A Red Star Rises in The East, Pt. 2 - Gorbachev's Demise

In the first part of this blog post, I discussed Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise through the political system in the USSR from his origins as a peasant farmer in the rural northern caucuses. We left off with Gorbachev having ascended to the role of head of the Stavropol region. In this blog post, I will discuss some the key strategic relationships which enabled the remainder of Gorbachev’s rise through the ranks of the communist party, followed by the collapse of both his political career and the USSR and how different his political career may have been had he today’s technological resources at his disposal.

Like many successful politicians, Gorbachev exhibited the ability to keep his publicly expressed ideology and personal friendships separate. A key example of this was during the Prague Spring of 1968, a political revolution movement in Czechslovakia (Bischof, 2010). Zdeněk Mlynař, a close friend of Gorbachev’s from their time at Moscow State University, was a high-profile proponent of democratic reforms and increased liberalisation and considered one of the architects of the revloution (Chafetz, 1993). While Gorbachev maintained a private loyalty to his collegiate friend, public knowledge of this relationship would have derailed his burgeoning potical career. He agreed with many of the political beliefs Mlynař held but exhibited an unwavering loyalty to party policy in public (Taubman, 2017). As Soviet tanks invaded Prague to quell the revolution, Gorbachev remained a public champion of the soviet cause. Failure to do so would likely have resulted in his expulsion from his party and the end of his political career. Similarly, had his colleagues known of his close relation to Mlynař, he would have been treated with suspicion and would have faced internal barriers to progress within the party (McCauley, 1998).

Would it have been as easy to hide close personal connections in today’s social media era? The two political activists would likely have been connected on social media had it existed in their time at university. Gorbachev and Mlynař would both have needed to conduct a deep clean of their social media to hide any previous public interactions or face the threat of political opponents weaponising their digital history.

While aware of the destructive effect personal relationships could have on his political ambitions, Gorbachev was simultaneously aware of their powerful positive effects when leveraged correctly. While head of the Stavropol region in the 1970s, he became close friends with Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB. Like Gorbachev, Andropov hailed from the Stavropol region. Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev regularly holidayed with Andropov and his wife, Tatyana Filipovna, in the Caucuses, becoming good friends (Taubman, 2017). This eventually became one of Gorbachev’s most consequential relationships – following Leonid Brezhnev’s death in 1982, Andropov became the head of the Soviet government. Gorbachev and Andropov remained close allies in the Politiburo – Andropov encouraged Gorbachev to chair Politiburo meetings, expand the scope of his policy research and engage on international assignments (Medvedev, 1986).

Yuri Andropov photographing Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev on vacation in the Caucasus, 1976. (Taubman, 2017)

It is interesting to consider how Gorbachev would have attempted to build social capital within his party had he the technological resources available to him that young aspiring politicians have today. It is not hard to imagine Gorbachev as an avid LinkedIn user, networking with higher level politicians through cold-messaging or posting party-friendly materials.

Androprov’s guidance allowed Gorbachev to develop a strong rapport with key powerbrokers in the KGB and Politiburo. In the same way these facilitated his rapid rise to the top of the Russian political system, his failure to maintain their loyalty led to his downfall. His introduction of democratisation and reformist policies generated significant opposition within the party. It is worth considering what Gorbachev could have done to root out internal opposition and dissenters had he today’s technological resources at his disposal.

As well as Gorbachev’s policy reforms of glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev angered members of his party by signing the new union treaty. This treaty decentralised power to the soviet republics and threatened the integrity of the Soviet Union (Sarker, 1994). As a result, hardline members of the communist party conspired to overthrow Gorbachev in an August 1991 coup. While the coup eventually failed, it was a massively destabilising event and a key event in Gorbachev’s decline (Taubman, 2017).

Could this have been prevented with modern technological interference? Gorbachev could have placed his party under greater surveillance by hacking personal phones and social media to gain access to the personal data and communications of his party members. While phone hacking is not a new concept – the first incidents of wire tapping in the United States were as early as the 1890s (Harris, 2001) – the volume of data available on phones has dramatically increased. Gorbachev could have used this private data to identify his contemporaries’ true views on his policies and subsequently targeted any dissenters.

Another result of the New Union treaty was rebellion in the soviet states as they aimed to achieved complete independence. While the treaty was supported overall, with 76% of voters supporting maintaining the Soviet Union system, the referendum was boycotted in the soviet republic moving towards independence.

A modern solution to this may have been the use of widespread propaganda in support of the referendum and membership of the Soviet Union. There is a well publicised precedent for this type of election interference in recent years – particularly the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal surrounding the US 2016 presidential election and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. A widespread social media propaganda campaign could also have been launched to help consolidate his power following the August 1991 coup. Potentially this could have been enough to hold together a crumbling Soviet Union and allowed Gorbachev both the time and political stability to create his desired political changes.

While these are excellent strategies Gorbachev could have used to hold on to power, there is a common issue – they are the dark arts of politics which Gorbachev was trying to stamp out. To engage in espionage and widespread propaganda campaigns would go directly against his policies of openness and reform.

In conclusion, we are left with a number of questions. Was Gorbachev limited by the resources at his disposal, or was his worldview incompatible with stable career in politics? Is there only so much good one can hope to achieve without engaging in the more nefarious tactics to hold on to power? In his reforms, he was attempting to decrease the power of his party peers and threatened their future positions. It was inevitable they would react and attempt to protect themselves by whatever means necessary. We are left wondering whether Russian society would be more open, democratic and closer to Gorbachev’s ideal of social democracy today, not just if he had the power of modern technologies at his disposal, but more importantly the desire to use them to their potential.

References

Bischof, Günter, et al. eds. (2010). The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 Lexington Books, ISBN 978-0-7391-4304-9

Chafetz, Glenn (1993). Gorbachev, Reform, and the Brezhnev Doctrine: Soviet Policy Toward Eastern Europe, 1985–1990. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-94484-1.

Harris, Tom (2001-05-08). "How Wiretapping Works". How Stuff Works.

Medvedev, Zhores (1986). Gorbachev. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 978-0393023084.

McCauley, Martin (1998). Gorbachev. Profiles in Power. London and New York: Longman. ISBN 978-0582215979.

Sarker, Sunil Kumar (1994). The rise and fall of communism. New Delhi: Atlantic publishers and distributors. ISBN 978-8171565153.

Taubman, William (2017). Gorbachev: His Life and Times. New York City: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1471147968.