The most common error in writing history is being simplistic, and this temptation is especially strong when the writer happens to be (and often is) the victor of history. Not surprisingly, the US dominated narrative on the collapse of USSR is one uncomplicated slogan “we fought and we won”. As found in all simplistic constructions, this statement is correct but only superficially so. US and the West did fight and did win, but that was far from the whole story. History is so complicated to be compressed into one narrative, although not all narratives are equally true nor equally important. In Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union (Yale University Press, 2021), Vladislav M. Zubok attempted to weave the complexity of this history (ideology, politics, economy, military, diplomacy, personality, and contingency) into a grand narrative, and he did so artfully and compellingly. Here I will not do a book review, rather, based on the book, I hope to talk about the inevitable fate of totalitarianism – the emergence of a squandering dictator. Totalitarianism is often short-lived because soon a dictator will squander the regime in one way or another.
Most would agree that without Gorbachev, USSR may not collapse, at least not that early and in that way. Of course, one can argue whether this hypothetical collapse (or non-collapse) would have been better than what actually happened. But the fact remains that Gorbachev almost single-handedly plunged USSR into chaos, out which the forces that later dissected USSR emerged. The irony was that he had no intention to do so. From his own perspective, he was well intended. He believed that reform must be carried out and his reforms must bring better future for both USSR and the world. He was a visionist, even a grand visionist. This vision once captivated his colleagues within the party and his counterparts abroad. And he was once invincible, as there was no opposition to him. He was a true dictator in the party and in the country. He was able to sack or appoint anyone at his will. The whole party apparatus and bureaucracy obeyed him. The KGB and military were loyal. Above all, for him, the West welcomed him and praised him almost until the very end.
But he was not happy, and growingly so. His reforms brought one trouble after another, one disaster after another, which alienated one group after another. From the person almost everyone respected or feared to the person almost everyone distanced or despised, from the most powerful man to the most pitiful man, it took him less than five years. He found faults in most people around him, but he was always self-confident. Bringing the USSR down was almost an impossible task for anyone to imagine. The most ambitious experts from US intelligence and diplomacy could not believe in the end it happened just like that. It did happen, and it did happen like that. The impossible did happen, almost inevitably.
But why? Here we look at the status of Soviet institution and talk about the innate weakness of totalitarianism in general. The stability under Brezhnev was a stagnation; a stability sustained with heavy price and a stagnation condensed with heavy weights. No way the USSR could continue like that. Even the most conservative leaders in the party understood that. That was why they all supported Gorbachev’s reforms, even they may think some of his measures were rather radical. But who can bring changes? In a totalitarian government, the only option is a dictator. The crisis of USSR demanded a dictator, the party yearned for a dictator. Gorbachev filled a vacuum created by the crisis. He in the end had more power than Brezhnev, probably close to Stalin, although he wielded the power in a different manner. The hope in a totalitarian state can be nothing but a dictatorial savior. This is the first fatal weakness of totalitarianism. Gorbachev as a dictator was highly underestimated by historians. He did not end as a dictator but he was a dictator for quite a while. This is inevitable because totalitarianism provides no legitimate means to resolve crisis or conflict, except decrees. A cumulative problem cannot be resolved cumulatively.
The second weakness is the impotence of such dictators. One may argue that not all dictators are impotent. In a sense, yes. But in another sense, all dictators are impotent because the dictatorial system can not restrain or stop spectacular impotence. The dictator is not accountable to anyone but himself. No one could stop him if he is determined, and often than not, he is quite determined. A basic dictatorial mindset is self-confidence, and for this Gorbachev had a lot. A better system relies upon the collective wisdom with some forms of check and balance (this could even happen under a monarchy or a totalitarian government). The nightmare of a dictatorship is that no one could stop him from making stupid decisions, even suicidal decisions. This happened to Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. None of these was as impotent as Gorbachev, but all of them were impotent in their own way, because the institution they controlled had no choice but to obey their commandments, to death literally. When a dictator started to squander the nation, he was as invincible as he was building the nation, if not more so. Whether that regime endured this squandering depended on the resilience of the system and the resources it possessed. It worked under Stalin and Brezhnev, but sooner or later, it would break. A dictator is always a squanderer because his stupidity, not to say evil, can not be stopped. Not only it cannot be stopped, but it also flourished.
Gorbachev’s impotence was extraordinary, so was his squandering. He had very limited understanding of the dynamics of party-politics, the relationship of union-state, the function of planned economy, and the reality of geopolitics. He came the party leader not by merit but by mediocrity. He was not considered a threat to any faction and he was younger. He knew party games but he could not formulate policies. A party man not a policy man was the outcome of one-party totalitarianism. The one who rose to the top was a skilled player of party games, and probably nothing else.
The third weakness is the poverty of totalitarian ideology. The strict control of ideology is a self-strangulation and self-impoverishment in politics as well as in culture. After the failure of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, there was little room for Gorbachev to maneuver. The inspiration he found was Lenin, whose idea made a closed loop in the Soviet history. The barren communist ideological landscape forced Gorbachev to go all the way back to its source, and mistook this as a living spring. He lived in an ideological mirage, flamed by the ghost of Lenin. He was living in a dream of Lenin, but he proved to be the exact nightmare of Lenin when he finally found Lenin was his nightmare. The propaganda to deify Lenin backfired, as here came a generation who truly believed Leninism and dedicated to its revival. Ironically, this one was the chief propagandist in the state.
Gorbachev was not an apostate of communism, even though he buried the communist state. He was a true Leninist and in that sense, a true communist. He found his predecessors betrayed Lenin and turned the dreamland into a prison. But he could not understand that the dreamland was only a dream protected by this prison. Once the prison was gone, the dream was gone. The propaganda meant to deceive those under rule now deceived the ruling class and the ruler himself. This was how a lie entangled in history. A lie is self-destructing. If you truly believe it, you become a laughingstock; if you do not, you force it upon others and let them become a laughingstock. No third option. Gorbachev was a sincere dictator, and that sincerity ended everything.
