GORBATCHEV

A major historical biography of Mikhaïl Gorbachev, the main figure behind the fall of communism, written by L'Express magazine's Russian speaking permanent special correspondent, who was in Moscow for fifteen years and throughout Gorbachev's presidency.

How did Gorbachev, not really an intimate of the political circles that united his predecessors, make it all the way to the Kremlin? Did he really wish to put an end to the most compelling ideology of the century, or was he overwhelmed by the events that his actions provoked? Bernard Lecomte offers precise and sometimes surprising answers to the question that still divides historians. The fruit of fifteen years of interviews with the main political actors of the period, including Gorbachev himself, the study of innumerable archived documents, and three years of writing, journalist and historical writer Bernard Lecomte's fascinating book tells the life story of one of the giants of the late 20th century. History will forever remember him as Mikhaïl Gorbachev, the man who dug the grave of communism. Arriving at the head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, the (comparatively) young successor of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev had two goals: to modernize the communist system, and to prevent the break-up of the Soviet empire. The reforms he effected with these twin objectives in mind--»perestroïka»-- ended, against his will, with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the crumbling of the USSR in 1991. Nearly 25 years after the fall of the Wall, Mikhaïl Gorbachev, laureate of the Nobel Prize for Peace, is an ambiguous and endearing figure, but one who remains something of a mystery. Permanent special correspondent of L'Express magazine in Moscow for 15 years, Bernard Lecomte witnessed, day after day, the saga of Gorbachev at the head of the Soviet Union and is one of the best specialists on the “Gorbachev era” in Europe. His knowledge of Russian, essential to the task, facilitated access to the archives of the period and made possible many important and informative interviews. He is the author of Jean-Paul II (Gallimard, 2003), Les Secrets du Vatican (Perrin, 2009, 25.000 copies sold in France, 11 translations into foreign languages) and Les Derniers Secrets du Vatican (Perrin, 2012, 15.000 copies sold).