World

Mikhail Gorbachev, Reformist Soviet Leader, Is Dead at 91


Mr. Gorbachev’s duty as the local party leader was to greet the dignitaries at the train, take them to their theater, entertain them and escort them back to the railway station for their return to Moscow. . One Sick Leader After Another: Premier Alexei N. Kosygin, with a heart condition; Yuri V. Andropov, head of the KGB and briefly Prime Minister, suffers from chronic kidney disease; Mikhail A. Suslovthe party thinker who has attached himself to Mr. Gorbachev as a young counterweight to the aging clique surrounding the supreme leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev.

Mr. Suslov and Mr. Andropov became Mr. Gorbachev’s powerful patrons, as did Fyodor D. Kulakov, who was appointed to the Politburo in 1971 and was in charge of the agricultural sector. When Mr. Kulakov, who was seen as a possible successor to Mr. Brezhnev, died in 1978, Mr. Gorbachev was selected to conduct the funeral. It was his first speech in Red Square, and the first time television viewers saw the man with the distinctive strawberry-shaped birthmark on his forehead.

Returning to Stavropol, Mr. Gorbachev was present to receive Mr. Brezhnev and Konstantin U. Chernenko, Senior Politburo member. Andropov, who was resting at a nearby spa, also came to greet them. It was a remarkable moment in Soviet history. As one Time magazine biography noted, “On the narrow platform four men would rule the Soviet Union in succession: Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev.”

The meeting seemed to be enough to convince Mr. Brezhnev that Mr. Gorbachev was the takeover of the agricultural portfolio for the Central Committee. His opinion may have been bolstered by Mr. Gorbachev’s admiring critique of Brezhnev’s recent ghostwritten memoir, “The Little Land”. In his book”Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire“David Remnick quotes Mr. Gorbachev as writing, “The Communists and all the workers in Stavropol express their boundless gratitude to Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev for this deeply philosophical work of literature. “

It’s the vulgar language of a hack party. But underneath it, seemingly hidden, is a zeal for reform.

Much had to be reformed when the Gorbachevs returned to Moscow in 1978 after a long business trip to the provinces. Almost no attempt was made to conceal the rampant corruption of officials. Mr. Brezhnev was old and sick. His relatives are being investigated for shady dealings. The bureaucracy has swelled. Low wages; people stood in line at stores when they were supposed to be working, often finding nothing to buy. “They pretend to pay us,” the tagline reads, “and we pretend to work.”



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