Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin

By Yegor Ligachev

This memoir by the second most powerful Communist Party leader during the early Gorbachev years provides an important alternative view of the USSR's transformation--a view that is gaining ground in Rus

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679413928
• ISBN13: 9780679413929
• Release Date: February 1993
• Publisher: Pantheon
• Length: 369 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

A good Behind the Scenes Account of the Fall of the Soviet Union

Yegor Ligachev was a member of the Politburo during the Priemership of Mikhail Gorbachev. While in the early days of Perestroika Ligachev supported it because he saw it as a way to renew Socialism, he opposed efforts by anti-communists who seized control of the Perestroika process and sought to restore capitalism and dismantle the Soviet Union. Whether you agree with Ligachev and his support for continuing Socialism or not this is a fascinating account of the political dealings in the Kremlin during the Gorbachev period. Kremlinologist Stephen Cohen wrote the introduction to the book and Cohen has several disagreements with the author such as whether people like Ligachev who opposed the more radical free market reforms in the Soviet Union should be considered Conservatives. That appelation doesn't fit since Yigachev and others like him were at teh left end of the political spectrum in the Soviet Union while Yakovlev and his allies were at the right end. The radical Perestroika forces should therefore be considered the conservatives. I wish the author had given a better explanation as to why Gorbachev allowed the anti-communists to gather power in the Soviet government and didn't do more to oppose themand how people like Yakovlev reached the top of the Soviet government in the first place. The author mentions his intention to write a second volume which I hope would answer these questions.