The Reagan policies cost the Soviet Union billions of dollars of income because of falling oil and gas prices and lost oil and gas sales. It cost extra billions for aid to Poland and Afghanistan and to compensate for unavailable technology and sabotaged technology. Though some Soviet experts dismissed SDI as a bluff, others thought it, along with the other American moves, represented a real threat.240 According to Roald Z. Sagdayev, who headed the Soviet Space Research Institute, after 1983 the Soviet Union spent tens of billions of dollars responding to Star Wars. Gorbachev’s predecessor, Chernenko, said, “The complex international situation has forced us to divert a great deal of resources to strengthening the security of our country.”241
In March 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU, he quickly established himself as a leader who was willing to confront problems and undertake bold, new initiatives. At first, Gorbachev resumed the course charted by Andropov. Gorbachev’s initiatives met with some success and were enthusiastically greeted at home and abroad, including by the Soviet Communist Party, where in spite of some grumbling that he was either going too far or not far enough, no determined opposition arose. Before his first two years were over, Gorbachev began departing from Andropov’s style and substance and started adopting policies that resembled Khrushchev’s.
Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, a farming village of 3000, located in the southern agricultural krai (region) of Stavropol, 124 miles from the city of Stavropol. This area of the Caucasus grew wheat and sunflowers and contained mineral spas and resorts. In the early 1930s, Stavropol participated in the collectivization of agriculture, in which Gorbachev’s grandfather had played a role. During the war, in which seven of Gorbachev’s relatives died, the Germans occupied and destroyed much of Stavropol. The destruction was still visible from the train that Gorbachev took to Moscow to attend Lomonosov State University in 1950. The Red Banner of Labor that Gorbachev achieved as a combine operator aided his acceptance at the university, where he studied the Western intellectual tradition and public speaking and obtained a law degree. Gorbachev would become the first General Secretary since Lenin with a college degree. While a student, Gorbachev joined the Communist Party, and according to one who knew him, “venerated”242 Lenin. Also, while a student, Gorbachev married Raissa, a philosophy student.
After graduation, Gorbachev returned to Stavropol, where he remained for the next twenty-three years. Instead of practicing law, Gorbachev undertook the life of a Party professional and became known for his devotion and hard work. Through correspondence courses, he attained a second degree in agronomy. A Czechoslovak friend from college, who kept in touch with Gorbachev, reported that Gorbachev sympathized with the Czech leader, Alexander Dubcek, whose reforms led to the Soviet intervention in 1968. Such views did not impede Gorbachev’s steady rise. In 1970, at the age of thirty-nine, Gorbachev became the first secretary of the Stavropol region, a position roughly equivalent to the governor of a state of 2.4 million people. At the same time, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet. The following year, Gorbachev became a member of the Central Committee. In these posts, Gorbachev gained respect as an authority in agriculture. In 1978, partially through the influence of Andropov, who also came from Stavropol, Gorbachev gained appointment as the head of the Central Committee’s agricultural department, a position that brought him to Moscow. The next year, he became a member of the Politburo, where his youth, vigor, hard work and long hours made him stand out.
At the time of his selection as General Secretary, Gorbachev had considerable assets. Along with being educated, charming, and energetic, he had training and talent as a public speaker. When widespread concern existed about the vitality of the Soviet leadership, he had the advantage of being the youngest member of the Politburo. He was married to an intelligent and stylish woman. As early as 1983, he had made it clear that he favored reform. In December 1984, in a speech to an ideological conference of the Central Committee, Gorbachev called for glasnost (openness) in public communications and perestroika (restructuring) of the economic system.243 Nonetheless, Gorbachev seemed to be a cautious and reliable team player. He had particularly acquitted himself well during Chernenko’s sickness, when according to Andrei Gromyko, he had chaired Politburo meetings “brilliantly.”244
Still, Gorbachev had manifest weaknesses that became more glaring over time. All bureaucracies rely to some extent on patronage for advancement, and Gorbachev’s rise proved no exception. It depended less on original accomplishments, even in his chosen field of agriculture, than on the fortunate attention of well-positioned patrons, like Andropov. His acquaintance with many national Party leaders who vacationed at the spas in Stavropol probably aided Gorbachev’s advancement as well. Moreover, his education notwithstanding, Gorbachev had little experience with Soviet life outside of agriculture and the Party. Before becoming General Secretary, he had traveled more widely in Western Europe and Canada than in the outlying republics of the Soviet Union, and unlike every previous Soviet leader, he lacked any experience living or working in the non-Russian parts of the country.245 He also lacked experience with the military, foreign affairs, industry, science, technology, and the trade unions.246 Though he liked to toss out quotations from Lenin, he lacked a deep knowledge or understanding of Marxist theory and Soviet history, both of which he distorted to suit his purposes. Historian Anthony D’Agostino said that a skeptic might well have noted that Gorbachev “was a lawyer who had never practiced law, who had spent a long career in agriculture, who knew nothing of foreign affairs, who had got the attention of his superiors because he was First Secretary in a resort area, whose qualifications were rather like those of Prince Rainier of Monaco or the mayor of Las Vegas.”247
Moreover, Gorbachev suffered from the contradictions of an educated provincial. For most of his life he had been a big fish in a little pond. This helped make him vain, condescending, and ruthless to subordinates but deferential to the powerful and worldly. It also gave him a taste for fine wine, good food, and the other trappings of a cosmopolitan lifestyle. Several incidents revealed his arrogance. Even though Andrei Gromyko, the senior member of the Politburo, nominated Gorbachev as General Secretary, four years later Gorbachev did not attend his funeral.248 Similarly, Gorbachev condescended to other Politburo members, all of whom were his senior, by addressing them in the familiar but belittling thou (ty) form. Gorbachev’s ruthlessness was on full display on November 11, 1987, when he ordered his critic, Boris Yeltsin to leave a hospital bed, where he was having chest pains, and attend a meeting of the Moscow City Party Committee that berated him for hours and then removed him as Moscow Chair.249
As General Secretary, Gorbachev initially followed Andropov’s policies. Like Andropov, Gorbachev called for an acceleration of scientific and technological progress, the improvement of management, and an increase in discipline. In foreign affairs, particularly in terms of relations with the U.S., Andropov had been constrained by hostile circumstances not of his making. Nonetheless, he had shown a desire to reduce tensions with the U.S. and to make progress on nuclear disarmament, and had shown flexibility in hopes of advancing toward these goals. Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin believed that in a more favorable international situation than the one he inherited, Andropov “would have been ready for serious agreements with Washington, especially in limiting nuclear arms. In this he somewhat resembled Mikhail Gorbachev, who was his protégé.”250 In tackling political stagnation, Andropov had called for a restoration of Leninist standards: collective leadership, self-criticism, discipline, modesty, honesty, and hard work—standards to which he had held himself. Andropov had started to rid the Party of time-servers, corruption, formalism, and cynicism, to revive an interest in ideology, and to elevate such honest and diligent local leaders as Yegor Ligachev and, supposedly, Gorbachev.