In 1985, when the first rumblings of Gorbachev’s thunder disturbed the moldy Soviet silence, the holy fools on the street–the people who always gather at flea markets and around churches–predicted that the new Czar would rule seven years. They assured anyone interested in listening that Gorbachev was “foretold in the Bible,” that he was an apocalyptic figure: he had a mark on his forehead. Everyone had searched for signs in previous leaders as well, but Lenin’s speech defect, Stalin’s mustache, Brezhnev’s eyebrows and Khrushchev’s vast baldness were utterly human manifestations. The unusual birthmark on the new General Secretary’s forehead, combined with his inexplicably radical actions, gave him a mystical aura. Writing about Gorbachev–who he was, where he came from, what he was after, and what his personal stake was became just as intriguing as trying to figure out what Russia’s future would be. After he stepped down from his position as head of state, many people of course stopped thinking about him, and in Russian history, that in itself is extraordinary. How Gorbachev left power and what he has done since are unique episodes in Russian history, but he could have foreseen his own resignation: he prepared the ground and the atmosphere that made that resignation possible. Gorbachev is such an entirely political creature, and yet so charismatic, that it’s hard to come to any conclusions about him as a person. Every attempt I know of has failed miserably. The phenomenon of Gorbachev has not yet been explained, and most of what I’ve read on the subject reminds me of how a biologist, psychologist, lawyer or statistician might describe an angel. Gorbachev has been discussed in human terms, the usual investigations have been made, his family tree has been studied, a former girlfriend has been unearthed , the spotlight has been turned on his wife. His completely ordinary education, colleagues, friends and past have all been gone over with a fine-tooth comb. By all accounts, Gorbachev shouldn’t have been Gorbachev. Then the pundits study the politics of the Soviet Union, evoke the shadow of Ronald Reagan and Star Wars, drag out tables and graphs to show that the Soviet economy was doomed to self-destruct, that it already had, that the country couldn’t have gone on that way any longer. But what was Reagan to us, when we had managed to overcome Hitler, all while living in the inhuman conditions of Stalinism? No single approach–and there have been many–can explain Gorbachev. Perhaps the holy fools with their metaphysical scenario were right when they whispered that he was marked and that seven years were given to him to transform Russia in the name of her as yet invisible but inevitable salvation and renaissance.
