Gorbachev: On My Country and the World FROM THE PUBLISHER
Drawing on his own experience and rich archival material, Mikhail Gorbachev speaks his mind not only on a range of subjects concerning Russia's past, present, and future place in the world but also on the emerging global realities of the twenty-first century. In this book Gorbachev discusses the October Revolution, the Cold War, key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin, nuclear proliferation, and NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.
SYNOPSIS
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 offers his rare perspective on a range of subjects concerning Russia´s past, present, and future place in the world -including the O
FROM THE CRITICS
Katherine A. S. Sibley - American Diplomacy
Gorbachev starts his book with a conventional summary of Russian history since 1917 (the October Revolution, he tells us in pedantic italics, was ﾽinevitableﾽ), continues with a more compelling, if highly self-congratulatory, survey of the era of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction); and concludes with a mushy set of pronouncements on global problems that seem to be the gleanings of the aforementioned meetings at his Foundation.
In his historical survey, otherwise unexceptional, we are introduced to a Lenin who exercised himself over ﾽproblems of democracy,ﾽ an assertion that may surprise those who remember reading of the First Bolshevikﾽs summary executions. Suggestive of previous training is Gorbachevﾽs penchant to cite Leninﾽs Collected Works chapter and verse. This gentle soul is contrasted most sharply with Stalin, whose excesses must not, we are reminded, serve as an argument that socialism is unworkable. Indeed, despite such Stalinesque excesses, Gorbachev argues, the Soviet Union offered an example for the world with its social welfare, literacy, and scientific achievements, all of which encouraged decolonization as Third World countries clamored to follow in its footsteps.
Archie Brown
A wide-ranging and interesting book.
Foreign Affairs
We find passages of perceptive analysis that we should not ignore.
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. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
In these three essays, the former Soviet leader discusses the 1917 revolution, the Soviet Union and its demise, and international relations He feels that a 1917 revolution in Russia was inevitable, although subsequent mistakes by Soviet leaders turned the result into something less than the ideal Socialist state, in which he clearly still believes. The second part is most like his previous books, including Memoirs and The August Coup, in being his own account of his own time. He details at considerable length the 1991 efforts to negotiate and ratify a Union treaty among the republics and the numerous advantages that a formal federation would have brought to all. The third section emphasizes international relations now that the confrontation of the Cold War has ended and a New World Order is emerging. While the shape of that order cannot be predicted, Gorbachev optimistically looks forward to greater emphasis on human rights and values in a better world. This title will appeal primarily to an informed audience.--Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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