Reagan military spending. “Perestroika was in many ways a military initiative,” said Novikov. “They spoke about it as early as 1982, and saw it as necessary to preserve the Soviet military capability, particularly in light of the American buildup.”26
Even the odious Valentin Falin, whose continuing dedication to the Stalinist motherland is matched only by his unbridled hatred of Ronald Reagan, twenty years later expressed his lingering bitterness over the Reagan team’s “strategic operation” to deprive the USSR of hard currency, which, said Falin, was so crippling that it had “called for the appearance of Gorbachev.”27
This view was so common in the Soviet Union that a visitor to post–Cold War Russia in the 1990s could stroll into a Moscow gift shop and encounter a classic collection of Matryoshka dolls of Soviet general secretaries with an unusual twist: Ronald Reagan was underneath Mikhail Gorbachev.28
Though many continue to debate the underlying rationale behind the election of Gorbachev, the fact is that Reagan’s presidency at the very least played a role in his rise to the leadership position. Though the full extent of that role may never be known, it is clear that Reagan’s policies created an environment in which the Soviet Communists needed a person who could try to cushion Reagan’s hard-line positions. In Mikhail Gorbachev they found an individual at once patriotic and practical, who would initiate the broadest steps toward democracy that the Soviet Union had ever seen.
THE SOVIET CENTURY
While much has been made of the conditions that led to Gorbachev’s election, what was of greater importance were Gorbachev’s intentions upon entering office. It was clear that his central objective from the outset was to preserve the USSR, and, even, to keep intact the Eastern European Communist bloc that formed the cornerstone of the broader Soviet empire. This unflinching desire to preserve the USSR was immediately obvious, and shortly after arriving in power, he put together what became his best-selling manifesto, Perestroika, a 254- page book written to the world for the purpose of informing the world of the thinking and plans of this dynamic new leader.29 The goal of his signature policy of perestroika, wrote Gorbachev, was to make the Soviet Union “richer,” “stronger,” “better” and to raise it “to a qualitatively new level”—it was of “tremendous importance for the future of the USSR.” With perestroika, there was “no stopping” Soviet society. He envisioned a Soviet Union glistening into the twenty-first century—a “golden age” ahead.30
Confident that Reagan would eat his words about the Soviet Union being consigned to history’s garbage dump, Gorbachev said that “those hoping to overstrain the Soviet Union” were “presumptuous.” In an almost mocking tone, he said: “So do not rush to toss us on the ‘ash heap of history’; the idea only makes Soviet people smile.” Continuing on, he insisted that, “The idea that our country is an ‘evil empire,’ the October revolution a blunder of history and the postrevolutionary period a ‘zigzag in history,’ is coming apart at the seams.”31 He dared Reagan to think he could “exhaust the Soviet Union economically… we sincerely advise Americans: try to get rid of such an approach to our country….Nothing will come of these plans.”32
Gorbachev said that the United States was suffering “delusions” and “illusions”; it was “naive” in “the belief that the economic system of the Soviet Union is about to crumble and that the USSR will not succeed in restructuring.” Reagan’s “requiem” about an “ash heap of history,” assured Gorbachev, was “clearly premature.”33
To the Communist and non-Communist world, Gorbachev framed Marxism as the indisputable wave of the future.34 He viewed the world through the prism of class. “Since time immemorial,” said Gorbachev in eternal language, “class interests were the cornerstone of both foreign and domestic policies.”35 He elevated perestroika as the next logical step in the dialectical materialism of Marxism-Leninism; it would “fulfill” Lenin.36 The problem, explained Gorbachev, was not Communism. Marx merely required a periodic readjustment, to be pushed to the next natural level of development.37
As he summed up in his conclusion to Perestroika: “We are motivated by the ideas of the 1917 October Revolution, the ideas of Lenin.” “As perestroika continues, we again and again study Lenin’s works,” wrote Gorbachev.38 “The present course—is a direct sequel to the great accomplishments started by the Leninist Party in the October days of 1917.”39 He called the October Revolution, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of Russians, a “turning point in the thousand-year history of our state and unparalleled in force of impact on mankind’s development.”40
Gorbachev also made clear his rather disturbing adoration of Vladimir Lenin, which continued years after he left office.41 He spoke of the Bolshevik godfather in a saintly, god-like manner, as the infallible source of “objective” truth. He wrote prayerfully in Perestroika:
The works of Lenin and his ideals of socialism remain for us an inexhaustible source of dialectal creative thought, theoretical wealth and political sagacity. His very image is an undying example of lofty moral strength, all-round spiritual culture and selfless devotion to the cause of the people and to socialism. Lenin lives on in the minds and hearts of millions of people.42
A spiritual Gorbachev professed not merely an “interest in Lenin’s legacy” but a “thirst to know him.” Speaking of Lenin in a way akin to Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the cross, Gorbachev said that he and the Party had “conceived the new mentality [of perestroika] through suffering. And we draw inspiration from Lenin. Turning to him, and ‘reading’ his works each time in a new way…. Lenin could see further.” Gorbachev viewed Lenin as an eternal font of Soviet wisdom: “We have always learned, and continue to learn, from Lenin’s creative approach.”43
On the whole, Gorbachev whitewashed the vicious Lenin, once claiming, “More than once he [Lenin] spoke about the priority of interests common to all humanity over class interests.”44 This was arrant nonsense, as Ronald Reagan himself often reminded people in quoting Lenin’s own words.45 Gorbachev not only sugarcoated Lenin but transformed him into a liberal, a champion of social justice and human rights, a peaceful soul.46
Like Lenin, Gorbachev approvingly compared the October Revolution with the bloody, horrific French Revolution, which he called “the classical bourgeois revolution,” the “Great Revolution of 1789–1793.” Gorbachev reminded readers that Lenin had said that “socialism would consist of many attempts.” The current Soviet leader was about to do his part to bring it all the way home, with perestroika as his mechanism: “perestroika is… a jump forward in the development of socialism.”47
Lest there be any confusion, Gorbachev clarified: “There are different interpretations of perestroika in the West, including the United States,” he said rightly. Perestroika does not, he affirmed at the start of his book, “signify disenchantment with socialism…. Nothing could be further from the truth.” He reiterated: “Those in the West who expect us to give up socialism will be disappointed. It is high time they understood this…. I would like to be clearly understood that… we, the Soviet people, are for socialism.” Gorbachev asked rhetorically: “Why should the Soviet people, who have grown and gained in strength under socialism, abandon that system?”48 He explained:
[H]ow can we agree that 1917 was a mistake and all the seventy years of our life, work, effort and battles were also a complete mistake, that we were going in the “wrong direction?”… We have no reason to speak about the October Revolution and socialism in a low voice, as though ashamed of them. Our successes are immense and indisputable.49
Far from being an evil empire, Gorbachev saw the USSR as a grand achievement to be extolled. This sentiment carried over into a definitive sentence from Perestroika, in which Gorbachev quoted Karl Marx’s best- known maxim, linking his own vision directly with Marx’s: “The policy of restructuring (perestroika) puts everything in place. We are fully restoring the principle of socialism: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his work (or needs).’”50
Similarly, Perestroika revealed a host of Gorbachev’s beliefs regarding the status of Eastern Europe and
