Conversations with Gorbachev: On Perestroika, the Prague Spring, and the Crossroads of Socialism
- Book Review,
by Mikhail Gorbachev
From Publishers Weekly
Only a little more than 10 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev was the one of the world's two most pivotal leaders. Now, more often than not, he appears to be a historical relic. This volume, which features an extended, dry conversation between Gorbachev and former Czech dissident Mlynar, does nothing to dispel the perception that events have passed Gorbachev by. The two cover the similarities in their biographies: the attraction of socialist ideas when they were both young, their rise to power in their respective Communist parties. But it's the differences in their lives that are most striking. After the Prague Spring of 1968, Mlynar became a dissident, first leaving his post in the Communist Party, then fleeing to the West. Gorbachev, on the other hand, remained a Soviet apparatchik, rising to become party secretary and then the Soviet president in 1990. As they reminisce, Mlynar presses his longtime friend to explore other possibilities: that he could have taken a more critical stance within the Soviet Union before he began to try to reform it, that he might have taken steps to prevent the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution, which occurred on his watch. Despite Mlynar's pressing, Gorbachev is unwilling to probe behind his well-known views on this the U.S.S.R.'s collapse occurred, Gorbachev contends, because of the vindictiveness of the reactionary forces and the excessive revolutionism of the radicals or on other issues, leaving this book with little new or surprising to offer.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Gorbachev and Mlynaer (d. 1997) had been friends since their university years in Moscow at the end of the Stalin period, 50 years ago. Mlynaer was a leader of the Prague Spring movement in 1968, helped to draft Charter 77, and went into exile in 1977, while Gorbachev rose through the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and led the reforms of the late 1980s. In 1993-94, the two friends tape-recorded these three conversations, in which they reflect on their careers, recalling how they felt at critical junctures and what they hoped to accomplish. Conversations cover their formative years at university and in early positions, their respective reform efforts, and Russia's place in the community of nations. Both men are well read in the classic writers of socialism and retain an allegiance to their fundamental tenets. This record will be useful to future historians in evaluating the late Soviet period and the end of the Soviet Union; at present, its interest will be limited mainly to specialists. Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This is an extraordinary transcription (and translation) of three blunt and probing conversations during the early 1990s between two old friends--former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and Zdenek Mlynar, one of the theoreticians and leaders of the Prague Spring. They befriended one another as students in Moscow in the early 1950s, but they neither saw nor spoke to one another for 22 years following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. When Gorbachev assumed power, Mlynar wrote articles extolling his friend and expressing his belief in Gorbachev's positive qualities and his being the man who could bring about reform. The topics of the conversations are exactly what the book's subtitle says, though at times Mlynar, who died in 1997, uses the forum to push Gorbachev into explaining his strategy vis-a-vis the historical outcome. The two also discuss their personal paths toward and away from communism. The most interesting of their discussions, however, centers on their views of socialism: how it differed from Soviet communism; why it is compatible with democracy; and the direction(s) it may take in the future. Frank Caso
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"This books reminds us of [Gorbachev's] accidental greatness and his greatness of character.... It reveals an argumentative, insightful and tenacious political frienship which did not end in betrayal." -- John Lloyd, Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
Mikhail Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynar were friends for half a century, since they first crossed paths as students in 1950. In 1993 they decided that their conversations might be of interest to others and so they began to tape-record them. From reminiscences of their starry-eyed university days to reflections on the use of force to "save socialism" to contemplation of the end of the cold war, here is a far more candid picture of Gorbachev than we have ever seen before.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian
About the Author
Mikhail Gorbachev, Secretary General of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991, now heads the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow and lectures widely around the world. His most recent book is Gorbachev: On My Country and the World.The late Zdenek Mlynar (1931--1997) was a leader of the Prague Spring of 1968 and a prominent member of the Czech dissident movement. His son, Vladimir, is the current Minister Without Portfolio of the Czech Republic.
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