary to the Hungarians....”
After the failed coup against Gorbachev of August 1991, when he was held under house arrest on the Crimean coast while Yeltsin became the focal point of resistance to the putschists, his political position was greatly weakened. With the hard-liners discredited, disaffected nationalities pressed for full independence, and Yeltsin became increasingly intransigent in pressing Russian interests at the expense of any kind of federal union. In December 1991 the leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian republics got together to announce that the Soviet Union was ceasing to exist. Gorbachev bowed to the inevitable and on December 25 resigned from the presidency of a state, the USSR, which then disappeared from the map.
During the post-Soviet period Gorbachev held no position of power, but he continued to be politically active. His relations with Yeltsin were so bad that at one point Yeltsin attempted to prevent him from travelling abroad, but abandoned that policy following protests from Western leaders. Throughout the Yeltsin years, Gorbachev was never invited to the Kremlin, although he was consulted on a number of occasions by Vladimir Putin when he succeeded Yeltsin. Gorbachev’s main activities were centered on the foundation he headed, an independent think-tank of social-democratic leanings, which promoted research, seminars, and conferences on developments within the former Soviet Union and on major international issues. Gorbachev became the author of several books, most notably two volumes of memoirs published in Russian in 1995 and, in somewhat abbreviated form, in English and other languages in 1996. Other significant works included a book of political reflections, based on tape-recorded conversations with his Czech friend from university days, Zdenek Mlyn?r, which appeared in 2002. He became active also on environmental matters as president of the Green Cross International. Domestically, Gorbachev lent his name and energy to an attempt to launch a Social Democratic Party, but with little success. He continued to be admired abroad and gave speeches in many different countries. Indeed, the Gorbachev Foundation depended almost entirely on its income from its president’s lecture fees and book royalties.
Gorbachev will, however, be remembered above all for his contribution to six years that changed the world, during which he was the last leader of the USSR. Notwithstanding numerous unintended consequences of perestroika, of which the most regrettable in Gorbachev’s eyes, was the breakup of the Union, the long-term changes for the better introduced in the Gorbachev era-and to a significant degree instigated by him-greatly outweigh the failures. Ultimately, Gorbachev’s place in history is likely to rest upon his playing the most decisive role in ending the Cold War and on his massive contribution to the blossoming of freedom, in Eastern Europe and Russia itself. See also: AUGUST 1991 PUTSCH; DEMOCRATIZATION; GLASNOST; GORBACHEV, RAISA MAXIMOVNA; NEW POLITICAL THINKING; PERESTROIKA; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Braithwaite, Rodric. (2002). Across the Moscow River: The World Turned Upside Down. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Breslauer, George. (2002). Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders. New York: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Archie. (1996). The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, Archie, and Shevtsova, Lilia, eds. (2001). Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in Russia’s Transition. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Chernyaev, Anatoly. (2000). My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Gorbachev, Mikhail. (1996). Memoirs. New York: Dou-bleday. Gorbachev, Mikhail, and Mlyn?r, Zdenek (2001). Conversations with Gorbachev. New York: Columbia University Press. Hough, Jerry F. (1997). Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985- 1991. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Ligachev, Yegor. (1993). Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin. New York: Pantheon Books. McFaul, Michael. (2001). Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Matlock, Jack F., Jr. (1995). Autopsy of an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: Random House. Palazchenko, Pavel. (1997). My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
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thing with his wife, including high-level politics and the affairs of state.
Raisa, as she became universally known, was intellectually well equipped for the role she played. Though she had to attend many different schools as her father, a railway worker, moved from place to place, she gained a gold medal for maximum grades in all subjects and entered the philosophy department at Moscow State University in 1949. Later she did pioneering sociological research, gained the Russian equivalent of a Ph.D., and published a book in 1969 on the way of life of the peasantry in the Stavropol region (where her husband was the First Secretary of the Communist Party). Whereas many Soviet officials had books produced for them by hired hands, Raisa Gorbachev did her own field research and writing.
As a very visible “First Lady” in the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991, she aroused envy and resentment at home (for her glamour and smart clothes) as well as admiration, but she was much more universally liked and respected abroad. She played a significant part in projecting both the new image and new reality of Soviet politics following the accession of her husband to the highest post in the Kremlin. See also: GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH
GORBACHEV, RAISA MAXIMOVNA
(1932-1999), “first lady” of the Soviet Union, spouse of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Raisa Maximovna Titarenko was born on January 5, 1932, in Siberia and died at the age of 67 on September 21, 1999. She married Mikhail Gorbachev, a fellow student at Moscow State University in 1953 and achieved fame as the first spouse of a Soviet leader to accompany him on all his travels. This made a substantial contribution to the favorable impact the Gorbachevs had on their many foreign interlocutors.
Raisa Gorbachev became one of the best-known women in the world, partly because her attractive appearance, vivacity, and self-assurance were so much at odds with the image the wives of high-ranking Soviet politicians had projected hitherto. Her partnership with her husband was exceptionally close. It caused a sensation when Gorbachev revealed, in answer to a question from an American television interviewer, that he discussed everyBIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Archie. (1996). The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gorbachev, Mikhail. (1996). Memoirs. London: Trans-world. Gorbachev, Raisa. (1991). I Hope: Reminiscences and Reflections. New York: HarperCollins.
