Gorbachev: The Path to Power; Gorbachev

Gorbachev: The Path to Power
By Christian Schmidt-Häuer
Salem House, 1986, 218 pp.

Gorbachev
By Zhores A. Medvedev
Norton, 1986, 272 pp.
With the change in leadership in Moscow and fresh winds blowing, the biography business is picking up. Schmidt-Haüer is a West German correspondent stationed for years in Moscow, Medvedev a noted Soviet scientist now resident in London. Neither can unearth much about Gorbachev the man as he made his way up through the system, but both can and do say a good deal about the system itself and the rivalries and maneuvers of those contending for power. The portrait of Gorbachev is much the same as that drawn by others: a man of intelligence, toughness, confidence and charisma, consolidating power in his first year and charting a course for the Soviet future. A change in style, a new spirit, but no promise of basic policy shifts. To Medvedev the new party program of February 1986 is a disappointment; it shows a leadership losing time in not launching active ideological or political initiatives.