The New Russia
1. Edition September 2017
504 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN:
978-1-5095-2361-0
John Wiley & Sons
Further versions
After years of rapprochement, the relationship between Russia and the West is more strained now than it has been in the past 25 years. Putin's motives, his reasons for seeking confrontation with the West, remain for many a mystery. Not for Mikhail Gorbachev. In this new work, Russia's elder statesman draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to reveal the development of Putin's regime and the intentions behind it. He argues that Putin has significantly diminished the achievements of perestroika and is part of an over-centralized system that presents a precarious future for Russia. Faced with this, Gorbachev advocates a radical reform of politics and a new fostering of pluralism and social democracy.
Gorbachev's insightful analysis moves beyond internal politics to address wider problems in the region, including the Ukraine conflict, as well as the global challenges of poverty and climate change. Above all else, he insists that solutions are to be found by returning to the atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation which was so instrumental in ending the Cold War.
This book represents the summation of Gorbachev's thinking on the course that Russia has taken since 1991 and stands as a testament to one of the greatest and most influential statesmen of the twentieth century.
Table of contents
To my readers
Preface: Perestroika and the future
Trying to bury me
I After Perestroika
The 1990s: Defending Perestroika
My last day in the Kremlin
A new beginning, without presidential immunity
Shock therapy
The search for a scapegoat, threats
The Gorbachev Foundation: its first reports
December 1991: politics and morality
Salvation in work
Attempts to destabilize me
The Trial of the CPSU
First results of shock therapy
A year after the coup
My stance
The slide towards social catastrophe
On the brink of crisis
Fateful decisions, fateful days
A state of emergency is not the way to stability
Defects of the new Constitution
1994 gets off to a bad start
Economists advise but the government is not listening
Nikita Khrushchev: lessons in courage and lessons from mistakes
The Union could have been saved
The economy: what now?
Meetings in the regions
Chechnya: a war that could have been avoided
1995: 10 years of Perestroika
The intelligentsia
Government and society
The need for an alternative
Breaking through the conspiracy of silence
Letters relating to the 1996 presidential election campaign
Discrediting elections
The final years of the millennium
The Gorbachev Foundation s First Five-Year Plan
The elections fail to bring stability
The storm breaks in 1998
How to come out of the crisis?
Letters of support
Raisa Gorbacheva
II Whither Russia?
Putin: the beginning
The new president: hopes, problems, fears
What is Glasnost?
The heavy burden of the presidency
My social-democratic choice
Russia needs social democracy
Issues and more issues
The zero years of the 2000s?
The Yukos affair
A party of new bureaucrats
A second presidential term: what for?
A new direction, or more of the same?
Full of contradictions: the first decade of the new millennium
New elections
Democracy in distress
Operation Successor
Ideas and people
Saakashvili s adventure and the West: my reaction
Ordeal by global crisis
Defending the credo of Perestroika
Disturbing trends
My eightieth birthday
Russian politics in a quandary
A new Era of Stagnation?
The presidential reshuffle and the Duma elections
For fair elections!
Society awakens
A decision to tighten the screws
Some letters of support in recent years
The need for dialogue between the government and society
III Today s uneasy world
The relevance of New Thinking
Challenges of globalization
The challenge of security
Ban the bomb!
Consequences of NATO expansion
The world after 9/11
Poverty is a political problem
Responding to the environmental challenge
The water crisis
The threat of climate change
We need a new model of development
Meetings in America: George Shultz and Ronald Reagan
Partners should be equal
The role of the United States in the world
America needs its own Perestroika
The election of Obama
The future of Europe
Germany
On a solid foundation
Major figures in European politics
Looking East: China
Russia and Japan
A Simmering Region: Egypt and Syria
Russia and Ukraine
History Is Not Fated
Conclusion
Reflections of an optimist
Index
To my readers
Preface: Perestroika and the future
Trying to bury me
I After Perestroika
The 1990s: Defending Perestroika
My last day in the Kremlin
A new beginning, without presidential immunity
Shock therapy
The search for a scapegoat, threats
The Gorbachev Foundation: its first reports
December 1991: politics and morality
Salvation in work
Attempts to destabilize me
The Trial of the CPSU
First results of shock therapy
A year after the coup
My stance
The slide towards social catastrophe
On the brink of crisis
Fateful decisions, fateful days
A state of emergency is not the way to stability
Defects of the new Constitution
1994 gets off to a bad start
Economists advise but the government is not listening
Nikita Khrushchev: lessons in courage and lessons from mistakes
The Union could have been saved
The economy: what now?
Meetings in the regions
Chechnya: a war that could have been avoided
1995: 10 years of Perestroika
The intelligentsia
Government and society
The need for an alternative
Breaking through the conspiracy of silence
Letters relating to the 1996 presidential election campaign
Discrediting elections
The final years of the millennium
The Gorbachev Foundation s First Five-Year Plan
The elections fail to bring stability
The storm breaks in 1998
How to come out of the crisis?
Letters of support
Raisa Gorbacheva
II Whither Russia?
Putin: the beginning
The new president: hopes, problems, fears
What is Glasnost?
The heavy burden of the presidency
My social-democratic choice
Russia needs social democracy
Issues and more issues
The zero years of the 2000s?
The Yukos affair
A party of new bureaucrats
A second presidential term: what for?
A new direction, or more of the same?
Full of contradictions: the first decade of the new millennium
New elections
Democracy in distress
Operation Successor
Ideas and people
Saakashvili s adventure and the West: my reaction
Ordeal by global crisis
Defending the credo of Perestroika
Disturbing trends
My eightieth birthday
Russian politics in a quandary
A new Era of Stagnation?
The presidential reshuffle and the Duma elections
For fair elections!
Society awakens
A decision to tighten the screws
Some letters of support in recent years
The need for dialogue between the government and society
III Today s uneasy world
The relevance of New Thinking
Challenges of globalization
The challenge of security
Ban the bomb!
Consequences of NATO expansion
The world after 9/11
Poverty is a political problem
Responding to the environmental challenge
The water crisis
The threat of climate change
We need a new model of development
Meetings in America: George Shultz and Ronald Reagan
Partners should be equal
The role of the United States in the world
America needs its own Perestroika
The election of Obama
The future of Europe
Germany
On a solid foundation
Major figures in European politics
Looking East: China
Russia and Japan
A Simmering Region: Egypt and Syria
Russia and Ukraine
History Is Not Fated
Conclusion
Reflections of an optimist
Index
"[Gorbachev] has produced a reflection full of an earnest desire that former enemies understand each other and find common ground in a febrile world. This is a reminder of how vast was his achievement in allowing in the light of freedom. Where his contemporary, Nelson Mandela, was great beyond the whites' deserts in building a post-apartheid nation, Mr Gorbachev was great beyond the deserts of the Soviet Union (and perhaps even of the west, which could barely understand or trust him) in proposing a way for the despotic world to aspire to democratic governance, freely organized civil society and rule of law. That he failed, he keenly knows. Our best hope is that his ideas, in time, succeed."
Financial Times
"There are not many good books on new Russia. Mikhail Gorbachev's The New Russia is probably the best book in many years. It is packed with knowledge, analysis, and new perspective on Russia."
Washington Book Review
"Mikhail Gorbachev, with his prodigious intellect, vast experience, and powers of perception, gives us his views spanning from his time in office to the present day. As he says, 'Life teaches you more than any teacher,' and we all can learn by reading this account of his extraordinary life."
George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States
"Gorbachev was on the right side of history. One day the Russian people will recognize that they have as much reason to be grateful to him as do the rest of us. This important book explains why."
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom
"Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts his reaction to events over the past quarter century, from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Russian Federation, to the revival of Cold-War-like confrontation with the West and the return of authoritarian governance in Russia itself. Gorbachev deplores the fact that Russia has deviated from the path to democracy that was the aim of his perestroika, but also points out that U.S. and Western policies have contributed to the current Cold War atmosphere. Gorbachev's The New Russia is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand why the 'Europe Whole and Free' that Gorbachev and his Western partners tried to create still eludes us. His suggestions for a return to East-West cooperation and for a resumption of democratic reform in Russia itself are timely and much needed."
Jack F. Matlock, former United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
"Compelling... An important book for understanding the shape of the world today."
Choice
"Now, a quarter of a century after the Soviet Union's collapse, with the global order once more in flux, may be the perfect moment for a book by a world leader who challenges the orthodoxies both of his own country and those of the West."
Los Angeles Review of Books
"Mikhail Gorbachev's latest book provides an illuminating commentary on Russia's internal devlopments during the quarter of a century since Gorbachev left office when the Soviet state ceased to exist."
Political Science Quarterly
Financial Times
"There are not many good books on new Russia. Mikhail Gorbachev's The New Russia is probably the best book in many years. It is packed with knowledge, analysis, and new perspective on Russia."
Washington Book Review
"Mikhail Gorbachev, with his prodigious intellect, vast experience, and powers of perception, gives us his views spanning from his time in office to the present day. As he says, 'Life teaches you more than any teacher,' and we all can learn by reading this account of his extraordinary life."
George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States
"Gorbachev was on the right side of history. One day the Russian people will recognize that they have as much reason to be grateful to him as do the rest of us. This important book explains why."
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom
"Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts his reaction to events over the past quarter century, from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Russian Federation, to the revival of Cold-War-like confrontation with the West and the return of authoritarian governance in Russia itself. Gorbachev deplores the fact that Russia has deviated from the path to democracy that was the aim of his perestroika, but also points out that U.S. and Western policies have contributed to the current Cold War atmosphere. Gorbachev's The New Russia is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand why the 'Europe Whole and Free' that Gorbachev and his Western partners tried to create still eludes us. His suggestions for a return to East-West cooperation and for a resumption of democratic reform in Russia itself are timely and much needed."
Jack F. Matlock, former United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
"Compelling... An important book for understanding the shape of the world today."
Choice
"Now, a quarter of a century after the Soviet Union's collapse, with the global order once more in flux, may be the perfect moment for a book by a world leader who challenges the orthodoxies both of his own country and those of the West."
Los Angeles Review of Books
"Mikhail Gorbachev's latest book provides an illuminating commentary on Russia's internal devlopments during the quarter of a century since Gorbachev left office when the Soviet state ceased to exist."
Political Science Quarterly
Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union, serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985 to 1991. Since then, he has maintained an active role in world affairs through the Gorbachev Foundation, a nonprofit think tank which promotes democracy and humanitarian initiatives globally.
