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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 947.08501
EAN num: 9780231115155
ISBN number: 0231115156
Label: Columbia University Press
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 300
Printing Date: October 15, 2000
Publishing house: Columbia University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 209950
Studio: Columbia University Press
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Product Description:
Here is the whole sweep of the Soviet experiment and experience as told by its last steward. Drawing on his own experience, rich archival material, and a keen sense of history and politics, Mikhail Gorbachev speaks his mind on a range of subjects concerning Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Here is Gorbachev on the October Revolution, Gorbachev on the Cold War, and Gorbachev on key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin.
The book begins with a look back at 1917. While noting that tsarist Russia was not as backward as it is often portrayed, Gorbachev argues that the Bolshevik Revolution was inevitable and that it did much to modernize Russia. He strongly argues that the Soviet Union had a positive influence on social policy in the West, while maintaining that the development of socialism was cut short by Stalinist totalitarianism. In the subsequent section, Gorbachev considers the fall of the USSR. What were the goals of perestroika? How did such a vast superpower disintegrate so quickly? From the awakening of ethnic tensions, to the inability of democrats to unite, to his own attempts to reform but preserve the union, Gorbachev retraces those fateful days and explains the origins of Russia's present crisis.
But Gorbachev does not just train his critical eye on the past. He lays out a blueprint for where Russia needs to go in the subsequent century, suggesting ways to strengthen the federation and achieve meaningful economic and political reforms. In the final section of the book, Gorbachev examines the 'new thinking' in foreign policy that helped to end the Cold War and shows how such approaches could help resolve a range of current crises, including NATO expansion, the role of the UN, the fate of nuclear weapons, and environmental problems.
Gorbachev: On My Country and the World reveals the unique vision of a man who was a powerful actor on the world stage and remains a keen observer of Russia's experience in the twentieth century.
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Rated by buyers 
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What I found most fascinating about this book was not
only the recent history of the
Russia and the U.S.S.R. undisclosed without a
veil of "cover up" and banded lies surrounding
this monologue, but the true honesty of Mr. Gorbachev.
I feel every American should read this book, and take note.
Why?
Because it seems our own Democracy here in America
has become veiled in this "so-called" secrecy,
starting with the CIA,
all the way up to the White House rafters.
Many of our own predicaments in our recent wars have
defined this secrecy and have not allowed us to escape
our own misfortunes in this country, namely the "Vietnam"
involvement, along with the misplaced "Iraq" involvement;
I mean, could someone please tell me where Osama Bin Ladin is?
What is going on?
And why was the post-911 covered up in a veil of secrecy
that still does not sit well with me, and virtually
hauled off to the dump?
Yes, "SECRECY" is what defines this book, and America still
has a lot of secrets of it's own, all under the disguises
of "Top Secret" and "National Security!"
Can our own leaders (Political and Presidential)
in the future be as honest as Mr. Gorbachev?
I hope so.
Rated by buyers -
I think simply that history has proven that Gorbachev's vision of a democratic USSR with a mixed ecomony was the correct vision. All the former Soviet Republics yesterday are a mess. The legal framework under which the market ecomonies of the world operate did not exist in the former USSR, hence the lawlessness that has existed there since 1992. The destroyers of the USSR were the idiotic coup plotters who could not grasp the Soviet Union was not Bolivia and that a coup there had no chance of success. I think though Gorbachev is still in denial over the 1917 revolution. The greatest tragedy in Russian history was the overthrow of the Romanovs and the creation of the Communist state. With all it's problems Russia was the 13th largest Industrial power in the world. A responsible goverment could have made Russia into a constitutional monarchy and led the country to greatness. With no Stalin there never would have been a Nazi-Soviet pact and probably no WWII.
Rated by buyers 
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To listen only to Ronald Reagan's avid supporters, one might conclude that his "Evil Empire" characterization of the Soviet Union and his massive military spending brought down communist rule, crumbled the Berlin Wall, ended the Cold War and saved the civilization from an inevitable conflict between the free world and its totalitarian enemies.
Not so, it becomes readily apparent in reading Mr. Gorbachev's book-length essay of his view of his country and of the world. His brief -- alas too brief -- history of that crucial time in the late 20th Century when he was General Secretary of the Communist Party, describes what happened while he was in the eye of the hurricane, when an upheaval in the Kremlin shook the world back to its senses. More important for serious students of history, Mr. Gorbachev tells why and how it happened.
When they came to power, he and his team knew that that the Soviet Union was feeble and that it needed a remedy; so they made a desperate grasp at "renewed thinking". They believed that by renouncing old beliefs and then by scraping away totalitarian decay they could bring about a cure. As history now knows, instead of a cure, they helped bring about its collapse.
"New thinking" gave birth to perestroika, a restructuring designed to save what Lenin had wrought. But then, the unexpected happened: a rebirth of nationalism stirred among the former Soviet Union's diverse ethnic populations. Finally, there was a simultaneous combination of rethinking, restructuring and nationalism which, like so many volatile chemical elements, resulted in the startling political implosion that brought the Communist empire to its knees.
It was not Mr. Reagan's threats, nor his Star Wars military program nor free-market competition from the outside world that changed history. Mr. Gorbachev makes a far better case that it was his administration's accurate diagnosis of the Soviet illness and their willingness to correct it from inside the Soviet Union which changed the history of the world, though in a way they did not intend.
After his too brief description of how he and his people tried to salvage the crumbing Soviet system, Mr. Gorbachev's writing bogs down. He ascends a pulpit and becomes a good-intentioned preacher, proposing non-controversial prescriptions for a better world. Disappointingly, in the latter part of his book he resorts to the obvious and falls back on over-used platitudes (such as:"we must advance through worldwide cooperation"). This section seems to have been written merely to puff out the work.
But, despite that minor short-coming, Mr. Gorbachev has earned and deserved his status as the dominant historical figure in the last quarter of the 20th Century. Anything written by him should not be ignored.
Rated by buyers -
It was not that long ago when a person would have been thought foolish if they believed a former, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, would be writing books for anyone who was interested. It also is not very long ago that a person writing about any one of the dozens of issues in this book, would have spent many, if not their remaining years in a Siberian Camp. Since Mr. Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 until he resigned as President in 1991, history has been made that will fill countless books for many years to come.
If there is one aspect of this book that I were to state as particularly fascinating it would be the transcripts from Politburo Meetings. Here are the same men expressing their thoughts in reality, when the same members of this inner sanctum of The Kremlin have been the foundation for spy and Cold War Novels for decades. If you are looking for "the evil empire", plotting the destruction of the West, you will be disappointed. The arguments and the positioning that continually deteriorate into political and personal feuds as the former USSR became the target of varied interests, reads like much of what we listen to and watch here with our elected officials.
Mr. Gorbachev is not an apologist for the Former Soviet Union. As someone who grew up with the USSR portrayed as the ultimate evil, the book requires a major change in perspective for the reader. A willingness to listen to a man that is extremely well informed, a Statesman, and a thinker far and away the superior to those who now rule the remains of the USSR, and its kleptocratic economy. I found his words to be remarkably candid when criticizing his own mistakes, and those of the USSR, and his criticisms of US Policy were more often valid than not. The world was divided into two camps with each side portraying the other as the ultimate threat for most of the 20th Century. The truth of course is never that simple. The stories shared by Mr. Gorbachev have another facet; they are absolutely terrifying at times.
It is not possible to comment on even a portion of his ideas. His writing is very dense, and takes getting comfortable with to complete the book. This may in part be due to translation issues, and there are footnotes where ambiguity may have been critical.
His narration of the USSR coming apart is not only fascinating, it was infinitely more complex than many care to recall, and the complexities are by no measure solved. The USSR was never a monolithic beast. It was composed of 15 distinct republics that were made all the more complex by forced immigrations, ethnic complications, and the arbitrary creation of borders. Borders that became not only critical but also disputed to the point of war, when the Union was dissolved.
During his book he covers the history of his country and the larger union, the problems then, and the challenges now. He also takes the reader through the removal of The Wall In Berlin, the very first border disputes in Azerbaijan and Armenia, and all the drama of the Baltic States and their pronouncements of independence.
I certainly would not presume to rank what is important in this book, or what was of the greatest importance to Mr. Gorbachev. A critical passage for me was when he made the issues he spoke of personal for him, and those of his Countrymen.
He spoke of the sense of loss felt by citizens during the turmoil and breakup. He acknowledged why people on the outside may have their views, but as a private citizen he and many others had and do have their own. Because there is one fact you cannot get away from; the homes, countries, borders, and lives that were lead were the only life most had ever known. The times of the Tsars are none too fondly remembered either. So on the human level, not the handful that is destroying the remains, the pardoned thieves like Yeltsin and his Family and others, many miss the life they had. For many it was not only the life they knew, it was far better than the one they now live.
A remarkable opportunity to view History from a different perspective, by one of the men at its center.
Rated by buyers -
As a reader from the third world (or emerging market?) I wonder why Gorbachev is so popular outside Russia. Since his economics reforms didn't work and his political ones didn't make better either. I only regard the former Soviet Union or the Soviet Space a giant jigsaw puzzle of nations and peoples who look each other up. It's worth noting its China-like inward spirit looking to West as like as a menace. Indeed I agree with Mr. Gorbachev on the Russias's future as a great partner in the world political scenario. For those who are trying to find desperately out a third way for the real socialism it's a worth reading Renato Zanola
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