Publisher's Synopsis
Tolstoy struggled with the questions of the impact of historic events on great leaders and vice versa. In the case of Mikhail Gorbachev, is he the product of a failed ideology and a bankrupt economic theory? Or is he that rare character, a true leader who anticipates and therefore conditions history?;Inspired by such questions, United States Senator Gary Hart set out to unearth the answers - from within the Soviet Union itself. Over many months and many visits to the Soviet Union he has interviewed several individuals who, collectively, brought Gorbachev to power.;The book is the biography of an idea - fundamental reform. Stalin and Kruschev stand condemned, the Brezhnev era is now seen as stagnant and corrupt. But Andropov - hitherto much reviled in the West - managed in his brief tenure to elevate the Gorbachev cadre to power.
