Gorbachev: His Life and Times William Taubman W. W. Norton & Company (2017) ISBN 978-0-393- 64701-3 PROFILES A Revolution! Depicting Gorbachev: William Taubman in Profile

BY MASHA UDENSIVA-BRENNER

ne day in November 1985, adding a previously unthinkable level Immediately after arriving, the General Secretary Mikhail of transparency and accountability couple felt skeptical about the extent Gorbachev, who had just met to the Soviet system. And now he to which Gorbachev’s reforms could with President Ronald Reagan was allowing that the entire standoff transform the system. They lived oat the Geneva Summit, was giving a between the and the in a standard two-room apartment standard press conference, when, in was no longer a zero- building on Ulitsa Gubkina. Every the middle of an otherwise forget- sum proposition. “It was a total day, it seemed, they encountered table statement, he looked into the reversal of a key axiom of Soviet long lines at food stores and sea of reporters and flashing cameras thinking,” Taubman told me recently. overwhelming bureaucracy. But and said that the Soviet Union’s secu- Taubman, a political scientist, when they left Russia in June, rity depended on the United States derived his insights into the Soviet they concluded that the “Moscow also feeling secure. Watching on Union from decades of research Spring,” their term for this period television from his home in Amherst, and travel. He’d been going there of Gorbachev’s reforms, “may prove Massachusetts, William Taubman since the 1960s, but visits to Moscow to be more revolutionary than the (Russian Institute ’65; Ph.D.,’69) leapt during Gorbachev’s first years Russian Revolution itself.” out of his seat. “That was a revolu- made him anxious to experience, The quote is the opening sentence tion!” he said to his wife, Jane. “That firsthand, how the new leadership of Moscow Spring (Summit Books), single sentence!” was affecting the lives of ordinary a book the Taubmans coauthored Gorbachev’s tenure had just begun, citizens. So, in January 1988, he about their experiences in the USSR. but he had already distinguished and Jane, a Russianist, moved to At the time of publication, in 1989, himself from his predecessors. Not Moscow, with their two children, for the couple had no way of knowing only was he significantly younger a five-month academic exchange that, nearly two decades later, they and more dynamic but also he had sponsored by IREX (International would return to Moscow to interview proposed reforms—perestroika Research & Exchanges Board). Gorbachev, alone in his office, about (restructuring) and glasnost Taubman would work at the Academy his life, his career, and the events that (openness)—that would revamp his of Sciences, and Jane at Moscow State had precipitated the demise of the country’s economy and policy, while University (MGU). Soviet Union.

HARRIMAN | 19 ­­ A sunny late-winter morning. Taubman—a tall, fair-skinned man with a booming voice and a friendly, inquisitive demeanor—sits in a magenta chair in his daughter’s Brooklyn home. He is in town from Amherst for the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Awards. His biography, Gorbachev: His Life and Times (W. W. Norton & Company), is one of five finalists for the category, and this eve- ning he will be attending the awards ceremony with his wife and family. (The last of his books to be nomi- nated—a 2003 biography of —won the award. It also received a 2004 Pulitzer Prize.) Taubman leans back and recalls Moscow in 1988: long lines accumulat- ing at the newsstands every morning, Muscovites eagerly waiting to buy thick, previously neglected liberal literary journals like Novy mir (New World), magazines like Ogonyok (Little Light), and liberal newspapers like Argumenty i fakty (Arguments and Facts). Millions of people devouring publica- tions that divulged the atrocities of the The period was exciting, but it was a Ukrainian city near the Black Sea, Stalin era. Atrocities that, just a couple also riddled with tension. Party leader or maybe it emerged because of his of years prior, had only been written Nikita Khrushchev had attempted parents, who had traveled to the about in samizdat (self-published and to liberalize the Soviet Union more Soviet Union during the 1930s and clandestinely distributed literature). In than two decades prior, and he was instilled in him an avid interest in Moscow Spring, the Taubmans compare eventually silenced by hardliners and world politics. Either way, Taubman the Moscow of that period to a seminar removed from office. No one knew was a “news junkie” from an early age “where, miracle of miracles, every- whether Gorbachev’s reforms would and clearly remembers the headline one had done the reading.” Taubman meet the same fate. “We lived on announcing Soviet General Secretary brings up the parallel today, too. “A tenterhooks, constantly filled with Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953. whole damn city, and everybody was suspense,” Taubman recalls. “What Stalin had always been something reading everything.” was going on? Would it last?” of a puzzle to Taubman. Dating back to his adolescence, Taubman wanted Taubman became fascinated with to understand the process by which the Soviet Union as a child. Perhaps the leader had turned the utopian “I had never written a the fascination arose from the stories vision of Karl Marx—“this kind of passed down from his maternal heaven on earth”—into a “killing biography. I hadn’t even grandparents, who had immigrated ground.” He read avidly about Soviet read that many biographies.” to the United States from Mykolaiv, life and studied Russian language

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and history as an undergrad at Har- mind as he precipitated the demise vard University. Then, he enrolled of the very system that had brought as a Ph.D. candidate in Columbia’s him to power? Department of Political Science. In 1964, during his second year in the When he began his career, Taub- program, he finally saw the Soviet man never imagined that he would Union for himself. Part of Indiana become a biographer. In 1967, he University’s summer language joined ’s political program, the trip was a whirlwind science department, a rewarding job tour during which Taubman and that came with its own challenges. his colleagues visited nine Soviet Teaching, which he had not been cities, including Moscow, Riga, and prepared for as a student, was more Donetsk, and faced a barrage of difficult than he had anticipated. questions from Soviet citizens. He And the field of political science was left there in awe of the Soviets’ insa- quite different from what he had tiable interest in the United States. envisioned. At Harvard, he had been The following academic year, exposed to a qualitative approach to Taubman returned for a longer, less the discipline. When he chose to pur- chaotic experience as a student at sue it in graduate school, he expected Moscow State. He lived in the dorms, to study “contemporary history.” And, worked on his dissertation about the at Columbia’s Russian Institute, that is mechanics of governing Soviet cities, precisely what he did. His professors, (Top, left to right) William Taubman and and attempted to get to know his many of whom had entered academia . Bottom: Mikhail Soviet counterparts. But no matter after careers in government or jour- Gorbachev, Jane Taubman, and how much time he spent with his nalism, had been “observers of the William Taubman. Photos by Phoebe peers, Taubman found it difficult contemporary Soviet Union,” rather Taubman (2007). to truly get inside their heads. He than theoreticians or quantitatively always wondered, What are people oriented scholars. really thinking? He returned from But as soon as Taubman departed the exchange, postponed his dis- from student life, he realized that, sertation, and sat down to write a in the broader context of political memoir about his year at MGU. The science, the theoretical and quanti- resulting book, The View from Lenin tative approach overshadowed the Hills: Soviet Youth in Ferment, was pub- qualitative one. And it unmoored lished by Coward-McCann in 1967. him. “For a long time, I tried to be Taubman was twenty-six years old. what I thought a political scientist The desire to understand the should be,” he confessed to me over Soviet mentality remained at the the phone last February. forefront of Taubman’s work. For the next decade, Taubman Decades later, it would be the struggled to find book ideas that guiding force behind his Gorbachev would both capture his interest and biography: What was Gorbachev stay within the parameters of his really thinking as he rose up field. He considered writing politi- through the ranks of the Commu- cal philosophy, but felt no spark; he nist Party? How did others perceive edited a book of commentary on U.S. him? And what went through his foreign policy, which he enjoyed.

HARRIMAN | 21 ­­ suggested he write a biography of his father and his maternal grand- Khrushchev instead. parents, with whom he’d been Taubman was initially taken very close. But suddenly he was aback. “I had never written a recalling an incident from early biography,” he told me. “I hadn’t adolescence, when his mother, even read that many biographies.” the family disciplinarian, once But he decided to give it a try. again picked up a belt to whip Instantly, he felt rewarded. The him. This time, instead of acqui- more he researched, the more escing, Gorbachev grabbed her engrossed he became in trying arm and pulled it away, saying, to understand the driving forces “That’s it! No more!” She burst behind Khrushchev’s behavior into tears. “I was the last object and decision-making. “I discov- she could control,” Gorbachev ered a three-dimensional person told Taubman. with all his shrewdness, intelli- Taubman felt that he had gence, crudeness, and insecurity.” struck gold. “I remember think- Taubman spent nearly two ing, Aha! Aha! So she whipped decades on the book. Ten years him; she treated him this way; William Taubman. Photo in, he developed chronic fatigue this must have meant that he by Michele Stapleton. syndrome. It got so bad he had desperately needed affirmation to write in ten-minute intervals, and adoration, which he could resting on the floor between para- get as a political leader!” Later, graphs. But he never considered when Taubman shared his the- Then, in the late 1970s, he started stopping. “I wanted to prove to ory with Jane, who was helping a book project on the debate about myself that I could do it,” he said. him with the research and had the origins of the Cold War. While He published the biography, in been present at the interview, she researching, he discovered a series 2003, to critical acclaim. Then it challenged his thinking. “Don’t of transcripts, published by the won the Pulitzer. More than three leap to conclusions,” she said. “We U.S. government, from the negoti- decades into his career, Taubman don’t know that yet.” In the end, ations between Stalin and Franklin had tapped into his passion. Taubman agreed. He mentions D. Roosevelt. Instantly hooked, he the incident in the book, but shies adjusted the topic of his book. The The first time Taubman inter- away from lending it great weight. resulting work, Stalin’s American viewed Mikhail Gorbachev, It is this approach—a pre- Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold in April 2007, Gorbachev was sentation of the facts without War, came out with W. W. Norton talking about his childhood in the overpsychologizing or nudging in 1982, and, Taubman said, “it small southern Russian village the reader to oversimplified cau- really amounted to history.” of Privolnoe, when, completely salities—that allows Taubman to He wanted to do something unprompted, he launched into portray Gorbachev as a complex similar for his next project and a detailed personal narrative and often contradictory charac- decided to research Khrushchev’s about his mother, Maria Gop- ter; a man who is arrogant and U.S. policy. There were few pri- kalo. She was a tough, illiterate humble, conservative and lib- mary sources available on the peasant whose relationship with eral, and endlessly devoted to his subject, and what he found most the hyperintellectual and analyt- wife as he prioritizes his political interesting was the material about ical Gorbachev had been rather ambitions above her well-being Khrushchev as a person. But he strained. And so, Gorbachev and personal career satisfaction. pitched a Khrushchev U.S. policy hadn’t devoted much interview Taubman makes the relation- book to W. W. Norton anyway. They time to her, preferring to discuss ship between Gorbachev and his

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wife, Raisa, a prominent theme Morning has turned to afternoon “I discovered a three- in the biography. We follow the at Taubman’s daughter’s home. dimensional person with all couple from the moment Gor- Jane comes down the stairs and sits bachev notices her at a university on the couch. She is a tall, dignified his shrewdness, intelligence, ballroom dance—she pays no woman, with closely cropped white crudeness, and insecurity.” attention to him—through their hair and stylish earrings. courtship, the various stages of “Bill is getting tired,” she says, their marriage, and, of course, shaking her head. “He can talk his political career, in which she about this stuff forever, but he with Gorbachev around the long, participated until she died of leu- needs to eat.” rectangular conference room kemia in 1999. Taubman smiles and agrees to table. Gorbachev, wearing short Taubman’s focus on the rela- wrap up our interview. Behind sleeves and allowing the couple to tionship makes sense—Raisa was a them is a wall of photographs: their interview him in Russian, without sensation. Unlike the wives of pre- daughter’s wedding; their grand- the presence of an interpreter, vious Soviet leaders, who tended children; a young Taubman, full was warm and informal. to dress drably and remain largely head of curly blonde hair, looking “We felt entirely comfortable in his invisible, and who always seemed down lovingly at a young Jane. presence,” recalled Taubman. And his subdued and expressionless when In 2007, when Taubman and tactics worked: Gorbachev granted they did appear in public, Raisa Jane arrived at Leningradsky them seven more interviews. was, Taubman told me, “a real first Prospekt and entered the mod- I test my theory—that, with lady—intelligent, sophisticated, ern building that housed the their various collaborations and tastefully dressed, elegant in every Gorbachev Foundation, they utter devotion to one another, way.” But what was most shock- wondered whether their first Taubman and Jane resemble Gor- ing, he said, was that Gorbachev interview with Gorbachev would bachev and Raisa. involved her in state affairs. Within be their last. Through Anatoly Taubman pauses. “You know, months of his ascent to power, “She Chernyaev, Gorbachev’s close it’s possible that my showing up [had] pretty obviously become one confidant and former foreign pol- for that first interview with my of his main advisers.” icy adviser, Taubman had received wife may have helped to convince As Taubman spoke about this Gorbachev’s tacit support on the Gorbachev that I was a good guy relationship, I found it hard not biography project, but he had who would do an objective job.” to notice the parallels between never officially asked the former Gorbachev and Raisa and Taub- leader for his permission. man and his own wife. Like Raisa To hedge his worries and allay with Gorbachev, Jane has been his nerves, Taubman prepared instrumental in Taubman’s career. a strategy. He would begin his And, like Raisa with Gorbachev, questions with something that Jane did not look up when, during Gorbachev had already said, his second year at Amherst, thereby proving he’d done his Taubman walked into the room homework and encouraging where she was sitting. Taubman Gorbachev to say something new. took her aloofness as a challenge And he’d start at the beginning of and “spent the evening trying to Gorbachev’s life, ensuring that evoke her interest.” What finally there would be big, crucial topics, “won her heart,” he told me, was like perestroika, that they couldn’t his impression of the announcer cover in the first interview. from Moscow Radio. But the tension dissipated the They’ve been inseparable since. moment he and Jane sat down

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