Abstract
When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, the question Western observers of Soviet politics were required to answer was: How long would it be before the new General Secretary had consolidated his power? We had to make policy with this man in mind — if, that is, he was truly in charge. In 1953 we had thought it was Malenkov and it turned out to be Khrushchev. Was it really Gorbachev now? When would we know? In truth, there was no adequate answer to these questions, if by the consolidation of power was meant a point at which the leadership of the new General Secretary was no longer challenged. There was, of course, no constitutional mandate, so Gorbachev, like every Soviet leader before him, had to fight for power by meeting two challenges: to find the policy that most served the needs of the nation and the cause on which it was founded, and to build his political credit and patronage against the opposition which could be expected to mount if his policies should miss their mark.
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As I see it, no one else in the world had, or has, more power than I had in 1985.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, 1992
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Notes
Ibid., 55. Chebrikov appears almost to echo the phrase of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics (New York, Praeger, 1962), 113–35.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Selected Speeches and Articles (Moscow, Progress, 1987), 52.
Raymond Garthoff, introduction to G. D. Wardak and G. H. Turbiville (eds) The Voroshilov Lectures: Materials from the Soviet General Staff Academy (Washington, DC, National Defense University, 1989), 8.
Moscow Radio in Finnish, 12 April 1984, quoted in Roland Smith, Soviet Policy towards West Germany (Adelphi Paper No. 203, 1155, 1985), 32–3.
Something like this seems to be the reluctant conclusion drawn at this time by a number of Soviet experts. See N. Simonia in Pravda, 18 Jan. 1989, 4. Also A. Vasiliev in Izvestiia, 3 Feb. 1989, 6; and V. Maksimenko, ‘Sotsialisticheskaia orientatsiia: Perestroika predstavlenii’, Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia (Feb. 1989), 93–4.
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© 1998 Anthony D’Agostino
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D’Agostino, A. (1998). ‘Acceleration of the Perfection’, 1985–87. In: Gorbachev’s Revolution, 1985–1991. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14405-1_4
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