[.ca] Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (ISBN 0679751254)

From Amazon.com:
"...the most eloquent chronicle of the Soviet empire's demise." --Washington Post Book World "...an extraordinary confluence of observation, hard work, knowledge, and reflection; a better book by a journalist on the withdrawing roar of the Soviet Union is hard to imagine." --The New York Times Book Review

horror stories from a Cold War childhood:
Wouldn't it be great if everything the Department of Education decided American children should learn in school about the U.S.'s international rivals were true? This book reminded me of my impressions of the Soviet Union when I was in elementary school. Now that I have lived in the former Soviet Union for some time, though, I feel that I have a more balanced perspective than the page-turning, thrilling portrait Remnick paints for us. It cannot be denied that some of the past century's most horrible developments did indeed occur within the borders of the then Soviet Union. At the same time, Remnick's simplistic and gray portrayal of Soviet society corresponds all too neatly to what I was taught about our then enemy in elementary school. Soviet society was both colorful and complex, and cannot be painted in the blase framework of ruling minority vs. oppressed masses, KGB vs. human rights activists, etc etc etc. This is a successful work of journalism, which, unfortunately, means that it is a poor portrayal of reality.

Vivid account of the supremely confused time:
The book is a compilation of short stories (each chapter a dozen pages or so) about the author's first-hand experiences in the Gorbachev's Soviet Union. From Baltic to Sakhalin and from coal miners to Gorbachev himself, from Stalin to Yeltsin and from Solzhenitsyn to Sakharov, the book paints the picture of the monolith's fall. This colorful collage describing the critical period in Russian history, combined with keen commentary, creates for the reader the distinct flavor of the time. For Russia, it was the age of confusion and disillusionment. Gorbachev's half-hearted reforms (the interest in truth ended where the Party interests were concerned, the pursuit of democracy gave way to the pursuit of the runaway republics etc.) were matched by the half-hearted '91 coup (no real plan, no propaganda with the military, Lenin wouldn't have approved). For generations, Russian people did not know much of the sad history of their country and less still about the life in the West. The blissful ignorance was one thing that helped them in their miserable existence. Their various degrees of belief in the grand ideals were the other. With glasnost, Gorbachev aimed at opening the gates of truth while preserving the faith. In all honesty, it was impossible: the foundation for the faith was thoroughly rotten and relaxing the state control of mass media could only reveal it. All of a sudden, millions of people had to face hard evidence showing that the glorious history of their country never was. That the Bolshevik revolution was but a ruthless coup followed by a bloody terror. That many national heroes, all the way to Lenin, were privilege- and power-hungry maniacs. The Russian people had to go (and are still going) through an incredible adjustment of their understanding of right and wrong, brought about by a mere possibility of truth in the phrase of Molotov (himself not the most impeccable politician): "Compared to Lenin Stalin was a mere lamb". Similarly, it was a hard realization for many a soviet man that in the late 80's "an average Soviet had to work 10 times longer than the average American to buy a pound of meat". The full awareness of their tragic history and miserable reality must make it so much more difficult for Russian people to live in the country which is overwhelmingly corrupt, lawless and poor. Remnick's parents and in-laws, all four having escaped from the old empire, could not imagine going back even for a visit, apparently having no faith in the Russian democratic changeover. On the other side of the ocean, the Russian military colonel excavating the Katyn massacre site, by disobeying direct orders from a KGB general to stop the work, believed in the prevalence of positive change in Russia. Today's Russia, with its authoritarian government and shady political and legal process, still leaves its democratic future a matter of faith. By way of some criticism, Gorbachev brought about an incredible change. His glasnost and personal presence revived the anemic (or galvanized the non-existent) political forces unheard of in a largely Brezhnev-era Russia. He fought many of the first battles alone. The book does not make a case for that. Glasnost provided food for the hungry Soviet mind, but perestroika, restructuring, was supposed to change the way Soviet people live. The book could have benefited from taking on perestroika in some detail. Overall, very enjoyable and engaging.

Useful history:
A useful history of the last days of Soviet rule and the early days of democracy in Russia, told through the stories of several, mostly prominent individuals. It provides a nice portrait of what exists, but lacks deep analysis to answer the question of why.

Eyewitness to History:
Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick chronicles the point at which the rot at the center of the Soviet system became more powerful than the Communist Party's iron fist. Remnick is a storyteller telling the story of a riveting period in history. As he writes, "To live anywhere between Bonn and Moscow in 1989 was to be witness to a year-long polical fantasy. You had the feeling you could run into history on the way to the bank or the seashore." Lucky for us, Remnick spent 1989 (as well as the years before and after) in Moscow.

Cause of Death--An Overdose of GLASNOST:
After seventy-four years, the Soviet Union, a decrepit gerontocrat like its former pilots, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, shuffled off its mortal coil. Journalist David Remnick, who spent four years in Moscow, compiled a series of thematic events into Lenin's Tomb, and explained how glasnost, initiated in small doses by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, became GLASNOST that proved too potent for the dilapidated Soviet state, and in the end, the Marxist-Leninist foundation on which the State had been build. An overdose of GLASNOST gave the Soviet Union a fatal political cardiac arrest. However, in his indicting assessment, he notes how the Party and the Soviet Union, like Lenin's mummified husk, was politically, spiritually, and economically bankrupt. "The Soviet Union was an old tyrant slouched in the corner with cataracts and gallstones, his muscles gone slack. He wore plastic shoes and a shiny suit that stank of sweat. He hogged all the food and fouled his pants. Mornings, his tongue was coated with the ash-taste of age. ... The state was senile but still dangerous enough." Nice analogy, huh? Remnick further identifies the cause of that decay with the Party and its failure to keep the promises of socialism to the ordinary Soviets: "The men of the Communist Party, the leaders of the KGB and the military and the millions of provincial functionaries who had grown up on a falsified history, could not bear the truth. Not because they didn't believe it. They knew the facts of the past better than anyone else. But the truth challenged their existence, their comfort and privileges. Their right to a decent office, a cut of meat, the month of vacation in the Crimea--it all depended on a colossal social deception, on the forced ignorance of 280 million people. ... When history was no longer and instrument of the Party, the Party was doomed to failure. For history proved precisely that: that the Party was rotten to the core." And once ordinary Soviets realized they had been lied to, that the socialist utopia was a pipe dream, they wanted the riches and luxuries that only a capitalist system could provide. In short, the Party was over. Gorbachev was willing to give the Soviet people an inch, i.e. glasnost. As the caretaker of History, he was willing to demonize Stalin but not Lenin. Denouncing Lenin would mean denouncing Marx and Communism, and flat out telling the Soviet people that they had lived a lie for seventy-four years. Instead, the Soviet people took their miles, GLASNOST, and ran with it to many finish line; for the Russians, it would be the demonstration in front of the parliament building on 20-21 August 1991. Glasnost had thus led to GLASNOST. The influx of information and culture from the West, formerly forbidden books, had led to the ghosts of the past rising up again, be they formerly independent republics absorbed by Russia, or institutions that had been partially banned, such as the church. Glasnost also revealed the failings of the system, and this was most painfully apparent with the Chernobyl tragedy 26 April 1986. Chernobyl was the epitomy of many things. One, it symbolized "every curse of the Soviet system, the decay and arrogance, the willful ignorance and self-deception." Two, "Chernobyl was not like the Communist system. They were one in the same. ... The system ate into our bones the same way the radiation did, and the powers that be--or the powers that were--did everything they could to cover it all up, to wish it all away" According to Remnick, Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika as a bandage, albeit a piffling one, to the Soviet Union, and he should be credited for that courageous act in face of the opposition he faced. However, he was outshadowed by Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin, who advocated what the people really wanted, GLASNOST and PERESTROIKA, i.e. open heart surgery. They and the Soviet peoples took GLASNOST to its logical conclusion, chucking the Soviet Union's bones into the dustbins of History. This is a well-detailed critical book that explores the whys and hows of the Soviet Union's collapse, and more interesting for those like me who witnessed the Gorbachev era.