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9780271058115 Academic Inspection Copy

My Six Years with Gorbachev

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Drawing on his own diary as well as secret documents and transcripts of high-level meetings, Anatoly Chernyaev recounts the drama that swept the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991. As Gorbachev’s chief foreign policy aide for most of that period, he played a central role in efforts to halt the arms race, discard a confrontational ideology, and open his country to the world. And as Gorbachev’s confidant on many domestic issues as well, Chernyaev offers rare insights into the struggle over glasnost, the growth of separatism, and the rise of Boris Yeltsin. While admiring of perestroika’s founder, Chernyaev is frank in faulting Gorbachev for his hesitancy in economic reforms, for his delay in decentralizing Union-republic ties, and above all for his misplaced faith in the reformability of the Communist Party. Altogether this book is essential reading for those interested in the Cold War’s end, the USSR’s collapse, and especially the role played by ideas, ambitions, and key personalities in these momentous events.



My Six years with Gorbachev combines sections of his diary and other notes that he took at the time with later memories and retroactive reflections. It has been brilliantly translated and edited by Robert English and Elizabeth Tucker who provide footnotes to identify the characters and explain the more obscure events. A ‘new thinker’ long before the term was invented, Chernyaev provides a first-rate insider’s account of the Gorbachev years.”

—Margot Light, International Affairs

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